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A NEW ALARUM.
Willie was always thinking what uses he could put things to. Only he
was never tempted to set a fine thing to do dirty work, as dull-hearted
money-grubbers do--mill-owners, for instance, when they make the channel
of a lovely mountain-stream serve for a drain to carry off the filth
from their works. If Dante had known any such, I know where he would
have put them, but I would rather not describe the place. I have told
you what Willie made the prisoned stream do for the garden; I will now
tell you what he made the running stream do for himself, and you shall
judge whether or not that was fit work for him to require of it.
Ever since he had ceased being night-nurse to little Agnes, he had
wished that he had some one to wake him every night, about the middle of
it, that he might get up and look out of the window. For, after he had
fed his baby-sister and given her back to his mother in a state of
contentment, before getting into bed again he had always looked out
of the window to see what the night was like--not that he was one bit
anxious about the weather, except, indeed, he heard his papa getting up
to go out, or knew that he had to go; for he could enjoy weather of
any sort and all sorts, and never thought what the next day would be
like--but just to see what Madame Night was thinking about--how she
looked, and what she was doing. For he had soon found her such a
changeful creature that, every time he looked at her, she looked at him
with another face from that she had worn last time. Before he had made
this acquaintance with the night, he would often, ere he fell asleep,
lie wondering what he was going to dream about; for, with all his
practical tendencies, Willie was very fond of dreaming; but after he had
begun in this manner to make acquaintance with her, he would just as
often fall asleep wondering what the day would be dreaming about--for,
in his own fanciful way of thinking, he had settled that the look of
the night was what the day was dreaming. Hence, when Agnes required
his services no longer, he fell asleep the first night with the full
intention of waking just as before, and getting up to have a peep into
the day's dream, whatever it might be, that night, and every night
thereafter. But he was now back in his own room, and there was nothing
to wake him, so he slept sound until the day had done dreaming, and the
morning was wide awake.
Neither had he awoke any one night since, or seen what marvel there
might be beyond his windowpanes.
Does any little boy or girl wonder what there can be going on when we
are asleep? Sometimes the stars, sometimes the moon, sometimes the
clouds, sometimes the wind, sometimes the snow, sometimes the frost,
sometimes all of them together, are busy. Sometimes the owl and the moth
and the beetle, and the bat and the cat and the rat, are all at work.
Sometimes there are flowers in bloom that love the night better than the
day, and are busy all through the darkness pouring out on the still air
the scent they withheld during the sunlight. Sometimes the lightning and
the thunder, sometimes the moon-rainbow, sometimes the aurora borealis,
is busy. And the streams are running all night long, and seem to babble
louder than in the day time, for the noises of the working world are
still, so that we hear them better. Almost the only daylight thing
awake, is the clock ticking with nobody to heed it, and that sounds to
me very dismal. But it was the look of the night, the meaning on her
face that Willie cared most about, and desired so much to see, that he
was at times quite unhappy to think that he never could wake up, not
although ever so many strange and lovely dreams might be passing before
his window. He often dreamed that he had waked up, and was looking out
on some gorgeous and lovely show, but in the morning he knew sorrowfully
that he had only dreamed his own dream, not gazed into that of the
sleeping day. Again and again he had worked his brains to weariness,
trying and trying to invent some machine that should wake him. But
although he was older and cleverer now, he fared no better than when he
wanted to wake himself to help his mother with Agnes. He must have some
motive power before he could do anything, and the clock was still the
only power he could think of, and that he was afraid to meddle with, for
its works were beyond him, and it was so essential to the well-being of
the house that he would not venture putting it in jeopardy.
One day, however, when he was thinking nothing about it, all at once
it struck him that he had another motive power at his command, and the
thought had hardly entered his mind, before he saw also how it was
possible to turn it to account. His motive power was the stream from the
Prior's Well, and the means of using it for his purpose stood on a shelf
in the ruins, in the shape of the toy water-wheel which he had laid
aside as distressingly useless. He set about the thing at once.
First of all, he made a second bit of channel for the stream, like a
little loop to the first, so that he could, when he pleased, turn a part
of the water into it, and let it again join the principal channel a
little lower down. This was, in fact, his mill-race. Just before it
joined the older part again, right opposite his window, he made it run
for a little way in a direct line towards the house, and in this part
of the new channel he made preparations for his water-wheel. Into the
channel he laid a piece of iron pipe, which had been lying about useless
for years; and just where the water would issue in a concentrated rush
from the lower end of it, he constructed a foundation for his wheel,
similar to that Sandy and he had built for it before. The water, as it
issued from the pipe, should strike straight upon its floats, and send
it whirling round. It took him some time to build it, for he wanted this
to be a good and permanent job. He had stones at command: he had a
well, he said, that yielded both stones and water, which was more than
everybody could say; and in order to make it a sound bit of work, he
fetched a lump of quick-lime from the kiln, where they burned quantities
of it to scatter over the clay-soil, and first wetting it with water
till it fell into powder, and then mixing it with sand which he riddled
from the gravel he dug from the garden, he made it into good strong
mortar. When its bed was at length made for it, he took the wheel and
put in a longer axis, to project on one side beyond the gudgeon-block,
or hollow in which it turned; and upon this projecting piece he fixed a
large reel. Then, having put the wheel in its place, he asked his father
for sixpence, part of which he laid out on a large ball of pack-thread.
The outside end of the ball he fastened to the reel, then threw the
ball through the open window into his room, and there undid it from the
inside end, laying the thread in coils on the floor. When it was time to
go to bed, he ran out and turned the water first into the garden, and
then into the new channel; when suddenly the wheel began to spin about,
and wind the pack-thread on to the reel. He ran to his room, and
undressed faster than he had ever done before, tied the other end of the
thread around his wrist, and, although kept awake much longer than usual
by his excitement, at length fell fast asleep, and dreamed that the
thread had waked him, and drawn him to the window, where he saw the
water-wheel flashing like a fire-wheel, and the water rushing away from
under it in a green flame. When he did wake it was broad day; the coils
of pack-thread were lying on the floor scarcely diminished; the brook
was singing in the garden, and when he went to the window, he saw the
wheel spinning merrily round. He dressed in haste, ran out, and found
that the thread had got entangled amongst the bushes on its way to the
wheel, and had stuck fast; whereupon the wheel had broken it to get
loose, and had been spinning round and round all night for nothing, like
the useless thing it was before.
That afternoon he set poles up for guides, along the top of which the
thread might run, and so keep clear of the bushes. But he fared no
better the next night, for he never waked until the morning, when he
found that the wheel stood stock still, for the thread, having filled
the reel, had slipped off, and so wound itself about the wheel that it
was choked in its many windings. Indeed, the thread was in a wonderful
tangle about the whole machine, and it took him a long time to
unwind--turning the wheel backwards, so as not to break the thread.
In order to remove the cause of this fresh failure, he went to the
turner, whose name was William Burt, and asked him to turn for him a
large reel or spool, with deep ends, and small cylinder between. William
told him he was very busy just then, but he would fix a suitable piece
of wood for him on his old lathe, with which, as he knew him to be a
handy boy, he might turn what he wanted for himself. This was his first
attempt at the use of the turning-lathe; but he had often watched
William at work, and was familiar with the way in which he held his
tool. Hence the result was tolerably satisfactory. Long before he had
reached the depth of which he wished to make the spool, he had learned
to manage his chisel with some nicety. Burt finished it off for him with
just a few touches; and, delighted with his acquisition of the rudiments
of a new trade, he carried the spool home with him, to try once more the
possibility of educating his water-wheel into a watchman.
That night the pull did indeed come, but, alas before he had even fallen
asleep.
Something seemed to be always going wrong! He concluded already that it
was a difficult thing to make a machine which should do just what the
maker wished. The spool had gone flying round, and had swallowed up the
thread incredibly fast. He made haste to get the end off his wrist, and
saw it fly through the little hole in the window frame, and away after
the rest of it, to be wound on the whirling spool.
Disappointing as this was, however, there was progress in it: he had got
the thing to work, and all that remained was to regulate it. But this
turned out the most difficult part of the affair by far. He saw at once
that if he were only to make the thread longer, which was the first mode
that suggested itself, he would increase the constant danger there was
of its getting fouled, not to mention the awkwardness of using such a
quantity of it. If the kitten were to get into the room, for instance,
after he had laid it down, she would ruin his every hope for the time
being; and in Willie's eyes sixpence was a huge sum to ask from his
father. But if, on the contrary, he could find out any mode of making
the machine wind more slowly, he might then be able to shorten instead
of lengthening the string.
At length, after much pondering, he came to see that if, instead of the
spool, he were to fix on the axis a small cogged wheel--that is, a wheel
with teeth--and then make these cogs fit into the cogs of a much larger
wheel, the small wheel, which would turn once with every turn of the
water-wheel, must turn a great many times before it could turn the big
wheel once. Then he must fix the spool on the axis of this great slow
wheel, when, turning only as often as the wheel turned, the spool would
wind the thread so much the more slowly.
I will not weary my reader with any further detail of Willie's efforts
and failures. It is enough to say that he was at last so entirely
successful in timing his machine, for the run of the water was always
the same, that he could tell exactly how much thread it would wind in a
given time. Having then measured off the thread with a mark of ink for
the first hour, two for the second, and so on, he was able to set his
alarum according to the time at which he wished to be woke by the pull
at his wrist.
But if any one had happened to go into the garden after the household
was asleep, and had come upon the toy water-wheel, working away in
starlight or moonlight, how little, even if he had caught sight of the
nearly invisible thread, and had discovered that the wheel was winding
it up, would he have thought what the tiny machine was about! How little
would he have thought that its business was with the infinite! that it
was in connection with the window of an eternal world--namely, Willie's
soul--from which at a given moment it would lift the curtains, namely,
the eyelids, and let the night of the outer world in upon the thought
and feeling of the boy! To use a likeness, the wheel was thus ever
working to draw up the slide of a camera obscura, and let in whatever
pictures might be abroad in the dreams of the day, that the watcher
within might behold them.
Indeed, one night as he came home from visiting a patient, soon after
Willie had at length taught his watchman his duty, Mr Macmichael did
come upon the mill, and was just going to turn the water off at the
well, which he thought Willie had forgotten to do, when he caught
sight of the winding thread--for the moon was full, and the Doctor was
sharp-sighted.
"What can this be now?" he said to himself. "Some new freak of
Willie's, of course. Yes; the thread goes right up to his window! I
dare say if I were to stop and watch I should see something happen in
consequence. But I am too tired, and must go to bed."
Just as he thought thus with himself, the wheel stopped. The next moment
the blind of Willie's window was drawn up, and there stood Willie, his
face and his white gown glimmering in the moonlight. He caught sight of
his father, and up went the sash.
"O papa!" he cried; "I didn't think it was you I was going to see!"
"Who was it then you thought to see?" asked his father.
"Oh, nobody!--only the night herself, and the moon perhaps."
"What new freak of yours is this, my boy?" said his father, smiling.
"Wait a minute, and I'll tell you all about it," answered Willie.
Out he came in his night-shirt, his bare feet dancing with pleasure at
having his father for his midnight companion. On the grass, beside the
ruins, in the moonlight, by the gurgling water, he told him all about
it.
"Yes, my boy; you are right," said his father. "God never sleeps; and it
would be a pity if we never saw Him at his night-work."
[Illustration: "ON THE GRASS, BESIDE THE RUINS, IN THE MOONLIGHT, WILLIE
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