The Vast Abyss.

by George Manville Fenn.

This is one of the very best books by GM Fenn. It has a good steady pace, yet one is constantly wondering how some dreadful situation is to be got out of. The hero is young Tom, whose father had been a doctor who had died in some recent epidemic, which had also carried off his mother. Tom has been taken into the house and law business of an uncle, but he does not seem to be getting on well there. Another uncle visits, and takes Tom back with him, giving him a much pleasanter and more interesting life. Together they convert an old windmill into an astronomical observatory, which means grinding the gla.s.s lenses and mirrors, as well as bringing the structure of the building up to the required standard. In this they are encouraged by the daily visits of the vicar, while the housekeeper, Mrs Fidler, and the old gardener, make various remarks on the sidelines. However, there is a boy in the village whose behaviour is not good at all, and many of the episodes in the story are concerned with him, his dog, and their deeds.

Not wishing to spoil the story for you, we will simply say that there is another issue involving the legal uncle, and his rather nasty son.

THE VAST ABYSS, BY GEORGE MANVILLE FENN.

CHAPTER ONE.

"I wish I wasn't such a fool!"

Tom Blount said this to himself as he balanced that self upon a high stool at a desk in his uncle's office in Gray's Inn. There was a big book lying open, one which he had to study, but it did not interest him; and though he tried very hard to keep his attention fixed upon its learned words, invaluable to one who would some day bloom into a family solicitor, that book would keep on forming pictures that were not ill.u.s.trations of legal practice in the courts of law. For there one moment was the big black pond on Elleston Common, where the water lay so still and deep under the huge elms, and the fat tench and eels every now and then sent up bubbles of air, dislodged as they disturbed the bottom.

At another time it would be the cricket-field in summer, or the football on the common in winter, or the ringing ice on the winding river, with the skates flashing as they sent the white powder flying before the wind.

Or again, as he stumbled through the opinions of the judge in "Coopendale _versus_ Drabb's Exors.," the old house and garden would stand out from the page like a miniature seen on the ground-gla.s.s of a camera; and Tom Blount sighed and his eyes grew dim as he thought of the old happy days in the pleasant home. For father and mother both had pa.s.sed away to their rest; the house was occupied by another tenant; and he, Tom Blount, told himself that he ought to be very grateful to Uncle James for taking him into his office, to make a man of him by promising to have him articled if, during his year of probation, he proved himself worthy.

"I wouldn't mind its being so dull," he thought, "or my aunt not liking me, or Sam being so disagreeable, if I could get on--but I can't.

Uncle's right, I suppose, in what he says. He ought to know. I'm only a fool; and it doesn't seem to matter how I try, I can't get on."

Just then a door opened, letting in a broad band of sunshine full of dancing motes, and at the same time Samuel Brandon, a lad of about the same age as Tom, but rather slighter of build, but all the same more manly of aspect. He was better dressed too, and wore a white flower in his b.u.t.ton-hole, and a very glossy hat. One glove was off, displaying a signet-ring, and he brought with him into the dingy office a strong odour of scent, whose source was probably the white pocket-handkerchief prominently displayed outside his breast-pocket.

"Hullo, b.u.mpkin!" he cried. "How's Tidd getting on?"

"Very slowly," said Tom. "I wish you'd try and explain what this bit means."

"Likely! Think I'm going to find you in brains. Hurry on and peg away.

Shovel it in, and think you are going to be Lord Chancellor some day.

Guv'nor in his room?"

"No; he has gone on down to the Court. Going out?"

"Yes; up the river--Maidenhead. You heard at the breakfast, didn't you?"

Tom shook his head.

"I didn't hear," he said sadly.

"You never hear anything or see anything. I never met such a dull, chuckle-headed chap as you are. Why don't you wake up?"

"I don't know; I do try," said Tom sadly.

"You don't know!--you don't know anything. I don't wonder at the governor grumbling at you. You'll have to pull up your boots if you expect to be articled here, and so I tell you. There, I'm off. I've got to meet the mater at Paddington at twelve. I say, got any money?"

"No," said Tom sadly.

"Tchah! you never have. There, pitch into Tidd. You've got your work cut out, young fellow. No letters for me?"

"No. Yes, there is--one."

"No!--yes! Well, you are a pretty sort of a fellow. Where is it?"

"I laid it in uncle's room."

"What! Didn't I tell you my letters were not to go into his room? Of all the--"

Tom sighed, though he did not hear the last words, for his cousin hurried into the room on their right, came back with a letter, hurried out, and the door swung to again.

"It's all through being such a fool, I suppose," muttered the boy. "Why am I not as clever and quick as Sam is? He's as sharp as uncle; but uncle doesn't seem a bit like poor mother was."

Just then Tom Blount made an effort to drive away all thoughts of the past by planting his elbows on the desk, doubling his fists, and resting his puckered-up brow upon them, as he plunged once more into the study of the legal work.

But the thoughts would come flitting by, full of sunshiny memories of the father who died a hero's death, fighting as a doctor the fell disease which devastated the country town; and of the mother who soon after followed her husband, after requesting her brother to do what he could to help and protect her son.

Then the thought of his mother's last prayer came to him as it often did--that he should try his best to prove himself worthy of his uncle's kindness by studying hard.

"And I do--I do--I do," he burst out aloud, pa.s.sionately, "only it is so hard; and, as uncle says, I am such a fool."

"You call me, Blount?" said a voice, and a young old-looking man came in from the next office.

"I!--call? No, Pringle," said Tom, colouring up.

"You said something out loud, sir, and I thought you called."

"I--I--"

"Oh, I see, sir; you was speaking a bit out of your book. Not a bad way to get it into your head. You see you think it and hear it too."

"It's rather hard to me, I'm afraid," said Tom, with the puzzled look intensifying in his frank, pleasant face.

"Hard, sir!" said the man, smiling, and wiping the pen he held on the tail of his coat, though it did not require it, and then he kept on holding it up to his eye as if there were a hair or bit of grit between the nibs. "Yes, I should just think it is hard. Nutsh.e.l.ls is nothing to it. Just like bits of granite stones as they mend the roads with.

They won't fit nowhere till you wear 'em and roll 'em down. The law is a hard road and no mistake."

"And--and I don't think I'm very clever at it, Pringle."

"Clever! You'd be a rum one, sir, if you was. n.o.body ever masters it all. They pretend to, but it would take a thousand men boiled down and double distilled to get one as could regularly tackle it. It's an impossibility, sir."

"What!" said Tom, with plenty of animation now. "Why, look at all the great lawyers!"

"So I do, sir, and the judges too, and what do I see? Don't they all think different ways about things, and upset one another? Don't you get thinking you're not clever because you don't get on fast. As I said before, you'd be a rum one if you did."

"But my cousin does," said Tom.