第101章

"Half-civilized man makes blunders that both the savage and the civilized avoid. The savage builds his hut by a running stream. The civilized man draws good water to his door, though he must lay down pipes from a highland lake to a lowland city. It is only half-civilized man that builds a village on a hill, and drinks worms, and snakes, and efts, and antediluvian monsters in limeless water. Then I say, if great but half civilized monarchs would consult Science _before_ they built their serf huts, Science would say, 'Don't you go and put down human habitations far from pure water--the universal diluent, the only cheap diluent, and the only liquid which does not require digestion, and therefore must always assist, and never chemically resist, the digestion of solids.' But when the mischief is done, and the cottages are built on a hill three miles from water, then all that Science can do is to show the remedy, and the remedy is--boring.""Then the remedy is like the discussion," said Fanny Dover, very pertly.

Zoe was amused, but shocked. Miss Gale turned her head on the offender as sharp as a bird. "Of course it is, to _children,"_ said she; "and that is why I wished to confine it to mature minds. It is to you I speak, sir.

Are your subjects to drink poison, or will you bore me a well?--Oh, please!""Do you hear that?" said Vizard, piteously, to Uxmoor. "Threatened and cajoled in one breath. Who can resist this fatal sex?--Miss Gale, I will bore a well on Hillstoke common. Any idea how deep we must go--to the antipodes, or only to the center?""Three hundred and thirty feet, or thereabouts.""No more? Any idea what it will cost?"

"Of course I have. The well, the double windlass, the iron chain, the two buckets, a cupola over the well, and twenty-three keys--one for every head of a house in the hamlet--will cost you about 315 pounds.""Why, this is Detail made woman. How do you know all this?""From Tom Wilder."

"Who is he?"

"What, don't you know? He is the eldest son of the Islip blacksmith, and a man that will make his mark. He casts every Thursday night. He is the only village blacksmith in all the county who _casts._ You know that, Isuppose."

"No, I had not the honor."

"Well, he is, then: and I thought you would consent, because you are so good: and so I thought there could be no harm in sounding Tom Wilder. He offers to take the whole contract, if squire's agreeable; bore the well;brick it fifty yards down: he says that ought to be done, if she is to have justice. 'She' is the well: and he will also construct the gear; he says there must be two iron chains and two buckets going together; so then the empty bucket descending will help the man or woman at the windlass to draw the full bucket up. 315 pounds: one week's income, your Majesty.""She has inspected our rent-roll, now," said Vizard, pathetically: "and knows nothing about the matter.""Except that it is a mere flea-bite to you to bore through a hill for water. For all that, I hope you will leave me to battle it with Tom Wilder. Then you won't be cheated, for once. _You always are,_ and it is abominable. It would have been five hundred if you had opened the business.""I am sure that is true," said Zoe. She added this would please Mrs.

Judge: she was full of the superiority of Islip to Hillstoke.

"Stop a bit," said Vizard. "Miss Gale has not reported on Islip yet.""No, dear; but she has looked into everything, for Mrs. Judge told me.

You have been into the cottages?"

"Yes."

"Into Marks's?"

"Yes, I have been into Marks's."

She did not seem inclined to be very communicative; so Fanny, out of mischief, said, pertly, "And what did you see there, with your Argus eye?""I saw--three generations."

"Ha! ha! La! did you now? And what were they all doing?""They were all living together, night and day, in one room."This conveyed no very distinct idea to the ladies; but Vizard, for the first time, turned red at this revelation before Uxmoor, improver of cottage life. "Confound the brutes!" said he. "Why, I built them a new room; a larger one: didn't you see it?""Yes. They stack their potatoes in it."

"Just like my people," said Uxmoor. "That is the worst of it: they resist their own improvement.""Yes, but," said the doctress, "with monarchial power we can trample on them for their good. Outside Marks's door at the back there is a muck-heap, as he calls it; all the refuse of the house is thrown there;it is a horrible melange of organic matter and decaying vegetables, a hot-bed of fever and malaria. Suffocated and poisoned with the breath of a dozen persons, they open the window for fresh air, and in rushes typhoid from the stronghold its victims have built. Two children were buried from that house last year. They were both killed by the domestic arrangements as certainly as if they had been shot with a double-barreled pistol. The outside roses you admire so are as delusive as flattery;their sweetness covers a foul, unwholesome den.""Marks's cottage! The show place of the village!" Zoe Vizard flushed with indignation at the bold hand of truth so rudely applied to a pleasant and cherished illusion.

Vizard, more candid and open to new truths, shrugged his shoulders, and said, "What can I do more than I have done?""Oh, it is not your fault," said the doctress, graciously. "It is theirs.

Only, as you are their superior in intelligence and power, you might do something to put down indecency, immorality, and disease.""May I ask what?"

"Well, you might build a granary for the poor people's potatoes. No room can keep them dry; but you build your granary upon four pillars: then that is like a room over a cellar.""Well, I'll build it so--if I build it at all," said Vizard, dryly. "What next?""Then you could make them stack their potatoes in the granary, and use the spare room, and so divide their families, and give morality a chance.

The muck-heap you should disperse at once with the strong hand of power."At this last proposal, Squire Vizard--the truth must be told--delivered a long, plowman's whistle at the head of his own table.