Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 3).djvu/368

 rinsing the tumbler in a freshly filled tub; then, taking a clean napkin from his pocket, he wiped and polished it, finally, as one of the buckets rose out of the black, vaporous depths of the opening enclosed by the framework of the winch, he signed to the men to stop, and dipped the glass full, holding it for a few minutes in the open doorway, while a frosty dew rapidly formed on the outside of the tumbler.

"There, sir," he said solemnly, and he handed it to me as if it were a glass of his lordship's choicest champagne.

I took the glass and drank its contents.

"Capital water, Brayson."

"Finest glass in the country, sir."

"And nice and cool."

"Always the same, sir, winter or summer. Comes from so deep down. It's just a hundred feet."

"Now, after the dry weather?"

"Never alters, sir; just keeps to the same height, and there's about eighty foot of water down there; never-failing supply."

"Humph; cut right down the solid chalk," I said, as I gazed into the black depths of the huge shaft, which was about ten feet in diameter, and breathed the cool, damp air which rose.

"Yes, sir, and she's never foul," said the man nearest to me. "I've been down when they mended the bottom wheel. Can't do that at Sir Romney's place; two men choked there only last year."

"Year afore," growled the other man.

"Oh, weer it? So it weer."

Then the winding went on as I peered down into the gloomy place, listening to the dull, heavy plunge of the buckets as they reached the water, and then to the echoing, splashing, and hollow musical sound as the water streamed and dripped back when they rose.

"Clumsy arrangement," I said, as I turned away with a shudder; for the place was creepy and terrible and strange. "There ought to be a force-pump turned by a pony or a donkey, as at Carisbrooke. Oh! by the way, Brayson," I continued, as I was crossing the yard toward the gates, "I want to go over the wine-cellar."

"The wine-cellar, sir?" he said, and his fat face changed colour,