_ CHAPTER TEN. VANE'S WORKSHOP
But Vane went at once to the kitchen with the intention of making some business-like measurements of the opening about the range, and to see where a boiler could best be placed. A glance within was sufficient. Martha was busy about the very spot; and Vane turned back, making up his mind to defer his visit till midnight, when the place would be solitary, and the fire out.
There was the greenhouse, though; and, fetching a rule, he went in there, and began measuring the walls once more, to arrive at the exact length of piping required, when he became conscious of a shadow cast from the open door; and, looking up, there stood Bruff, with a grin upon his face--a look so provocative that Vane turned upon him fiercely.
"Well, what are you laughing at?" he cried.
"You, Mester."
"Why?"
"I was thinking as you ought to hev been a bricklayer or carpenter, sir, instead of a scollard, and going up to rectory. Measuring for that there noo-fangle notion of yours?"
"Yes, I am," cried Vane; "and what then?"
"Oh, nowt, sir, nowt, only it wean't do. Only throwing away money."
"How do you know, Bruff?"
"How do I know, sir? Why, arn't I been a gardener ever since I was born amost, seeing as my father and granfa' was gardeners afore me. You tak' my advice, sir, as one as knows. There's only two ways o' heating places, and one's wi' a proper fireplace an' a flue, and t'other's varmentin wi' hot manner."
"Varmentin with hot manner, as you call it. Why, don't they heat the vineries at Tremby Court with hot-water?"
"I've heered you say so, sir, but I niver see it. Tak' my advice, sir, and don't you meddle with things as you don't understand. Remember them taters?"
"Oh, yes, I remember the potatoes, Bruff; and I daresay, if the truth was known, you cut all the eyes out, instead of leaving the strongest, as I told you."
"I don't want no one to teach me my trade," said the man, sulkily; and he shuffled away, leaving Vane wondering why he took so much trouble, only to meet with rebuffs from nearly everyone.
"I might just as well be fishing, or playing cricket, or lying on my back in the sun, like old Distin does. Nobody seems to understand me."
He was standing just inside the door, moodily tapping the side-post with the rule, when he was startled by a step on the gravel, and, looking up sharply, he found himself face to face with a little, keen, dark, well-dressed man, who had entered the gate, seen him standing in the greenhouse, and walked across the lawn, whose mossy grass had silenced his footsteps till he reached the path.
"Morning," he said. "Doctor at home?"
"Yes," replied Vane, looking at the stranger searchingly, and wondering whether he was a visitor whom his uncle would be glad to see.
The stranger was looking searchingly at him, and he spoke at once:--
"You are the nephew, I suppose?"
Vane looked at him wonderingly.
"Yes, I thought so. Father and mother dead, and the doctor bringing you up. Lucky fellow! Here, what does this mean?" and he pointed to the rule.
"I was measuring," said Vane, colouring.
"Ah! Thought you were to be a clergyman or a doctor. Going to be a carpenter?"
"No," replied Vane sharply, and feeling full of resentment at being questioned so by a stranger. "I was measuring the walls."
"What for?" said the stranger, stepping into the greenhouse and making the lad draw back.
"Well, if you must know, sir--"
"No, I see. Old flue worn-out;--measuring for a new one."
Vane shook his head, and, in spite of himself, began to speak out freely, the stranger seeming to draw him.
"No; I was thinking of hot-water pipes."
"Good! Modern and better. Always go in for improvements. Use large ones."
"Do you understand heating with hot-water, sir?"
"A little," said the stranger, smiling. "Where are you going to make your furnace?"
"I wasn't going to make one."
"Going to do it with cold hot-water then?" said the stranger, smiling again.
"No, of course not. The kitchen-fireplace is through there," said Vane, pointing with his rule, "and I want to put a boiler in, so that the one fire will answer both purposes."
"Good! Excellent!" said the stranger sharply. "Your own idea?"
"Yes, sir."
"Do it, then, as soon as you can--before the winter. Now take me in to your uncle."
Vane looked at him again, and now with quite a friendly feeling for the man who could sympathise with his plans.
He led the stranger to the front door, and was about to ask him his name, when the doctor came out of his little study.
"Ah, Deering," he said quietly, "how are you? Who'd have thought of seeing you."
"Not you, I suppose," said the visitor quietly. "I was at Lincoln on business, and thought I would come round your way as I went back to town."
"Glad to see you, man: come in. Vane, lad, find your aunt, and tell her Mr Deering is here."
"Can't see that I'm much like him," said Vane to himself, as he went in search of his aunt, and saw her coming downstairs.
"Here's Mr Deering, aunt," he said, "and uncle wants you."
"Oh, dear me!" cried Aunt Hannah, looking troubled, and beginning to arrange her collar and cuffs.
"Why did uncle say that I was like Mr Deering, aunt?" whispered Vane. "I'm not a bit. He's dark and I'm fair."
"He meant like him in his ways, my dear: always dreaming about new inventions, and making fortunes out of nothing. I do hope your uncle will not listen to any of his wild ideas."
This description of the visitor excited Vane's curiosity. One who approved of his plans respecting the heating of the greenhouse was worthy of respect, and Vane was in no way dissatisfied to hear that Mr Deering was quite ready to accept the doctor's hospitality for a day or two.
That afternoon, as Aunt Hannah did not show the least disposition to leave the doctor and his guest alone, the latter rose and looked at Vane.
"I should like a walk," he said. "Suppose you take me round the garden, squire."
Vane followed him out eagerly; and as soon as they were in the garden, the visitor said quickly:--
"Got a workshop?"
Vane flushed a little.
"Only a bit of a shed," he said. "It was meant to be a cow-house, but uncle lets me have it to amuse myself in."
"Show it to me," said the visitor.
"Wouldn't you rather come round the grounds to have a look at uncle's fruit?" said Vane hurriedly.
"No. Why do you want to keep me out of your den?"
"Well, it's so untidy."
"Workshops generally are. Some other reason."
"I have such a lot of failures," said Vane hurriedly.
"Blunders and mistakes, I suppose, in things you have tried to make?"
"Yes."
"Show me."
Vane would far rather have led their visitor in another direction, but there was a masterful decided way about him that was not to be denied, and the lad led him into the large shed which had been floored with boards and lined, so as to turn it into quite a respectable workshop, in which were, beside a great heavy deal table in the centre, a carpenter's bench, and a turning lathe, while nails were knocked in everywhere, shelves ran from end to end, and the place presented to the eye about as strange a confusion of odds and ends as could have been seen out of a museum.
Vane looked at the visitor as he threw open the door, expecting to hear a derisive burst of laughter, but he stepped in quietly enough, and began to take up and handle the various objects which took his attention, making remarks the while.
"You should not leave your tools lying about like this: the edges get dulled, and sometimes they grow rusty. Haven't you a tool-chest?"
"There is uncle's old one," said Vane.
"Exactly. Then, why don't you keep them in the drawers?--Humph! Galvanic battery!"
"Yes; it was uncle's."
"And he gives it to you to play with, eh?"
Vane coloured again.
"I was trying to perform some experiments with it."
"Oh, I see. Well, it's a very good one; take care of it. Little chemistry, too, eh?"
"Yes: uncle shows me sometimes how to perform experiments."
"But he does not show you how to be neat and orderly."
"Oh, this is only a place to amuse oneself in!" said Vane.
"Exactly, but you can get ten times the amusement out of a shop where everything is in its place and there's a place for everything. Now, suppose I wanted to perform some simple experiment, say, to show what convection is, with water, retort and spirit lamp?"
"Convection?" said Vane, thoughtfully, as if he were searching in his mind for the meaning of a word he had forgotten.
"Yes," said the visitor, smiling. "Surely you know what convection is."
"I've forgotten," said Vane, shaking his head. "I knew once."
"Then you have not forgotten. You've got it somewhere packed away. Head's untidy, perhaps, as your laboratory."
"I know," cried Vane--"convection: it has to do with water expanding and rising when it is hot and descending when it is cold."
"Of course it has," said the visitor, laughing, "why you were lecturing me just now on the art of heating greenhouses by hot-water circulating through pipes; well, what makes it circulate?"
"The heat."
"Of course, by the law of convection."
Vane rubbed one ear.
"You had not thought of that?"
"No."
"Ah, well, you will not forget it again. But, as I was saying--suppose I wanted to try and perform a simple experiment to prove, on a small scale, that the pipes you are designing would heat. I cannot see the things I want, and I'll be bound to say you have them somewhere here."
"Oh, yes: I've got them all somewhere."
"Exactly. Take my advice, then, and be a little orderly. I don't mean be a slave to order. You understand?"
"Oh, yes," said Vane, annoyed, but at the same time pleased, for he felt that the visitor's remarks were just.
"Humph! You have rather an inventive turn then, eh?"
"Oh, no," cried Vane, disclaiming so grand a term, "I only try to make a few things here sometimes on wet days."
"Pretty often, seemingly," said the visitor, peering here and there. "Silk-winding, collecting. What's this? Trying to make a steam engine?"
"No, not exactly an engine; but I thought that perhaps I might make a little machine that would turn a wheel."
"And supply you with motive-power. Well, I will tell you at once that it would not."
"Why not?" said Vane, with a little more confidence, as he grew used to his companion's abrupt ways.
"Because you have gone the wrong way to work, groping along in the dark. I'll be bound to say," he continued, as he stood turning over the rough, clumsy contrivance upon which he had seized--a bit of mechanism which had cost the boy a good many of his shillings, and the blacksmith much time in filing and fitting in an extremely rough way--"that Newcomen and Watt and the other worthies of the steam engine's early days hit upon exactly the same ideas. It is curious how men in different places, when trying to contrive some special thing, all start working in the same groove."
"Then you think that is all stupid and waste of time, sir?"
"I did not say so. By no means. The bit of mechanism is of no use-- never can be, but it shows me that you have the kind of brain that ought to fit you for an engineer, and the time you have spent over this has all been education. It will teach you one big lesson, my lad. When you try to invent anything again, no matter how simple, don't begin at the very beginning, but seek out what has already been done, and begin where others have left off--making use of what is good in their work as a foundation for yours."
"Yes, I see now," said Vane. "I shall not forget that."
Their visitor laughed.
"Then you will be a very exceptional fellow, Vane Lee. But, there, I hope you will not forget. Humph!" he continued, looking round, "You have a capital lot of material here: machinery and toys. No, I will not call them toys, because these playthings are often the parents of very useful machines. What's that--balloon?"
"An attempt at one," replied Vane.
"Oh, then, you have been trying to solve the flying problem."
"Yes," cried Vane excitedly; "have you?"
"Yes, I have had my season of thought over it, my lad; and I cannot help thinking that it will some day be mastered or discovered by accident."
Vane's lips parted, and he rested his elbows on the workbench, placed his chin in his hands, and gazed excitedly in his companion's face.
"And how do you think it will be done?"
"Ah, that's a difficult question to answer, boy. There is the problem to solve. All I say is, that if we have mastered the water and can contrive a machine that will swim like a fish--"
"But we have not," said Vane.
"Indeed! Then what do you call an Atlantic liner, with the propeller in its tail?"
"But that swims on the top of the water."
"Of course it does, because the people on board require air to breathe. Otherwise it could be made to swim beneath the water as a fish does, and at twenty miles an hour."
"Yes: I did not think of that."
"Well, as we have conquered the water to that extent, I do not see why we should not master the air."
"We can rise in balloons."
"Yes, but the balloon is clumsy and unmanageable. It will not do."
"What then, sir?"
"That's it, my boy, what then? It is easy to contrive a piece of mechanism with fans that will rise in the air, but when tried on a large scale, to be of any real service, I'm afraid it would fail."
"Then why not something to fly like a bird or a bat?" said Vane eagerly.
"No; the power required to move the great flapping wings would be too weighty for it; and, besides, I always feel that there is a something in a bird or bat which enables it to make itself, bulk for bulk, the same weight as the atmosphere."
"But that seems impossible," said Vane.
"Seems, but it may not be so. Fifty years ago the man would have been laughed at who talked about sending a message to Australia and getting the answer back the same day, but we do not think much of it now. We would have thought of the Arabian Nights, and magicians, if a man had spoken to some one miles away, then listened to his tiny whisper answering back; but these telephonic communications are getting to be common business matters now. Why, Vane, when I was a little boy photography or light-writing was only being thought of: now people buy accurate likenesses of celebrities at a penny a piece on barrows in London streets."
Vane nodded.
"To go back to the flying," continued his companion, "I have thought and dreamed over it a great deal, but without result. I am satisfied, though, of one thing, and it is this, that some birds possess the power of gliding about in the air merely by the exercise of their will. I have watched great gulls floating along after a steamer at sea, by merely keeping their wings extended. At times they would give a slight flap or two, but not enough to affect their progress--it has appeared to me more to preserve their balance. And, again, in one of the great Alpine passes, I have watched the Swiss eagle--the Lammergeyer--rise from low down and begin sailing round and round, hardly beating with his wings, but always rising higher and higher in a vast spiral, till he was above the mountain-tops which walled in the sides of the valley. Then I have seen him sail right away. There is something more in nature connected with flight, which we have not yet discovered. I will not say that we never shall, for science is making mighty strides. There," he added, merrily, "end of the lecture. Let's go out in the open air."
Vane sighed.
"I came from London, my boy, where all the air seems to be second-hand. Out here on this slope of the wolds, the breeze gives one life and strength. Take me for a walk, out in the woods, say, it will do me good, and make me forget the worries and cares of life."
"Are you inventing something?"
Mr Deering gave the lad a sharp look, and nodded his head.
"May I ask what, sir?"
"No, my boy, you may not," said Mr Deering, sadly. "Perhaps I am going straightway on the road to disappointment and failure; but I must go on now. Some day you will hear. Now take me where I can breathe. Oh, you happy young dog!" he cried merrily. "What a thing it is to be a boy!"
"Is it?" said Vane, quietly.
"Yes, it is. And you, sir, think to yourself, like the blind young mole you are, what a great thing it is to be a man. There, come out into the open air, and let's look at nature; I get very weary sometimes of art."
Vane looked wonderingly at his new friend and did not feel so warmly toward him as he had a short time before, but this passed off when they were in the garden, where he admired the doctor's fruit, waxed eloquent over the apples and pears, and ate one of the former with as much enjoyment as a boy.
He was as merry as could be, too, and full of remarks as the doctor's Jersey cow and French poultry were inspected, but at his best in the woods amongst the gnarled old oaks and great beeches, seeming never disposed to tire.
That night Mr Deering had a very long consultation with the doctor; and Vane noted that his aunt looked very serious indeed, but she said nothing till after breakfast the next morning, when their visitor had left them for town, and evidently in the highest spirits.
"Let that boy go on with his whims, doctor," he said aloud, in Vane's hearing. "He had better waste a little money in cranks and eccentrics than in toffee and hard-bake. Good-bye."
And he was gone as suddenly, so it seemed to Vane, as he had come.
It was then that Vane heard his aunt say:
"Well, my dear, I hope it is for the best. It will be a very serious thing for us if it should go wrong."
"Very," said the doctor drily; and Vane wondered what it might be. _