The Vast Abyss The Story Of Tom Blount His Uncles And His Cousi

"Master Tom, I'd be the last person in the world to find fault, or pick people to pieces, and I'm sure master knows that, as it's his brother, I'd do anything; but really, my de...

It was a capital dinner, but Sam felt that he could not eat a bit for mental troubles, while his cousin felt the same from bodily reasons connected with a terrible stiffness at...

There was a heavy post one morning at breakfast, and as Mrs Fidler glanced at the letters, she screwed up her face and turned her eyes upon Tom, to shake her head as much as to...

It did not mean apples nor pears from the garden, for they were nearly as hard as wood, and it did not mean going out to carry on some game with a companion, for Tom knew no one...

A man came forward with a barrow, and after taking the luggage from the cab, followed to the cloak-room, from whence sundry heavy, peculiar-looking packages and a box were hande...

"Now to prove the success of the magical trick," said the Vicar, as they all rose from the table, and walked across to the old mill. "Really, Brandon, honestly I never felt so m...

"Hulloo, Pete!" said Tom quietly, ignoring the question, for the recollection of his thoughts during the past few days came up strongly, and all that the Vicar, his uncle, and D...

Sam Brandon timed himself so accurately that he was crossing the little river-ford just as it was so dark that he could hardly make out the stepping-stones. But he got over quit...

The speculum that was never to reflect the bright face of the moon was easily moved now, and Tom stooped down and picked up one by one the three triangular pieces, and laid them...

"How long's he going to stop, Master Tom?" said David the next morning about breakfast-time, for he had come, according to custom, to see if cook wanted anything else on account...

In due time Tom locked up the safe and strong-room, saw that no important papers were left about, and started for Mornington Crescent in anything but the best of spirits, for he...

"I don't want to fight," thought Tom Blount, as he rushed off in pursuit of Pete Warboys, this time with full intention, and not led into it by accident. "Fighting means knockin...

Uncle Richard came back late the second night after the robbery, tired out, and glad to go to bed, so that nothing was said respecting the events at the observatory till the nex...

At last there came a letter saying that he would not be back yet, but that he hoped Tom would complete a perfect plane mirror before his return, as he still thought they might d...

Tom thought the matter over for days as he worked at the speculum now approaching completion. He had met Pete Warboys twice, but the fellow looked innocency itself, staring hard...

"Uncle James was always calling me a fool," said Tom the next morning; "and I must be, or I shouldn't have thought poor Uncle Richard half crazy. What a lot of stuff I did get i...

Directly after breakfast Tom followed his uncle to the coach-house, and from there up a ladder fastened to the side into the loft, where he looked around wonderingly, while his...

"Yes, uncle, but it seems so queer. The refractor is a tube made so that you can look through it, but the reflector will be, if you are right, so that you can't look through it,...

That cry was "help!" in its meaning as plainly as if it had come from a human throat, and with eyes hot and dry, Tom dashed forward with his worst fears confirmed.

The next morning came a letter from Mornington Crescent, announcing that James Brandon had met with an accident, and been knocked down by a cab. The letter was written by Sam, e...

"Oh, it's easy enough, I believe," said Tom. "You get a sheet of tinfoil, lay it on a table, cover it with quicksilver, and then put the glass on it, and press it with weights t...

"And you did not know anything about it, Pete?" said Tom one day, as he sat beside the lad in Mother Warboys' cottage, while the old woman kept on going in and out, muttering to...

"Yes; the speculum is what we might call the life of the whole instrument, and the rest will be simplicity itself. We've got to bring a little mechanical work to bear, and the t...

Sam Brandon was more asleep than awake when he made his way into Westhall Station, and took a ticket for town. He had taken nearly an hour to get over the last mile, after strug...

The loudly-closed door of the private office cut short Mr James Brandon's speech, and he had passed out without looking round, or he would have seen that his nephew looked anyth...

Uncle James Brandon sat one morning a short time before the events of the night described in the last chapters, biting his nails, and looking old, yellow, and careworn. He was s...

Tom was some ten feet or so from the ground when he described an arc in the darkness, so that it was not a very serious fall, but bad enough to knock the sense out of him for a...

"If we try to dig him out we shall suffocate him," cried Uncle Richard, speaking as if he had no doubt of the boy living still. "Look here, carpenter--David, there is only one w...

"Humph!" ejaculated Uncle Richard, as he finished his inspection of the bath-chair just taken out of the Vicar's cart. "See that the carrier calls for it, David, to take it back...

"From your cousin," said Uncle Richard, opening one of his letters, his face gradually growing very stern and troubled as he read; while as he finished and raised his eyes, he f...

The Vicar stopped and chatted, taking his seat upon the stool Tom had I before offered, and watched the process of making the speculum for some time before leaving, and then, sh...

Uncle Richard frowned and looked very serious, but he uttered a low chuckle as he led the way into a snug little room, half-library, half-museum. A long, heavy chest stood on on...

Hastily dressing and hurrying down, he felt full of reproach for having overslept himself, his last thought having been of getting up at daybreak to continue the watch with David.

Tom Blount started up in bed confused and staring. He was only half awake, and it was some time before he could realise that it was his cousin, who had come back from his trip b...

"Oh, I can't stand this," said Tom, jumping up, and hurriedly beginning to dress, after throwing open his window to see the east gradually turning red, and the clouds far up tin...

He was not in the least afraid, but his face felt flushed, and there was a curious tingling in the nerves which made him picture a scene in the garden, in which he was chasing P...

Tom saw very little of Pete Warboys during the next fortnight or so. The fruit kept on ripening, and twice over raids were made upon the garden, but whoever stole the fruit left...

He uttered his low, sniggering, malicious laugh again, and without a word went off towards the back, disappearing into the darkness, and then, unseen by Sam, crawling over the w...

That day and many following Tom sat over his books or copying, musing upon the injustice of the treatment he was receiving, and feeling more and more the misery of his new life....

"Yer can't grow cowcumbers with tallow-scoops, Master Tom. The first thing I see as soon as I goes into the little vinery there was two big slates off the top o' the house, blow...

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 st...

"Now then, we'll begin," said Uncle Richard; "and the first thing is to make our mould or gauge, for everything we do must be so exact that we can set distortion at defiance. We...

In a few minutes Pete stopped at the edge of a hollow, where, half covered by sedge rushes and bog plantain, there lay a good-sized pool of clear water, down to which Tom made h...

Tom kept his word, for he started into wakefulness in the grey dawn out of an uncomfortable dream, in which he had seen the unfinished speculum fall off the bench on to the ston...

That conversation took root in Tom's mind. He found himself thinking a good deal about Pete Warboys and his devotion to his hideous old grandmother; but it was hard work to beli...

That next morning when Tom jumped out of bed, he felt light-hearted, and ready for anything. He threw open his window to have a look round, and knew by a low whistling that Davi...

Uncle Richard made no further reference to the past day's business, but Tom noticed that he looked very serious and dejected. He caught him gazing too in a peculiar way, and upo...

It was about a fortnight after the accident, that Tom was returning one day from Mother Warboys' cottage, where the old woman had sat scowling at him, while Pete lay back perfec...

"I haven't got a dictionary here, uncle," said Tom, with a smile, as they stood at the massive table under the window in the laboratory. "I don't know what elutriation means."

Tom saw very little more of Pete Warboys. He had slipped away to the fir-wood, and escaping all observation, went straight to the cave; but there was neither boy nor dog, and he...

David went back to his gardening, giving Tom a smile and a nod, and whispering to him as he followed his uncle after locking up the workshop and the yard gate--

"Well, sir, if you put it like that, and own to it fair, I should say as he'll kick up the jolliest row he ever made since I broke the whole of the greenhouse light by making it...

Tom gave proof of his readiness a few days later, when the broken windows had been replaced, fresh solutions made, and the village had again calmed down to its regular natural s...