'
'Never doubt, master,' I said, touched by tenderness, and wrung his
hand. 'My head is sure; I have no broken leg to turn it silly
now'--for I guessed he was thinking of Hoar Head and how I had gone
giddy on the Zigzag.
CHAPTER 15
THE WELL
The grave doth gape and doting death is near--_Shakespeare_
The bucket was large, for all that the turnkey had tried to frighten me
into think it small, and I could crouch in it low enough to feel safe of
not falling out. Moreover, such a venture was not entirely new to me, for
I had once been over Gad Cliff in a basket, to get two peregrines' eggs;
yet none the less I felt ill at ease and fearful, when the bucket began
to sink into that dreadful depth, and the air to grow chilly as I went
down. They lowered me gently enough, so that I was able to take stock of
the way the wall was made, and found that for the most part it was cut
through solid chalk; but here and there, where the chalk failed or was
broken away, they had lined the walls with brick, patching them now on
this side, now on that, and now all round. By degrees the light, which
was dim even overground that rainy day, died out in the well, till all
was black as night but for my candle, and far overhead I could see the
well-mouth, white and round like a lustreless full-moon.
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