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Updated: June 12, 2025
Charley and I made our lucky up the wash-us chimney, and Bolter got into the empty water-butt, head downwards; but his legs were so precious long that they stuck out at the top, and so they took him too. 'And Bet? 'Poor Bet!
I know: only the outline of a dull life, that long since, with thousands of dull lives like its own, was vainly lived and lost: thousands of them, massed, vile, slimy lives, like those of the torpid lizards in yonder stagnant water-butt. Lost? There is a curious point for you to settle, my friend, who study psychology in a lazy, dilettante way. Stop a moment. I am going to be honest.
I again turned my attention to the water-butt; for I was now more anxious than ever to ascertain how much it contained, since on this depended my future safety. Choosing a stave near the middle of the cask, I proceeded in the same manner as I had done when making my first incision; and working constantly for an hour or more, I felt the thin shell springing before the point of my knife.
However, I thought that being there, I would go through with it. I knocked with a trembling hand at Mr. Skimpole's door literally with a hand, for the knocker was gone and after a long parley gained admission from an Irishwoman, who was in the area when I knocked, breaking up the lid of a water-butt with a poker to light the fire with. Mr.
Here and there stood a large shade tree oak or pine or yew; then a vacant space, succeeded by a hedge, gapped and ragged and bare, or of evergreen holly or yew, smoothly trimmed; then a ploughed field, and again cottages, looking up or down the road, or placed obliquely, or facing it: and looking at one cottage and its surrounding, there would perhaps be a water-butt standing beside it; a spade and fork leaning against the wall; a white cat sitting in the shelter idly regarding three or four fowls moving about at a distance of a few yards, their red feathers ruffled by the wind; further away a wood-pile; behind it a pigsty sheltered by bushes, and on the ground, among the dead weeds, a chopping-block, some broken bricks, little heaps of rusty iron, and other litter.
Joyce, squatting in her place, blinked a little breathlessly to shift from her senses an oppression of alarm, and settled down to wait for her. At least it was true that nothing ever happened to Joan; even when she fell into a water-butt she suffered no damage; and the wood was a place to which they came every day.
You have to get into that. By the way, your balls are floaters, I hope?" "Only six of 'em," I said. "However, I dare say you won't mind if I grub up a few potatoes to carry on with afterwards. So we hole out in the water-butt? That's the tiddleywinks part of it, I suppose? Go on." "There are various penalties," he explained.
Last Wednesday I wore 'em over to the Off Islands, to practise 'em on the sea-birds; and last evening after dusk I walked through the town with 'em yes, sir, right out past the church and back again, my blood being up, and came home and cut a square out of the old ones to wrap round the bung of the water-butt."
At this period our acquaintance with it commenced; the paint was all worn off; the windows were broken, the area was green with neglect and the overflowings of the water-butt; the butt itself was without a lid, and the street-door was the very picture of misery.
"Hear me out, worship," said the other. "Belike you think me a sorry dog not to make fight of this. But the old knight, look you, is not come-at-able. I threw one of his varlets into a thorn hedge, and another into a water-butt, and a third landed head-first into a ditch. But I couldn't do any fighting at all." "'Tis a pity!" quoth Little John gravely.
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