"Hullo! That's you, my gal, is it? Well, I'm coming. I want my fourses bad, I can tell you."
"Well, come on up then, father; and tell Mr. Chapman his wife have been waitin' for him ever so long, and she've got to go home directly, to give the children their teas."
"All right, then.--You go up first, Tom." And nothing loath, Tom put his foot into the loop, and gripping the rope with both hands was soon drawn up.
"My eye, it is hot up here," he said, as half blinded by the sun he made his way to the tent. Martin soon followed, and the women unpacked their baskets. Annie had brought Tom a bottle of his favourite fromerty and a large harvest-bun. Martin liked tea, so his daughter had a pot full of it rolled up in an old shawl to keep it hot, for Martin held that hot tea is the most cooling of drinks. "Drinkin' cold things when you're hot only makes you all the hotter!" Well, every one to his taste, and the big man preferred beer. He was a stranger, and the same man who had made such cruel remarks on Geo Lummis's muscles.
He lodged at Martin's house, so "Martin's gal," as Polly was generally called in the village, had brought his "fourses" too. He quaffed off his half-pint of good home-brew, made by Mrs. Martin herself, and with a sigh of enjoyment flung the drops at the bottom of the glass on to the thirsty ground.
"That 'ud be a rum job," he said, as he seated himself on the form, "if that dowser chap ha' happened ar a mistake, and we don't find no water arter all."
"We'll find it all right," said Martin decidedly. "He knowed what he was about. He said that was a long way down, and I believe him."
That Martin should believe him was quite sufficient for himself and Chapman, for Martin was one of those people that carry about them a quiet power of making every one else trust them. He possessed that nameless intangible quality that we know as "character." Martin was not particularly clever, he was not entertaining or amusing in conversation; but he undoubtedly possessed a great deal of character, and in his quiet, deliberate, commonplace way he carried as much weight as any man in the parish. If it had not been for Martin, it is pretty certain the wells would never have been begun, much less finished. It was Martin whose example made Chapman, Lake, and the other two Willowton men at the railway well come forward in the first instance and volunteer their services. It was Martin who gave the other men courage to come forward with with their offer of work. It was Martin who kept Lake and Chapman up to the mark when, seeing the difficulty and hardness of the work, they wavered, and, urged on by "the bridge," were inclined to strike for more wages.