At last I ventured a story myself;and vast was the success of it.Not right off,of course,for the native of those islands does not,as a rule,dissolve upon the early applications of a humorous thing;but the fifth time I told it,they began to crack in places;the eight time I told it,they began to crumble;at the twelfth repetition they fell apart in chunks;and at the fifteenth they disintegrated,and I got a broom and swept them up.This language is figurative.Those islanders --well,they are slow pay at first,in the matter of return for your investment of effort,but in the end they make the pay of all other nations poor and small by contrast.
I was at the well next day betimes.Merlin was there,enchanting away like a beaver,but not raising the moisture.He was not in a pleasant humor;and every time I hinted that perhaps this contract was a shade too hefty for a novice he unlimbered his tongue and cursed like a bishop --French bishop of the Regency days,I mean.
Matters were about as I expected to find them.The "fountain"was an ordinary well,it had been dug in the ordinary way,and stoned up in the ordinary way.There was no miracle about it.Even the lie that had created its reputation was not miraculous;I could have told it myself,with one hand tied behind me.The well was in a dark chamber which stood in the center of a cut-stone chapel,whose walls were hung with pious pictures of a workmanship that would have made a chromo feel good;pictures historically commemorative of curative miracles which had been achieved by the waters when nobody was looking.That is,nobody but angels;they are always on deck when there is a miracle to the fore --so as to get put in the picture,perhaps.Angels are as fond of that as a fire company;look at the old masters.
The well-chamber was dimly lighted by lamps;the water was drawn with a windlass and chain by monks,and poured into troughs which delivered it into stone reservoirs outside in the chapel --when there was water to draw,I mean --and none but monks could enter the well-chamber.I entered it,for I had temporary authority to do so,by courtesy of my professional brother and subordinate.But he hadn't entered it himself.He did everything by incantations;he never worked his intellect.If he had stepped in there and used his eyes,instead of his disordered mind,he could have cured the well by natural means,and then turned it into a miracle in the customary way;but no,he was an old numskull,a magician who believed in his own magic;and no magician can thrive who is handicapped with a superstition like that.
I had an idea that the well had sprung a leak;that some of the wall stones near the bottom had fallen and exposed fissures that allowed the water to escape.I measured the chain --98feet.Then I called in couple of monks,locked the door,took a candle,and made them lower me in the bucket.When the chain was all paid out,the candle confirmed my suspicion;a considerable section of the wall was gone,exposing a good big fissure.
I almost regretted that my theory about the well's trouble was correct,because I had another one that had a showy point or two about it for a miracle.I remembered that in America,many centuries later,when an oil well ceased to flow,they used to blast it out with a dynamite torpedo.
If I should find this well dry and no explanation of it,I could astonish these people most nobly by having a person of no especial value drop a dynamite bomb into it.It was my idea to appoint Merlin.However,it was plain that there was no occasion for the bomb.One cannot have everything the way he would like it.A man has no business to be depressed by a disappointment,anyway;he ought to make up his mind to get even.That is what I did.Isaid to myself,I am in no hurry,I can wait;that bomb will come good yet.And it did,too.
When I was above ground again,I turned out the monks,and let down a fish-line;the well was a hundred and fifty feet deep,and there was forty-one feet of water in it I I called in a monk and asked:
"How deep is the well?"
"That,sir,I wit not,having never been told.""How does the water usually stand in it?""Near to the top,these two centuries,as the testimony goeth,brought down to us through our predecessors."It was true --as to recent times at least --for there was witness to it,and better witness than a monk;only about twenty or thirty feet of the chain showed wear and use,the rest of it was unworn and rusty.
What had happened when the well gave out that other time?Without doubt some practical person had come along and mended the leak,and then had come up and told the abbot he had discovered by divination that if the sinful bath were destroyed the well would flow again.The leak had befallen again now,and these children would have prayed,and processioned,and tolled their bells for heavenly succor till they all dried up and blew away,and no innocent of them all would ever have thought to drop a fish-line into the well or go down in it and find out what was really the matter.
Old habit of mind is one of the toughest things to get away from in the world.It transmits itself like physical form and feature;and for a man,in those days,to have had an idea that his ancestors hadn't had,would have brought him under suspicion of being illegitimate.I said to the monk:
"It is a difficult miracle to restore water in a dry well,but we will try,if my brother Merlin fails.Brother Merlin is a very passable artist,but only in the parlor-magic line,and he may not succeed;in fact,is not likely to succeed.But that should be nothing to his discredit;the man that can do THIS kind of miracle knows enough to keep hotel.""Hotel?I mind not to have heard --"