Surely next to the madness of building a row of villas on Prior’s Croft, was the puzzling folly of digging a hole in Knockley Holt. After much discussion pro and con, amongst the townspeople—chiefly over sundry glasses of whiskey toddy, in sundry bar parlours, after business hours—it seemed to be settled that Culpepper’s Hole, as some wag had christened it, could be intended for nothing else than an artesian well—though what was the exact nature of an artesian well it would have puzzled some of the Duxley wiseacres to tell, and why water should be bored for there, and to what uses it could be put when so obtained, they would have been still more at a loss to say. The Squire could not drive into Duxley without being tackled by one or another of his friends as to what he was about at Knockley Holt. But the old man would only wink and shake his head, and try to look wise, and say, “It doesn’t do to blab everything nowadays, but between you and me and the post—this is in confidence, mind—I’m digging a tunnel to the Antipodes.” Then he would chuckle and give the reins a shake, and Diamond would trot off with him, leaving his questioner angry or amused, as the case might be. It was not known to any one in Duxley, except the Squire’s lawyer, that Knockley Holt was now the property of Tom Bristow. That the works there were under Tom’s direction was a well-known fact, but he was merely looked upon as Mr. Culpepper’s foreman in the matter. “Gets a couple of hundred or so a year for looking after the Squire’s affairs,” one wiseacre would remark to another. “If not, how does he live? Seems to have nothing to do when he’s not at Pincote. A poor way of getting a living. Serve him right: he should have stopped with old Hoskyns when he had the chance, and not have thought he was going to set the Thames on fire with his six thousand pounds.” No one could be possessed by a more burning desire than the Squire himself to know the meaning of the works at Knockley Holt, but having asked once and asked in vain, his pride would not allow him to make any further direct inquiry. Not a day passed on which he saw Tom, that he did not try, by one or two vague hints, to lead up to the subject, but when Tom turned the talk into another channel, then the old man would see that the time for him to be enlightened had not yet come.