noon
My boys were experts in all sorts of things , from the stoning up of a well to the constructing of a mathematical instrument . An hour before sunrise we had that leak mended in ship-shape fashion , and the water began to rise . Then we stowed our fireworks in the chapel , locked up the place , and went home to bed . Before the noon mass was over , we were at the well again ; for there was a deal to do yet , and I was determined to spring the miracle before midnight , for business reasons : for whereas a miracle worked for the Church on a week-day is worth a good deal , it is worth six times as much if you get it in on a Sunday . In nine hours the water had risen to its customary level -- that is to say , it was within twenty-three feet of the top . We put in a little iron pump , one of the first turned out by my works near the capital ; we bored into a stone reservoir which stood against the outer wall of the well-chamber and inserted a section of lead pipe that was long enough to reach to the door of the chapel and project beyond the threshold , where the gushing water would be visible to the two hundred and fifty acres of people I was intending should be present on the flat plain in front of this little holy hillock at the proper time . We knocked the head out of an empty hogshead and hoisted this hogshead to the flat roof of the chapel , where we clamped it down fast , poured in gunpowder till it lay loosely an inch deep on the bottom , then we stood up rockets in the hogshead as thick as they could loosely stand , all the different breeds of rockets there are ; and they made a portly and imposing sheaf , I can tell you .