Patience Wins Part 13

The streets looked very miserable as we advanced, leaving behind us the noise and roar and glow of the panting machinery which every now and then whistled and screamed as if rejoicing over the metal it was cutting and forming and working into endless shapes. There behind us was the red cloud against which the light from a thousand furnaces was glowing, while every now and then came a deafening roar as if some explosion had taken place.

I glanced down at Piter expecting to see him startled, but he was Arrowfield born, and paid not the slightest heed to noise, pa.s.sing through a bright flash of light that shot from an open door as if it were the usual thing, and he did not even twitch his tail as we walked on by a wall that seemed to quiver and shake as some great piece of machinery worked away, throbbing and thudding inside.

"Here we are at last," said Uncle d.i.c.k, as we reached the corner of our place, where a lamp shed a ghastly kind of glow upon the dark triangular shaped dam.

The big stone building looked silent and ghostly in the gloom, while the great chimney stood up like a giant sentry watching over it, and placed there by the men whom it was our misfortune to have to dislodge.

We had a perfect right to be there, but one and all spoke in whispers as we looked round at the buildings about, to see in one of a row of houses that there were lights, and in a big stone building similar to ours the faint glow of a fire left to smoulder till the morning. But look which way we would, there was not a soul about, and all was still.

As we drew closer I could hear the dripping of the water as it ran in by the wheel where it was not securely stopped; and every now and then there was an echoing plash from the great shut-in cave, but no light in any of the windows.

"Come and hold the bag, Jack," whispered Uncle d.i.c.k; and then laughingly as we grouped about the gate with the dog sniffing at the bottom: "If you see a policeman coming, give me fair warning. I hope that dog will not bark. I feel just like a burglar."

Piter uttered a low growl, but remained silent, while Uncle d.i.c.k opened the gate and we entered.

As soon as we were inside the yard the bag was put under requisition again, a great screw-driver taken out, the lantern lit, and with all the skill and expedition of one accustomed to the use of tools, Uncle d.i.c.k unscrewed and took off the lock, laid it aside, and fitted on, very ingeniously, so that the old key-hole should do again, one of the new patent locks he had brought with him in the brown-paper parcel I had seen.

This took some little time, but it was effected at last, and Uncle d.i.c.k said:

"That is something towards making the place our own. Their key will not be worth much now."

Securing the gate by turning the key of the new lock, we went next to the door leading into the works, which was also locked, but the key the agent had supplied opened it directly, and this time Uncle d.i.c.k held box and lantern while Uncle Jack took off the old and fitted on the second new lock that we had brought.

It was a curious scene in the darkness of that great stone-floored echoing place, where an observer who watched would have seen a round gla.s.s eye shedding a bright light on a particular part of the big dirty door, and in the golden ring the bull's-eye made, a pair of large white hands busy at work fixing, turning a gimlet, putting in and fastening screws, while only now and then could a face be seen in the ring of light.

"There," said Uncle Jack at last, as he turned the well-oiled key and made the bolt of the lock play in and out of its socket, "now I think we can call the place our own."

"I say, Uncle Bob," I whispered--I don't know why, unless it was the darkness that made me speak low--"I should like to see those fellows'

faces when they come to the gate to-morrow morning."

"Especially Old Squintum's," said Uncle Bob laughing. "Pleasant countenance that man has, Cob. If ever he is modelled I should like to have a copy. Now, boys, what next?"

"Next!" said Uncle d.i.c.k; "we'll just have a look round this place and see what there is belonging to the men, and we'll put all together so as to be able to give it up when they come."

"The small grindstones are theirs, are they not?" said Uncle Bob.

"No; the agent says that everything belongs to the works and will be found in the inventory. All we have to turn out will be the blades they are grinding."

Uncle d.i.c.k went forward from grindstone to grindstone, but only in one place was anything waiting to be ground, and that was a bundle of black-looking, newly-forged scythe blades, neatly tied up with bands of wire.

He went on from end to end, making the light play on grindstone, trough, and the rusty sand that lay about; but nothing else was to be seen, and after reaching the door leading into the great chamber where the water-wheel revolved, he turned back the light, looking like some dancing will-o'-the-wisp as he directed it here and there, greatly to the puzzlement of Piter, to whom it was something new.

He tugged at the stout leathern thong once or twice, but I held on and he ceased, contenting himself with a low uneasy whine now and then, and looking up to me with his great protruding eyes, as if for an explanation.

"Now let's have a look round upwards," said Uncle d.i.c.k. "I'm glad the men have left so few of their traps here. Cob, my lad, you need not hold that dog. Take the swivel off his collar and let him go. He can't get away."

"Besides," said Uncle Bob, "this is to be his home."

I stooped down and unhooked the spring swivel, to Piter's great delight, which he displayed by scuffling about our feet, trying to get himself trodden upon by all in turn, and ending by making a rush at the bull's-eye lantern, and knocking his head against the round gla.s.s.

"Pretty little creature!" said Uncle Bob. "Well, I should have given him credit for more sense than a moth."

Piter growled as if he were dissatisfied with the result, and then his hideous little crinkled black nose was seen as he smelt the lantern all round, and, apparently gratified by the odour of the oil, he licked his black lips.

"Now then, upstairs," said Uncle d.i.c.k, leading the way with the lantern.

But as soon as the light fell upon the flight of stone stairs Piter went to the front with a rush, his claws pattered on the stones, and he was up at the top waiting for us, after giving a scratch at a rough door, his ugly countenance looking down curiously out of the darkness.

"Good dog!" said Uncle d.i.c.k as he reached the landing and unlatched the door.

Piter squeezed himself through almost before the door was six inches open, and the next moment he burst into a furious deep-mouthed bay.

"Someone there!" cried Uncle d.i.c.k, and he rushed in, lantern in hand, to make the light play round, while my uncles changed the hold of their stout sticks, holding them cudgel fashion ready for action.

The light rested directly on the face and chest of a man sitting up between a couple of rusty lathes, where a quant.i.ty of straw had been thrown down, and at the first glimpse it was evident that the dog had just aroused him from a heavy sleep.

His eyes were half-closed, bits of oat straw were sticking in his short dark hair, and glistened like fragments of pale gold in the light cast by the bull's-eye, while two blackened and roughened hands were applied to his eyes as if he were trying to rub them bright.

Piter's was an ugly face; but the countenance of an ugly animal is pleasanter to look upon than that of an ugly degraded human being, and as I saw the rough stubbly jaws open, displaying some yellow and blackened teeth that glistened in the light as their owner yawned widely, I began to think our dog handsome by comparison.

The man growled as if not yet awake, and rubbed away at his eyes with his big fists, as if they, too, required a great deal of polishing to make them bright enough to see.

At last he dropped his fists and stared straight before him--no, that's a mistake, he stared with the range of his eyes crossing, and then seemed to have some confused idea that there was a light before him, and a dog making a noise, for he growled out:

"Lie down!"

Then, bending forward, he swept an arm round, as if in search of something, which he caught hold of at last, and we understood why he was so confused. For it was a large stone bottle he had taken up. From this he removed the cork with a dull _Fop_! Raised the bottle with both hands, took a long draught, and corked the bottle again with a sigh, set it down beside him, and after yawning loudly shouted once more at the dog, "Get out! Lie down!"

Then he settled himself as if about to do what he had bidden the dog, but a gleam of intelligence appeared to have come now into his brain.

There was no mistaking the man: it was the squinting ruffian who had attacked us when we came first, and there was no doubt that he had been staying there to keep watch and hold the place against us, for a candle was stuck in a ginger-beer bottle on the frame of the lathe beyond him, and this candle had guttered down and gone out.

We none of us spoke, but stood in the black shadow invisible to the man, who could only see the bright light of the bull's-eye staring him full in the face.

"Lie down, will yer!" he growled savagely. "Makin' shut a row! Lie down or--"

He shouted this last in such a fierce tone of menace that it would have scared some dogs.

It had a different effect on Piter, who growled angrily.

"Don't, then," shouted the man; "howl and bark--make a row, but if yer touch me I'll take yer down and drownd yer in the wheel-pit. D'yer hear? In the wheel-pit!"

This was said in a low drowsy tone and as if the fellow were nearly asleep, and as the light played upon his half-closed dreamy eyes he muttered and stared at it as if completely overcome by sleep.

It was perfectly ridiculous, and yet horrible, to see that rough head and hideous face nodding and blinking at the light as the fellow supported himself on both his hands in an ape-like att.i.tude that was more animal than human.

All this was a matter of a minute or so, and then the ugly cross eyes closed, opened sharply, and were brought to bear upon the light one after the other by movements of the head, just as a magpie looks at a young bird before he kills it with a stroke of his bill.

Then a glimpse of intelligence seemed to shoot from them, and the man sat up sharply.