Patience Wins Part 17

Piter had a kennel just inside the entry, and as each new hand was engaged he was introduced to the dog, who inspected him, and never afterwards so much as growled.

Uncle d.i.c.k took the lead, and under his orders the change rapidly took place.

There was one hindrance, though, and that occurred in connection with the furnaces, for the chimney-shaft needed some repair at the top.

This, however, proved to be an easy task, scaffolding not being necessary, projecting bars answering the purpose of the rounds of a ladder having been built in when the shaft was erected, with this end in view.

At last everything was, as Uncle d.i.c.k called it, complete for the present. There was a good supply of water, and one morning the furnace was lit, so were the forges, and step by step we progressed till there was quite a busy scene, the floors and rafters in the forge and furnace building glowing and seeming turned to gold; while from out of the chimney there rose every morning a great volume of smoke that rolled out and bent over, and formed itself into vast feathery plumes.

I could hardly believe it true when it was announced that we had been down in Arrowfield a month: but so it was.

But little had been done beyond getting the machinery at the works ready for work to come; now, however, some of the projects were to be put in action.

"For," said Uncle d.i.c.k, "if we should go on forging and grinding as other manufacturers do, we only enter into compet.i.tion with them, and I dare say we should be beaten. We must do something different and better, and that's why we have come. To-morrow I begin to make my new tempered steel."

Uncle d.i.c.k kept his word, and the next morning men were at work arranging fire-bricks for a little furnace which was duly made, and then so much blistered steel was laid in a peculiar way with so much iron, and a certain heat was got up and increased and lowered several times till Uncle d.i.c.k was satisfied. He told me that the colour a.s.sumed by the metal was the test by which he judged whether it was progressing satisfactorily, and this knowledge could only come by experience.

Everything was progressing most favourably. The men who had been engaged worked well; we had seen no more of those who had had to vacate the works, and all was as it should be. In fact our affairs were so prosperous that to me it seemed great folly for watch to be kept in the works night after night.

I thought it the greatest nonsense possible one night when I had been very busy all day, and it had come to my turn, and I told Uncle Jack so.

"Those fellows were a bit cross at having to turn out," I said. "Of course they were, and they made a fuss. You don't suppose they will come again?"

"I don't know, Cob," said Uncle Jack quietly.

"But is it likely?" I said pettishly.

"I can't say, my boy--who can? Strange things have been done down in Arrowfield by foolish workmen before now."

"Oh, yes!" I said; "but that's in the past. It isn't likely that they will come and annoy us. Besides, there's Piter. He'd soon startle any one away."

"You think then that there is no occasion for us to watch, Cob?"

"Yes," I cried eagerly, "that's just what I think. We can go to bed and leave Piter to keep guard. He would soon give the alarm."

"Then you had better go to bed, Cob," said Uncle Jack quietly.

"And of course you won't get up when it comes to your turn."

"No," he said; "certainly not."

"That's right," I cried triumphantly. "I am glad we have got over this scare."

"Are you?" he said dryly.

"Am I, Uncle Jack! Why, of course I am. All is locked up. I'll go and unchain Piter, and then we'll go and get a good night's rest."

"Yes," he said; "you may as well unchain Piter."

I ran and set the dog at liberty, and he started off to make the circuit of the place, while I went back to Uncle Jack, who was lighting the bull's-eye lantern that we always used when on guard.

"Why, uncle," I said wonderingly; "we sha'n't want that to-night."

"I shall," he said. "Good-night!"

"No, no," I cried. "We arranged to go to bed."

"You arranged to go to bed, Cob, but I did not. You don't suppose I could behave so unfairly to my brothers as to neglect the task they placed in my hands."

He did not say any more. It was quite sufficient. I felt the rebuff, and was thoroughly awake now and ashamed of what I had proposed.

Without a word I took the lantern and held out my hand.

"Good-night, Uncle Jack!" I said.

He had seemed cold and stern just before. Now he was his quiet old self again, and he took my hand, nodded, and said:

"Two o'clock, Cob. Good-night!"

I saw him go along the great workshop, enter the office and close the door, and then I started on my rounds.

It was anything but a cheerful task, that keeping watch over the works during the night, and I liked the first watch from ten to two less than the second watch from two to six, for in the latter you had the day breaking about four o'clock, and then it was light until six.

For, however much one might tell oneself that there was no danger--no likelihood of anything happening, the darkness in places, the faint glow from partly extinct fires, and the curious shadows cast on the whitewashed walls were all disposed to be startling; and, well as I knew the place, I often found myself shrinking as I came suddenly upon some piece of machinery that a.s.sumed in the darkness the aspect of some horrible monster about to seize me as I went my rounds.

Upon the other hand, there was a pleasant feeling of importance in going about that great dark place of a night, with a lantern at my belt, a stout stick in my hand, and a bull-dog at my heels, and this sensation helped to make the work more bearable.

On this particular night I had paced silently all about the place several times, thinking a good deal about my little encounter with Uncle Jack, and about the last letters I had had from my father. Then, as all seemed perfectly right, I had seated myself by the big furnace, which emitted a dull red glow, not sufficient to light the place, but enough to make it pleasantly warm, and to show that if a blast were directed in the coals, a fierce fire would soon be kindled.

I did not feel at all sleepy now; in fact, in spite of the warmth this furnace-house would not have been a pleasant place to sleep in, for the windows on either side were open, having no gla.s.s, only iron bars, and those on one side looked over the dam, while the others were in the wall that ab.u.t.ted on the lane leading down to the little river.

Piter had been with me all through my walk round, but, seeing me settle down, he had leaped on to the hot ashes and proceeded to curl himself up in a nice warm place, where the probabilities were that he would soon begin to cook.

Piter had been corrected for this half a dozen times over, but he had to be bullied again, and leaping off the hot ashes he had lowered his tail and trotted back to his kennel, where he curled himself up.

All was very still as I sat there, except that the boom and throb of the busy town where the furnaces and steam-engines were at work kept going and coming in waves of sound; and as I sat, I found myself thinking about the beauty of the steel that my uncles had set themselves to produce; and how, when a piece was snapped across, breaking like a bit of gla.s.s, the fracture looked all of a silvery bluish-grey.

Then I began thinking about our tall chimney, and what an unpleasant place mine would be to sit in if there were a furious storm, and the shaft were blown down; and then, with all the intention to be watchful, I began to grow drowsy, and jumping up, walked up and down the furnace-house and round the smouldering fire, whose chimney was a great inverted funnel depending from the open roof.

I grew tired of walking about and sat down again, to begin thinking once more.

How far is it from thinking to sleeping and dreaming? Who can answer that question?

To me it seemed that I was sitting thinking, and that as I thought there in the darkness, where I could see the fire throwing up its feeble glow on to the dim-looking open windows on either side, some great animal came softly in through the window on my left, and then disappeared for a few moments, to appear again on my right where the wall overlooked the lane.

That window seemed to be darkened for a minute or two, and then became light again, while once more that on my left grew dark, and I saw the figure glide out.

I seemed, as I say, to have been thinking, and as I thought it all appeared to be a dream, for it would have been impossible for any one to have crept in at one window, pa.s.sing the furnace and back again without disturbing me.

Yes; I told myself it was all fancy, and as I thought I told myself that I started awake, and looked sharply at first one window, and then at the other, half expecting to see someone there.