Patience Wins Part 6

"No," said Uncle Jack quietly; "the mischief was done before we came.

This place has been to let for a long time."

"Yes," said Uncle Bob, "that's why we got it so cheaply."

"And," continued Uncle Jack, "these fellows have had the run of the works to do their grinding for almost nothing. They were wild with us for taking the place and turning them out."

"Yes," said Uncle d.i.c.k, "that's the case, no doubt; but I'm very sorry I began by hurting that fellow all the same."

"I'm not, Uncle d.i.c.k," I said, as I compressed my lips with pain. "They are great cowards or they would not have thrown a piece of iron at me;"

and I laid my hand upon my shoulder, to draw it back wet with blood.

CHAPTER FOUR.

OUR ENGINE.

"Bravo, Spartan!" cried Uncle Bob, as he stood looking on, when, after walking some distance, Uncle d.i.c.k insisted upon my taking off my jacket in a lane and having the place bathed.

"Oh, it's nothing," I said, "only it was tiresome for it to bleed."

"Nothing like being prepared for emergencies," said Uncle Jack, taking out his pocket-book, and from one of the pockets a piece of sticking-plaster and a pair of scissors. "I'm always cutting or pinching my fingers. Wonder whether we could have stuck Cob's head on again if it had been cut off?"

I opined not as I submitted to the rough surgery that went on, and then refusing absolutely to be treated as a sick person, and go back, I tramped on by them, mile after mile, to see something of the fine open country out to the west of the town before we settled down to work.

We were astonished, for as we got away from the smoky pit in which Arrowfield lay, we found, in following the bank of the rivulet that supplied our works, that the country was lovely and romantic too. Hill, dale, and ravine were all about us, rippling stream, hanging wood, grove and garden, with a thousand pretty views in every direction, as we climbed on to the higher ground, till at last cultivation seemed to have been left behind, and we were where the hills towered up with ragged stony tops, and their slopes all purple heather, heath, and moss.

"Look, look!" I cried, as I saw a covey of birds skim by; "partridges!"

"No," said Uncle Bob, watching where they dropped; "not partridges, my lad--grouse."

"What, here!" I said; "and so near the town."

"Near! Why we are seven or eight miles away."

"But I thought grouse were Scotch birds."

"They are birds of the moors," said Uncle Bob; "and here you have them stretching for miles all over the hills. This is about as wild a bit of country as you could see. Why, the country people here call those hills mountains."

"But are they mountains?" I said; "they don't look very high."

"Higher than you think, my lad, with precipice and ravine. Why, look-- you can see the top of that one is among the clouds."

"I should have thought it was a mist resting upon it."

"Well, what is the difference?" said Uncle Bob, smiling.

Just then we reached a spot where a stream crossed the road, and the sight of the rippling water, clear as crystal, took our attention from the hills and vales that spread around. My first idea was to run down to the edge of the stream, which was so dotted with great stones that I was soon quite in the middle, looking after the shadowy shapes that I had seen dart away.

My uncles followed me, and we forgot all about the work and troubles with the rough grinders, as we searched for the trout and crept up to where we could see some good-sized, broad-tailed fellow sunning himself till he caught sight of the intruders, and darted away like a flash of light.

But Uncle d.i.c.k put a stop to our idling there, leading us back to the road and insisting upon our continuing along it for another mile.

"I want to show you our engine," he said.

"Our engine out here!" I cried. "It's some trick."

"You wait and see," he replied.

We went on through the beautiful breezy country for some distance farther, till on one side we were looking down into a valley and on the other side into a lake, and I soon found that the lake had been formed just as we schoolboys used to make a dam across a ditch or stream when we were going to bale it out and get the fish.

"Why," I cried, as we walked out on to the great embankment, "this has all been made."

"To be sure," said Uncle d.i.c.k. "Just the same as our little dam is at the works. That was formed by building a strong stone wall across a hollow streamlet; this was made by raising this great embankment right across the valley here and stopping the stream that ran through it.

That's the way some of the lakes have been made in Switzerland."

"What, by men?"

"No, by nature. A great landslip takes place from the mountains, rushes down, and fills up a valley, and the water is stopped from running away."

We walked right out along what seemed like a vast railway embankment, on one side sloping right away down into the valley, where the remains of the stream that had been cut off trickled on towards Arrowfield. On the other side the slope went down into the lake of water, which stretched away toward the moorlands for quite a mile.

"This needs to be tremendously strong," said Uncle Jack thoughtfully, as we walked on till we were right in the middle and first stood looking down the valley, winding in and out, with its scattered houses, farms, and mills, and then turned to look upward towards the moorland and along the dammed-up lake.

"Why, this embankment must be a quarter of a mile long," said Uncle Jack thoughtfully.

"What a pond for fishing!" I cried, as I imagined it to be peopled by large jack and shoals of smaller fish. "How deep is it, I wonder?"

Did you ever know a boy yet who did not want to know how deep a piece of water was, when he saw it?

"Deep!" said Uncle d.i.c.k; "that's easily seen. Deep as it is from here to the bottom of the valley on the other side: eighty or ninety feet. I should say this embankment is over a hundred in perpendicular height."

"Look here," said Uncle Jack suddenly; "if I know anything about engineering, this great dam is not safe."

"Not safe!" I said nervously. "Let's get off it at once."

"I daresay it will hold to-day," said Uncle d.i.c.k dryly, "but you can run off if you like, Cob."

"Are you coming?"

"Not just at present," he said, smiling grimly.

I put my hands in my pockets and stood looking at the great embankment, which formed a level road or path of about twelve feet wide where we stood, and then sloped down, as I have said, like a railway embankment far down into the valley on our left, and to the water on our right.

"I don't care," said Uncle Jack, knitting his brows as he scanned the place well, "I say it is not safe. Here is about a quarter of a mile of earthen wall that has no natural strength for holding together like a wall of bonded stone or brick."

"But look at its weight," said Uncle Bob.

"Yes, that is its only strength--its weight; but look at the weight of the water, about a mile of water seventy or eighty feet deep just here.