"Thanky doctor. Eh? feel faint? not a bit. Why bless your heart, I
could bear twice as much without winking. Scalding ain't nice, though."
My patient, a frank, open-faced fellow, smiled as if he liked it all the
same.
"There's something wrong with your boiler work, my man," I said, "or we
should not have so many explosions. How is it?"
"Can't say, I'm sure, sir. Been used to bilers all my life; but working
'em's different to making 'em. There's something wrong, as you say, or
they wouldn't always be a-bustin'. 'Tain't once, nor twice, nor now and
then, for it's a thing as is always a-happening; and though I've never
had more than a scald or two myself, I've seen some strange sights; men
all blown to pieces, so that they were picked up afterwards in baskets;
men taken to the hospital with their flesh bulging to them in rags, and
there they'd lie writhing and tearing at the wrappings in such agony,
that--there, I ain't above owning it--I've cried like a child to see my
poor mates' sufferings. And there they'd be day after day, till a sort
of calm came over them and the pain went, when they'd quite smile if you
spoke to 'em, they seemed so easy; and it would be because a gentle hand
was laid upon 'em, and they were going into the long sleep.
"Some gets better, but not when they're scalded badly; for it's strange
stuff, is steam. Well, no; I'm not afraid, and never do feel afraid.
What's the good? One's got it to do, and there's the mouths at home to
feed, so one can't afford it; and then the odds are precious long ones
against it's being one's own bustin'. But now so many more steam
engines are coming into use, day by day, it seems as if something ought
to be done in the way of making bilers stronger. Cheapness is
cheapness; but then a thing's dear at any price that makes such ruin as
I've seen sometimes; so why don't they try some tougher metal than
iron?--though certainly steam's strong enough to tear up anything. But
there seems to me to be some fresh plan wanted for making bilers. I
didn't work there, but I went and had a look d'reckly after that
horrible accident at the Big Works last autumn. Well, there was about
an acre of buildings--sheds and setrer--swept away as if you'd battered
'em all down: great fire bricks weighing a hundred and a half, pitched
here and there like chaff; sheets of lead sent flying a hundred yards;
tall chimneys powdered down; and the big busted biler itself jumped
right out of its place; while as to the middle of it, that was torn off
and crumpled up, and blown like a sheet of paper, to a distance. Plenty
of life lost there, and plenty of escapes; but what I took most notice
of was the plates torn off the biler--torn off as I said before, like so
much paper; while these sheets or plates of iron, had given way at the
rivets, and looked for all the world like postage stamps--torn off, of
coarse, along the perforating.
"`Now then,' I says to myself, `that's a thing as wants altering. You
perforate the edges of your plates to admit rivets, and so takes half
their strength off--p'r'aps more; then you puts, perhaps, hot rivets in,
and they p'r'aps crystallises the iron'--only p'r'aps, mind, I don't say
so, only the raw edges of the biler looked crystally and brittle.
`Well, then, some day comes a hextry pressure o' steam, and up goes your
biler--busted, and spreading ruin and death and misery around.'
"`Then how are we to fasten our biler plates,' says you, `if we don't
rivet 'em?' How should I know? I ain't a scientific man--I only
stokes. That's for you to find out. But you ain't a-going to tell me,
are you, that you scientific men and biler makers can't find no other
way to make bilers only by riveting them? Say you bends the plates'
edges over, and hooks one into the other like tin sarspan makers does
their tin. They'd stand some strain that way, and you wouldn't weaken
your plates. I ain't a biler maker or I should try that dodge, I think;
but there, that's only one way out of many as could be found by
experiment.
"Seems to me, sir, as if we English people hates anything new, and
always wants to keep to what our fathers and grandfathers had before us.
They went along and made their footmarks, and we go along after 'em,
putting our feet in just the same spots, thinking it must be right, come
what will of it.
"Had to do with engines many years. Stoked locomotives and
stationeries, agricultural and manufactories, and printing offices, and
been down in the engine-rooms of steamers; and that last's about the
hottest and worst of all. Killing work, you know, for anybody,
'specially in a hot country, where every breath of air that comes down
to you is already roasted, as it were, and don't do you no good.
"Bustins? Well, no, only one, and that was quite enough; for though it
didn't hurt my body, it did hurt my heart, and if you happen to be a
father you'll understand what I mean.
"It was dinner-time at our works--a great place where the engine used to
be going to pump water night and day, so that there was two of us; and
one week I'd be on daywork, next week night work, and so on. Now it so
happened that our water in that part was terribly hard--water that would
cover the inside of a biler with thick fur in no time. But whether it
was that or no, I can't say; all I know is, that one dinner-time I went
out into the yard to wash my hands and have a cooler, when I heard a
strange, wild, rushing noise, and felt something hit me on the back of
the head. Then turning round, I stood fixed to the spot, for the air
was black with tiles, and bricks and laths and rafters, while the whole
place seemed to be crumbling up together--just like as if you'd built up
a tall card house, and then tapped it so that it fell, one card on top
of another, till there was a little heap all lying close and snug; till
out of a tall building there was nothing left but some smoking ruins.
"I knew it was not my fault; for I'd looked at the gauge just before,
and the pressure of steam wasn't heavy. I knew there was plenty of
water in the biler and the safety valve was all right; so that all I
could do was to be thankful for the accident happening at dinner-time,
and also for my own wonderful escape. And then, though I wasn't hurt,
something seemed to come over me like a flash, and struck me to the
ground in an instant.
"When I came to, I fell, horribly sick and deathly like, and looked
about from face to face, wondering what was the matter; for I couldn't
make out why I should be lying on my back, with people round me in the
yard--one holding up my head, and another sprinkling my face with water.
"Then it all came back at once, and I shuddered as I turned my head and
looked at the ruined works; for I knew what it was struck me down to the
earth. I said before it was like a flash, and it was--it was one quick
thought which came across my brain, for I knew that, being dinner-time,
my little golden-haired gal would have brought my 'lowance tied up in a
basin; and something told me that she had gone into the stoke-hole to
find me when I had gone into the yard.
"`Let me get up,' I says, and I ran towards the ruins and began tearing
away at the heap of brick rubbish, while the crowd now gathered
together, hearing that there was some one underneath, began tearing away
at the rubbish like fury.
"By-and-by the police came, and some gentlemen, and something like order
was got at, and the people worked well to get down to where the
stoke-hole had been. I had said that there was someone there, but I
couldn't shape my month to say who it was; and some said it was one man,
and some another; but whoever they named seemed to come directly, back
from his dinner, or because he had heard the explosion. So, by-and-by,
people began to look from one to another, and ask who it was.
"`Ask Wilum,' says some one, `he was here at the time;' and some one
asked me. But I had no occasion to speak, for just then, alarmed at the
child's not going back as usual, the little gal's mother came shrieking
out and crying--
"`Where's little Patty? where's little Patty?' and then, when no one
spoke, she gave a sort of pitiful moan, and sank slowly down--first on
her knees, and then sideways on to a heap of bricks; and I remember
thinking it was best, for I could not find it in my heart to go to her
help, but kept on tearing away at the hot bricks and rubbish.
"It was puzzling and worriting; for one could not seem to be sure of
where anything had once stood, in the horrible confusion before us. One
said the stoke-hole had been here, and another there; but even I who had
worked there two years, could not be sure.
"Hour after hour went by, and still we worked on; while as every big
rafter or beam was lifted and dragged away, I was obliged to turn my
head, for I felt sick, and the place seemed to swim, for I expected to
see Patty's little bright curls torn out and hanging to the jagged wood,
and that underneath there would be something horrible and crushed.
"I know it wasn't manly; but what can I say, when there was a little
bright, blue-eyed child in the case--one of those little things whose
look will make your great rough hand fall to your side when raised in
anger, while the tiny thing can lead you about and do what she likes
with you? P'r'aps I ain't manly; but somehow, children always seems to
get the upper hand of me.
"And so on we worked, hour after hour; men getting tired and dropping
off, but always plenty more ready to take their places; while I--I never
thought of it, and kept on tearing away till my hands bled, and the
sweat ran down my face; but I turned away every time there was something
large lifted, for I said to myself `She must be under that!' And then
again and again, in my mind, I seemed to see the torn and crushed face
of my darling, and her long curls dabbled in blood.
"In the midst of the piled-up, blackened ruins--bricks, mortar, tiles,
lead, and ragged and split beams, huge pieces of wood snapped and torn
like matches--we toiled on hour after hour till the dark night came,
when the gas pipes that had been laid bare and plugged were unstopped,
and the gas lit, so that it flared and blazed and cast a strange wild
light over the ruined place. There had been flames burst forth two or
three times from parts of the ruins, but a few sprinklings from the fire
engine in attendance had put them out; and as we worked on the rubbish
grew cooler and cooler.
"Some said that the child could not have been there, but the sight of
her mother tearing out was sufficient, when once she got away from the
kind people who had her in their house--a house where but part of the
windows had been broken by the explosion--and came running to where I
was at work, snatching at the bricks and wood, till I got two or three
to take her back for I couldn't have left where I was to have saved my
life. But I remember so well asking myself why it was that women will
let down their back hair when they're in a state of excitement, and make
'emselves look so wild.
"By-and-by someone came to say how bad my wife was, and that she wanted
to see me; but I felt that I couldn't go, and kept on in a fevered sort
of way, work, work; and I've thought since that if she had been dying it
would have been all the same. However, I heard soon after that she
seemed a little better; and I found out afterwards that a doctor there
had given the poor thing something that seemed to calm her and she went
to sleep.
"It would have been a strong dose, though, that would have sent me off
to sleep, as still on, hour after hour, I worked there, never tiring,
but lifting beams that two or three men would have gone at, and tossing
the rubbish away like so much straw.
"The owners were kind enough, and did all they could to encourage the
men, sending out beer and other refreshments; but the heap of stuff to
move was something frightful, and more than once I felt quite in
despair, and ready to sit down and weakly cry. But I was at it again
the next moment, and working with the best of them.
"`Hadn't you better leave now?' said one of my masters; `I'll see that
everything is done.'
"I gave him one look, and he laid his hand kindly on my shoulder, and
said no more to me about going; and I heard him say, `Poor fellow!' to
some one by him, as he turned away.
"We came upon the biler quite half-a-dozen yards out of its place,
ripped right across where the rivers went; while as for the engine, it
was one curious bit of iron tangle--rode, and bars, and pieces of iron
and brass, twisted and turned and bent about, like so much string; and
the great flywheel was broken in half-a-dozen places.
"This showed us now where the great cellar-like place--the stoke-hole--
was; and we worked down now towards that; but still clearing the way,
for how could I tell where the child might be? But it was weary, slow
work; every now and then rigging up shears, and fastening ropes and
pulley and sheaf, to haul up some great piece of iron or a beam; and
willing as every one was, we made very little progress in the dark
night.
"Once we had to stop and batter away a wall with a scaffold pole; for
the police declared it to be unsafe, and the sergeant would not let us
work near it till it was down; and all the while I was raging like a
madman at the check. But it was of no use, and the man was right. He
was doing his duty, and not like me, searching for the little crushed
form of my darling in the cruel ruins. The people made me worse, for
they would talk and say what they thought, so that I could hear. One
would say she might still be alive, another would shake his head, and so
on; when I kept stopping, in spite of all I tried not, listening to what
they said, and it all seemed so much lost time.
"The engine-room was now cleared, and in spite of my trembling and
horror, as every big piece was disturbed, nothing had been found; but
all at once, as we were trying to clear behind the biler, and get down
to the stoke-hole, one of the men gate a cry. I caught at the man
nearest to me, and then lights, rubbish, the strange wild scene, all
seemed to run round me, and I should have fallen only the man held me
up, and some one brought me some brandy.
"I was myself again directly, and stumbling over the bricks to where a
knot of men had collected, and a policeman had his bull's-eye lantern
open, and they were stooping to look at something that lay just under a
beam they had raised--to the left of where I expected she would be
found.
"`Smashed,' I heard some one, with his back to me, say; and then some
one else, `Poor little thing, she must have run past here!'
"Then, with my throat dry and my eyes staring, I crept up and thrust two
men aside, right and left, when the others made way for me without
speaking, and, when I got close up, I covered my face with my hands, and
softly knelt down.
"The policeman said something, and some one else spoke cheerily; but I
couldn't hear what they said, for my every thought was upon what I was
going to see. And now, for the first time, the great, blinding tears
came gushing from my eyes, so that when I slowly took down first one
hand and then another, I was blinded, and could not see for a few
moments; till, stooping a little lower, there, smashed and flattened,
covered with mortar and dust, was my old red cotton handkercher tied
round the basin and plate that held my dinner, dropped here by my little
darling girl.
"For a few moments I was, as it were, struck dumb--it was so different a
sight to what I had expected to see; and then I leaped up and laughed,
and shouted, and danced--the relief was so great.
"`Come on!' I cried again; and then, for an hour or more, we were at
it, working away till the light began to come in the east, and tell us
that it was daybreak.
"Late as it was, plenty of people had stopped all the time; for, somehow
or another, hundreds had got to know the little bright, golden-haired
thing that trotted backwards and forwards every day with my dinner
basin. She was too little to do it, but then, bless you, that was our
pride; for the wife combed and brushed and dressed her up on purpose.
And fine and proud we used to be of the little thing, going and coming--
so old-fashioned. Why, lots of heads used to be thrust out to watch
her; and seeing how pretty, and artless, and young she was, we used to
feel that every one would try and protect her; and it was so. Time
after time, that night, I saw motherly-looking women, that I did not
know, with their aprons to their eyes, sobbing and crying; and though I
didn't notice it then, I remembered it well enough afterwards--ah! and
always shall; while the way in which some of the men worked--well-to-do
men, who would have thought themselves insulted if you'd offered 'em
five shillings for their night's job--showed how my poor little darling
had won the hearts of all around. Often and often since, too, I could
have stopped this one, and shook hands with that one for their kindness;
only there's always that shut-upness about an Englishman that seems to
make him all heart at a time of sorrow, and a piece of solid bluntness
at every other time.
"Well, it was now just upon morning, and we were all worked up to a
pitch of excitement that nothing could be like. We had been expecting
to come upon the poor child all the afternoon and night, but now there
could be no doubt of it. She must be here; for we were now down in the
stoke-hole, working again with more vigour than had been shown for
hours. Men's faces were flushed, and their teeth set. They didn't
talk, only in Whispers; and the stuff went flying out as fast as others
could take it away.
"`Easy, easy,' the sergeant of police kept saying, as he and two of his
men kept us well lit with the strong light of their lanterns.
"But the men tore on, till at last the place was about cleared out, and
we had got to a mass of brick wall sloping against one side, and a
little woodwork on the other side, along with some rubbish.
"And now was the exciting time, as we went, four of us, at the brick
wall, and dragged at it, when some women up above shrieked out, and we
stood trembling, for it had crumbled down and lay all of a heap where we
had raised it from.
"`Quick!' I shouted, huskily. And we tore the bricks away till there
was hardly a scrap left, and we stood staring at one another.
"`Why, she ain't here, arter all!' says a policeman.
"`I'm blest,' says another.
"But I couldn't speak, for I did not know what to do; but stood staring
about as if I expected next to see the little darling come running up
again unhurt.
"`Try there,' says the sergeant.
"Then he turned on his light in a dark corner, where the bits of wood
lay, and I darted across and threw back two or three pieces, when I gave
a cry, and fell on my knees again. For there was no mistake this time:
I had uncovered a little foot, and there was the white sock all
blood-stained; and I felt a great sob rise from my breast as I stooped
down and kissed the little red spot.
"`Steady,' said the sergeant; and then quickly, as I knelt there, they
reached over me, and lifted piece after piece away, till there, in the
grey light of the morning, I was looking upon the little motionless
figure, lying there with her golden hair, as I had fancied, dabbled in
blood from a cut in her little white forehead, where the blood had run,
but now lay hard and dry. Covered with blood and scraps of mortar, she
lay stretched out there, and I felt as if my heart would break to see
the little, peaceful face almost with a smile upon it; while, as if out
of respect to my feelings, the men all drew back, till I knelt there
alone.
"And now far up in the sky the warm light of the rising sun shone, and
it was reflected down upon that tiny face, and as I knelt there in the
still silence of that early morn I could hear again and again a
half-stifled sob from those looking on.
"With trembling hands I leaned forward and gently raised her head; then,
passing one beneath her, I rose on my knee to bear her out, when I
stopped as if turned to stone, then left go, and clasped both my raw and
bleeding hands to my blackened forehead, as shrieking out--`My God,
she's alive!' I fell back insensible; for those little blue eyes had
opened at my touch, and a voice, whispered the one word--
"`Father!'
"That's her, sir. Fine girl she's grown, ain't she? but she was
beautiful as a child. Hair ever so many shades lighter; and, unless you
went close up, you couldn't see the mark of that cut, though it was some
time before the scar gave over looking red.
"But really, you know, sir, there ought to be something done about these
bilers; for the rate at which they're a-bustin's fearful."