"Who's there?"
"All right--open the door! Cob and I have come down to see how you are
getting on," said Uncle Jack.
The gate was unlocked and a stout iron bar that had been added to the
defences taken down.
"Why, what brings you two here?" cried Uncle Dick. "What's the matter?"
"That's what we want to know. How long has the dog been uneasy?"
"For the past hour. I had gone to lie down; Bob was watchman. All at
once Piter began barking furiously, and I got up directly."
"Let's have another look round," said Uncle Jack.
"Here, Piter!" I cried; "what's the matter, old fellow?"
The dog whined and laid his great jowl in my hand, blinking up at me and
trying to make his savage grin seem to be a pleasant smile; but all at
once he started away, threw up his head, and barked again angrily.
"What is it, old fellow?" I said. "Here, show us them. What is it?"
Piter looked at me, whined, and then barked again angrily as if there
was something very wrong indeed; but he could only smell it in the air.
What it was or where it was he did not seem to know.
We had a good look round, searching everywhere, and not without a great
deal of trepidation; for after the past night's experience with the
powder it was impossible to help feeling nervous.
That's what Uncle Jack called it. I felt in a regular fright.
"Everything seems quite satisfactory," Uncle Jack was fain to say at
last. And then, "Look here, boys," he cried, "Cob and I have been
talking this matter over, and we say that the works must take care of
themselves. You two have to come back with us."
"What! And leave the place to its fate?" said Uncle Dick.
"Yes. Better do that than any mishap should come to you."
"What do you say, Bob?"
"I've a very great objection to being blown up, knocked on the head, or
burned," said Uncle Bob quietly. "It's just so with a soldier; he does
not want to be shot, bayoneted, or sabred, but he has to take his
chance. I'm going to take mine."
"So am I," said Uncle Dick.
"But, my dear boys--"
"There, it's of no use; is it, Bob?" cried Uncle Dick. "If we give way
he'll always be bouncing over us about how he kept watch and we
daren't."
"Nonsense!" cried Uncle Jack.
"Well, if you didn't," said Uncle Bob, "that cocky consequential small
man of a boy, Cob, will be always going about with his nose in the air
and sneering. I shall stay."
"Then we will stay with you."
My uncles opposed this plan, but Uncle Jack declared that he could not
sleep if he went back; so the others gave in and we stayed, taking two
hours turns, and the night passed slowly by.
Every now and then Piter had an uneasy fit, bursting out into a
tremendous series of barks and howls, but there seemed to be no reason
for the outcry.
He was worst during the watch kept by Uncle Jack and me after we had had
a good sleep, and there was something very pathetic in the way the poor
dog looked at us, as much as to say, "I wish I could speak and put you
on your guard."
But the night passed without any trouble; the men came in to their work,
and with the darkness the fear seemed to have passed away. For there in
the warm sunshine the water of the dam was dancing and sparkling, the
great wheel went round, and inside the works the grindstones were
whizzing and the steel being ground was screeching. Bellows puffed, and
fires roared, and there was the _clink clank_ of hammers sounding
musically upon the anvils, as the men forged blades out of the improved
steel my uncles were trying to perfect.
Business was increasing, and matters went so smoothly during the next
fortnight that our troubles seemed to be at an end. In one week six
fresh men were engaged, and after the sluggish times in London, where
for a couple of years past business had been gradually dying off,
everything seemed to be most encouraging.
Some of the men engaged were queer characters. One was a great swarthy
giant with hardly any face visible for black hair, and to look at he
seemed fit for a bandit, but to talk to he was one of the most gentle
and amiable of men. He was a smith, and when he was at the anvil he
used almost to startle me, he handled a heavy hammer so violently.
I often stood at the door watching him seize a piece of steel with the
tongs, whisk it out of the forge with a flourish that sent the white-hot
scintillations flying through the place, bang it down on the anvil, and
then beat it savagely into the required shape.
Then he would thrust it into the fire again, begin blowing the bellows
with one hand and stroke a kitten that he kept at the works with his
unoccupied hand, talking to it all the time in a little squeaking voice
like a boy's.
He was very fond of swinging the sparkling and sputtering steel about my
head whenever I went in, but he was always civil, and the less I heeded
his queer ways the more civil he became.
There was a grinder, too, taken on at the same time, a short
round-looking man, with plump cheeks, and small eyes which were often
mere slits in his face. He had a little soft nose, too, that looked
like a plump thumb, and moved up and down and to right and left when he
was intent upon his work. He was the best-tempered man in the works,
and seemed to me as if he was always laughing and showing his two rows
of firm white teeth.
I somehow quite struck up an acquaintance with these two men, for while
the others looked askant at me and treated me as if I were my uncle's
spy, sent into the works to see how the men kept on, Pannell the smith
and Gentles the grinder were always ready to be civil.
My friendliness with Pannell began one morning when I had caught a mouse
up in the office overlooking the dam, where I spent most of my time
making drawings and models with Uncle Bob.
This mouse I took down as a _bonne bouche_ for Pannell's kitten, and as
soon as he saw the little creature seize it and begin to spit and swear,
he rested upon his hammer handle and stopped to watch it.
Next time I went into the smithy he did not flourish the white-hot steel
round my head, but gave it a flourish in another direction, banged it
down upon the anvil, and in a very short time had turned it into the
blade of a small hand-bill.
"You couldn't do that," he said smiling, as he cooled the piece of steel
and threw it down on the floor before taking out another.
"Not like that," I said. "I could do it roughly."
"Yah! Not you," he said. "Try."
I was only too eager, and seizing the pincers I took out one of the
glowing pieces of steel lying ready, laid it upon the anvil and beat it
into shape, forming a rough imitation of the work I had been watching,
but with twice as many strokes, taking twice as long, and producing work
not half so good.
When I had done he picked up the implement, turned it over and over,
looked at me, threw it down, and then went and stroked his kitten,
staring straight before him.
"Why, I couldn't ha' done a bit o' forging like that when I'd been at it
fower year," he said in his high-pitched voice.
"But my uncles have often shown me how," I said.
"What! Can they forge?" he said, staring very hard at me.
"Oh, yes, as well as you can!"
He blew hard at the kitten and then shook his head in a dissatisfied
way, after which it seemed as if I had offended him, for he seized his
hammer and pincers and began working away very hard, finishing a couple
of the steel bill-hooks before he spoke again.
"Which on 'em 'vented this here contrapshion?" he said, pointing to an
iron bar, by touching which he could direct a blast of air into his fire
without having the need of a man or boy to blow.
"Uncle John," I said.
"What! Him wi' the biggest head?"