Every day the works grew more busy, and prosperity seemed to be coming
upon us like sunshine. The men worked steadily and well, and the old
opposition had apparently died out; but all the same the watching was
kept up as regularly as if it was during war time, though, saving an
occasional burst of barking from Piter, who used to have these fits
apparently without cause, there was nothing to alarm the watchers.
It was my turn at home, and I was up early the next morning, wondering
how Uncle Jack and Uncle Bob had got on during the night, when I came
down and found Mrs Stephenson and Martha the maid enjoying themselves.
Their way of enjoying themselves was peculiar, but that it afforded them
pleasure there could be no doubt. It might have been considered a
religious ceremony, but though there was a kind of worship or adoration
about it, there was nothing religious in the matter at all.
What they did was this:--To mix up a certain quantity of black-lead in a
little pie-dish, and then kneel down before a stove, and work and slave
at it till there was a tremendous gloss all over the iron.
In effecting this Mrs Stephenson used to get a little smudgy, but
Martha seemed to have an itching nose which always itched most on these
occasions, and as you watched her you saw her give six scrubs at the
grate with the front of the brush, and then one rub with the back on her
face or nose.
This act must have been pleasant, for as she bent down and scrubbed she
frowned, as she sat up and rubbed her nose with the back of the brush
she smiled.
Now if Martha had confined her rubs to her nose it would not have much
mattered, but in rubbing her nose she also rubbed her cheeks, her chin,
her forehead, and the consequence was a great waste of black-lead, and
her personal appearance was not improved.
I was standing watching the black-leading business, an affection from
which most north-country people suffer very badly, when Uncle Jack came
hurrying in, looking hot and excited. "Where's Dick?" he cried.
"In his room drawing plans," I cried. "What's the matter? Is Uncle Bob
hurt?"
"No, not a bit!"
"Then Piter is?"
"No, no, no. Here, Dick!" he shouted up the stairs. There was a sound
on the upper floor as if some one had just woke an elephant, and Uncle
Dick came lumbering down.
"What's wrong?" he cried.
Uncle Jack glanced round and saw that Mrs Stephenson was looking up
from where she knelt in the front room, with her eyes and mouth wide
open as the door, and Martha was slowly rubbing her nose with the
black-lead brush and waiting for him to speak.
"Put on your hat and come down to the works," he said.
We moved by one impulse into the passage, and as we reached the door
Mrs Stephenson cried:
"Brackfass won't be long;" and then the sound of black-leading went on.
"Now, then," said Uncle Dick as we reached the street, "what is it?
Anything very wrong?"
"Terribly," said Uncle Jack.
"Well, what is it? Why don't you speak?"
"Come and see for yourself," said Uncle Jack bitterly. "I thought
matters were smoothing down, but they are getting worse, and I feel
sometimes that we might as well give up as carry on this unequal war."
"No: don't give up, Uncle Jack," I cried. "Let's fight the cowards."
"Bring them into the yard then so that we can fight them," he cried
angrily. "The cowardly back-stabbers; sneaks in the dark. I couldn't
have believed that such things could go on in England."
"Well, but we had heard something about what the Arrowfield men could
do, and we knew about how in the Lancashire district the work-people
used to smash new machinery."
"There, wait till you've seen what has happened," cried Uncle Jack
angrily. "You've just risen after a night's rest. I've come to you
after a night's watching, and you and I feel differently about the same
thing."
Very little more was said before we reached the works, where the first
thing I saw was a group of men round the gate, talking together with
their hands in their pockets.
Gentles was among them, smoking a short black pipe, and he shut his eyes
at me as we passed, which was his way of bestowing upon me a smile.
When we passed through the gate the men followed as if we were a set of
doctors about to put something right for them, and as if they had been
waiting for us to come.
Uncle Bob was standing by the door as we came across the yard, and as
soon as we reached him he turned in and we followed.
There was no occasion for him to speak; he just walked along the great
workshop, pointing to right and left, and we saw at once why the men
were idling about.
Few people who read this will have any difficulty in understanding what
wheel-bands are. They used to be very common in the streets, joining
the wheels of the knife-grinders' barrows, and now in almost every house
they are seen in the domestic treadle sewing-machine. Similar to these,
but varying in size, are the bands in a factory. They may be broad flat
leather straps of great weight and size, formed by sewing many lengths
together, or they may be string-like cords of twisted catgut. They all
come under the same name, and there were scores in our works connecting
the shaft wheels of the main shaft turned by the water-power with the
grindstones of the lower floor and the lathes and polishers of the
upper. By these connections wheel, stone, and chuck were set
spinning-round. Without them everything was at a stand-still.
As we walked down between the grindstones it was plain enough to see--
every wheel-band had been cut.
It was the same upstairs--broad bands and cords all had been divided
with a sharp knife, and Uncle Bob held a piece of whetstone in his hand
which had been thrown down by the door, evidently after being used by
the miscreant who had done this cowardly trick.
As we went upstairs and saw the mischief there the men followed us like
a flock of sheep, waiting to see what we should do, for they were
perforce idle. Only the smiths could work, for by accident or oversight
the band which connected the shaft with the blowing apparatus had
escaped, and as we stood there by the office door we could hear the
_clink clink_ of the hammers upon the anvils and the pleasant roar of
each forge.
"Hallo! What's this?" cried Uncle Jack as he caught sight of something
white on the office door, which proved to be a letter stuck on there by
a common wooden-handled shoemakers' knife having been driven right
through it.
"I did not see that before," said Uncle Bob excitedly.
"No, because it was not there," said Uncle Jack. "I should have seen it
if it had been there when I came out of the office first."
"And _I_ am sure that I should have seen it," said Uncle Bob.
The letter was opened and read by Uncle Jack, who passed it on to his
brothers.
They read it in turn, and it was handed to me, when I read as follows:
"_This hear's the nif as coot them weel-bans. Stope makhin noo kine
steel, or be strang and bad for wurks_."
"Come in the office and let's talk it over," said Uncle Bob. "This must
have been placed here by someone in the works."
"Yes," said Uncle Jack bitterly. "It is plain enough: the wheel-bands
have been cut by one of the men who get their living by us, and who take
our pay."
"And you see the scoundrel who wrote that letter threatens worse
treatment if we do not give up making the new silver steel."
"Yes," said Uncle Jack sternly as he turned to Uncle Dick; "what do you
mean to do?"
"Begin a fresh batch to-day, and let the men know it is being done.
Here, let's show them that we can be as obstinate as they." Then aloud
as we approached the men where they had grouped together, talking about
the "cooten bands," as they termed it. "You go at once to the
machinist's and get a couple of men sent on to repair such of these
bands as they can, and put new ones where they are shortened too much by
the mending."
Uncle Bob smiled at once.
"Look here," said Uncle Dick sharply, "some of you men can make shift by
tying or binding your bands till they are properly done."
"Ay, mester," came in a growl, and shortly after the sound of steel
being ground upon the sharply-spinning stones was heard. An hour later
a couple of men were fitting bands to some of the wheels, and mending
others by lacing them together.
I was standing watching them as they fitted a new band to Gentles'
wheel, while he stood with his bared arms folded, very eager to begin
work again.
"Ain't it a cruel shaame?" he whispered. "Here's me, a poor chap paid
by the piece, and this morning half gone as you may say. This job's a
couple o' loaves out o' my house."
He wiped a tear out of the corner of each half-closed eye as he stared
at me in a miserable helpless kind of way, and somehow he made me feel
so annoyed with him that I felt as if I should like to slap his fat face
and then kick him.
I went away very much exasperated and glad to get out of the reach of
temptation, leaving my uncles busily superintending the fitting of the
bands, and helping where they could do anything to start a man on again
with his work. And all the time they seemed to make very light of the
trouble, caring for nothing but getting the men started again.
I went down into the smithy, where Pannell was at work, and as I entered
the place he looked for a moment from the glowing steel he was hammering
into a shape, to which it yielded as if it had been so much tough wax,
and then went on again as if I had not been there.
His kitten was a little more friendly, though, for it ran from the
brickwork of the forge, leaped on to a bench behind me, and bounded from
that on to my back, and crept to my shoulder, where it could rub its
head against my ear.
"Well, Pannell," I said, "you've heard about the cowardly trick done in
the shops?"
"Ay, I heered on't," he cried, as he battered away at the steel on his
anvil.
"Who did it?"
"Did it!" he cried, nipping the cherry-red steel in a fresh place and
thrusting it back in the fire. "Don't they know? Didn't they hear in
the night?"
"No," I said; "they heard nothing, not a sound. The dog did not even
bark, they say."
"Would he bite a man hard?"
"He'd almost eat a man if he attacked him."
"Ay, he looks it," said Pannell, patting the black coal-dust down over a
glowing spot.
"Well, who do you think did it?" I said.
"Someone as come over the wall, I s'pose; but you'd better not talk
about it."
"But I like to talk about it," I said. "Oh, I should like to find out
who it was! It was someone here."
"Here!" he cried, whisking out the steel.
"Yes, the sneaking, blackguardly, cowardly hound!" I cried.
"Hush!" he whispered sharply; "some one may hear again."
I stared at the great swarthy fellow, for he looked sallow and seared,
and it seemed, so strange to me that, while I only felt annoyance, he
should be alarmed.
"Why, Pannell," I cried, "what's the matter?"
"Best keep a still tongue," he said in a whisper. "You never know who
may hear you."
"I don't care who hears me. It was a coward and a scoundrel who cut our
bands, and I should like to tell him so to his face."
"Howd thee tongue, I say," he cried, hammering away at his anvil, to
drown my words in noise. "What did I tell thee?"
"That some one might hear me. Well, let him. Why, Pannell, you look as
if you had done it yourself. It wasn't you, was it?"
He turned upon me quite fiercely, hammer in hand, making me think about
Wat Tyler and the tax-gatherer; but he did not strike me: he brought his
hammer down upon the anvil with a loud clang.
"Nay," he said; "I nivver touched no bands. It warn't my wuck."
"Well, I never thought it was," I said. "You don't look the sort of man
who would be a coward."
"Oh, that's what you think, is it, lad?"
"Yes," I said, seating myself on the bench and stroking the kitten. "A
blacksmith always seems to me to be a bold manly straightforward man,
who would fight his enemy fairly face to face, and not go in the dark
and stab him."
"Ah!" he said; "but I arn't a blacksmith, I'm a white-smith, and work in
steel."
"It's much the same," I said thoughtfully; and then, looking him full in
the face: "No, Pannell, I don't think you cut the bands, but I feel
pretty sure you know who did."
The man's jaw dropped, and he looked quite paralysed for a moment or
two. Then half recovering himself he plunged his tongs into the fire,
pulled out a sputtering white piece of glowing steel, gave it his
regular whirl through the air like a firework, and, instead of banging
it on to the anvil, plunged it with a fierce toss into the iron
water-trough, and quenched it.
"Why, Pannell!" I cried, "what made you do that?"
He scratched his head with the hand that held the hammer, and stared at
me for a few moments, and then down at the black steel that he had taken
dripping from the trough.
"Dunno," he said hoarsely, "dunno, lad."
"I do," I said to myself as I set down the kitten and went back to join
my uncles, who were in consultation in the office.
They stopped short as I entered, and Uncle Bob turned to me. "Well,
Philosopher Cob," he said, "what do you say? Who did this cowardly
act--was it someone in the neighbourhood, or one of our own men?"
"Yes, who was it?" said Uncle Dick.
"We are all divided in our opinions," said Uncle Jack.
"One of our own men," I said; "and Pannell the smith knows who it was."
"And will he tell?"
"No. I think the men are like schoolboys in that. No one would speak
for fear of being thought a sneak."
"Yes," said Uncle Dick, "and not only that; in these trades-unions the
men are all bound together, as it were, and the one who betrayed the
others' secrets would be in peril of his life."
"How are we to find out who is the scoundrel?" I said.
Uncle Dick shook his head, and did what he always found to be the most
satisfactory thing in these cases, set to work as hard as he could, and
Uncles Jack and Bob followed his example.