Fancy the horrors of that night! The great dam about which one of my
uncles had expressed his doubts when we visited it the previous year,
and of which he had spoken as our engine, had given way in the centre of
the vast earthen wall like a railway embankment. A little crack had
grown and grown--the trickling water that came through had run into a
stream, then into a river, and then a vast breach in the embankment was
made, and a wall of water had rushed down the valley swiftly as a fast
train, carrying destruction before it.
The ruin of that night is historical, and when after a few hours we made
our way up the valley, it was to see at every turn the devastation that
had been caused. Mills and houses had been swept away as if they had
been corks, strongly-built works with massive stone walls had crumbled
away like cardboard, and their machinery had been carried down by the
great wave of water, stones, gravel, and mud.
Trees had been lifted up by their roots; rows of cottages cut in half;
banks of the valley carved out, and for miles and miles, down in the
bottom by the course of the little river, the face of the country was
changed. Here where a beautiful garden had stretched down to the stream
was a bed of gravel and sand; there where verdant meadows had lain were
sheets of mud; and in hundreds of places trees, plants, and the very
earth had been swept clear away down to where there was only solid rock.
When we reached the great embankment the main part of the water was
gone, and in the middle there was the huge gap through which it had
escaped.
"Too much water for so frail a dam," said Uncle Jack sententiously.
"Boys, we must not bemoan our loss in the face of such a catastrophe as
this."
We had no right, for to us the flood, exhausted and spread by its
eight-mile race, had been our saving, the greater part of our
destruction being by fire, for which we should have recompense; while
for the poor creatures who had been in an instant robbed of home and in
many cases of relatives, what recompense could there be!
The loss of life was frightful, and the scenes witnessed as first one
poor creature and then another was discovered buried in sand and mud
after being borne miles by the flood, are too painful to record.
Suffice it that the flood had swept down those eight miles of valley,
doing incalculable damage, and leaving traces that remained for years.
The whole of the loss was never known, and till then people were to a
great extent in ignorance of the power that water could exercise. In
many cases we stood appalled at the changes made high up the valley, and
the manner in which masses of stonework had been swept along. Stone was
plentiful in the neighbourhood and much used in building, and wherever
the flood had come in contact with a building it was taken away bodily,
to crumble up as it was borne along, and augment the power of the water,
which became a wave charged with stones, masses of rock, and beams of
wood, ready to batter into nothingness every obstacle that stood in its
way.
"It seems impossible that all this could be done in a few minutes," said
Uncle Dick.
"No, not when you think of the power of water," said Uncle Jack quietly.
"Think of how helpless one is when bathing, against an ordinary wave.
Then think of that wave a million times the size, and tearing along a
valley charged with _debris_, and racing at you as fast as a horse could
gallop."
We came back from the scene of desolation ready to make light of our own
trouble, and the way in which my uncles worked to help the sufferers
down in the lower part of the town gave the finishing touches to the
work of many months.
There was so much trouble in the town and away up the valley, so much
suffering to allay, that the firing of our works by the despicable
scoundrels who worked in secret over these misdeeds became a very
secondary matter, and seemed to cause no excitement at all.
"But you must make a stir about this," said Mr Tomplin. "The villains
who did that deed must be brought to justice. The whole affair will
have to be investigated, and I'm afraid we shall have to begin by
arresting that man of yours--the watcher Searby."
But all this was not done. Searby came and gave a good account of
himself--how he had been deluded away, and then so beaten with sticks
that he was glad to crawl home; and he needed no words to prove that he
had suffered severely in our service.
"Let's set the prosecution aside for the present," said Uncle Jack, "and
repair damages. We can talk about that when the work is going again."
This advice was followed out, and the insurance company proving very
liberal, as soon as they were satisfied of the place having been
destroyed by fire, better and more available buildings soon occupied the
position of the old, the machinery was repaired, and in two months the
works were in full swing once more.
It might almost have been thought that the flood swept away the foul
element that originated the outrages which had disgraced the place. Be
that as it may, the burning of our works was almost the last of these
mad attempts to stop progress and intimidate those who wished to improve
upon the old style of doing things.
I talked to Pannell and Stevens about the fire afterwards and about
having caught sight of three men landing from a raft and going down
towards the river just before the flood came.
But they both tightened their lips and shook their heads. They would
say nothing to the point.
Pannell was the more communicative of the two, but his remarks were
rather enigmatical.
"Men jynes in things sometimes as they don't like, my lad. Look here,"
he said, holding a glowing piece of steel upon his anvil and giving it a
tremendous thump. "See that? I give that bit o' steel a crack, and it
was a bad un, but I can't take that back, can I?"
"No, of course not, but you can hammer the steel into shape again."
"That's what some on us is trying to do, my lad, and best thing towards
doing it is holding one's tongue."
That spring my father and mother came down, and that autumn I left
Arrowfield and went to an engineering school for four years, after which
I went out with a celebrated engineer who was going to build some iron
railway bridges over one of the great Indian rivers.
I was out there four years more, and it was with no little pleasure that
I returned to the old country, and went down home, to find things very
little changed.
Of course my uncles were eight years older, but it was singular how
slightly they were altered. The alteration was somewhere else.
"By the way, Cob," said Uncle Dick, "I thought we wouldn't write about
it at the time, and then it was forgotten; but just now, seeing you
again, all the old struggles came back. You remember the night of the
fire?"
"Is it likely I could forget it?" I said.
"No, not very. But you remember going down to the works and finding no
watchman--no dog."
"What! Did you find out what became of poor old Jupiter?"
"Yes, poor fellow! The scoundrels drowned him."
"Oh!"
"Yes. We had to drain the dam and have the mud cleaned out three--four
years ago, and we found his chain twisted round a great piece of iron
and the collar still round some bones."
"The cowardly ruffians!" I exclaimed.
"Yes," said Uncle Jack; "but that breed of workman seems to be dying out
now."
"And all those troubles," said Uncle Bob, "are over."
That afternoon I went down to the works, which seemed to have grown
smaller in my absence; but they were in full activity; and turning off
to the new range of smithies I entered one where a great bald-headed man
with a grisly beard was hammering away at a piece of steel.
He did not look up as I entered, but growled out:
"I shall want noo model for them blades, Mester John, and sooner the
better."
"Why, Pannell, old fellow!" I said.
He raised his head and stared at me.
"Why, what hev yow been doing to theeself, Mester John?" he said. "Thou
looks--thou looks--"
He stopped short, and the thought suddenly came to me that last time he
saw me I was a big boy, and that in eight years I had grown into a
broad-shouldered man, six feet one high, and had a face bronzed by the
Indian sun, and a great thick beard.
"Why, Pannell, don't you know me?"
He threw down the piece of steel he had been hammering, struck the anvil
a clanging blow with all his might, shouted "I'm blest!" and ran out of
the smithy shouting:
"Hey! Hi, lads! Stivins--Gentles! The hull lot on yo'! Turn out
here! Hey! Hi! Here's Mester Jacob come back."
The men who had known me came running out, and those who had not known
me came to see what it all meant, and it meant really that the rough
honest fellows were heartily glad to see me.
But first they grouped about me and stared; then their lips spread, and
they laughed at me, staring the while as if I had been some great wild
beast or a curiosity.
"On'y to think o' this being him!" cried Pannell; and he stamped about,
slapping first one knee and then the other, making his leather apron
sound again.
"Yow'll let a mon shek hans wi' thee, lad?" cried Pannell. "Hey, that's
hearty! On'y black steel," he cried in apology for the state of his
hand.
Then I had to shake hands all round, and listen to the remarks made,
while Gentles evidently looked on, but with his eyes screwed tight.
"Say a--look at his arms, lads," cried Stevens, who was as excited as
everybody. "He hev growed a big un. Why, he bets the three mesters
'cross the showthers."
Then Pannell started a cheer, and so much fuss was made over me that I
was glad to take refuge in the office, feeling quite ashamed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Why, Cob, you had quite an ovation," said Uncle Bob.
"Yes, just because I have grown as big as my big uncles," I said in a
half-vexed way.
"No," said Uncle Dick, "not for that, my lad. The men remember you as
being a stout-hearted plucky boy who was always ready to crush down his
weakness, and fight in the cause of right."
"And who always treated them in a straightforward manly way," said Uncle
Jack.
"What! Do you mean to say those men remember what I used to do?"
"Remember!" cried Uncle Bob; "why it is one of their staple talks about
how you stood against the night birds who used to play us such cowards'
tricks. Why, Gentles remains _Trappy_ Gentles to this day."
"And bears no malice?" I said.
"Malice! Not a bit. He's one of our most trusty men."
"Don't say that, Bob," said Uncle Jack. "We haven't a man who wouldn't
fight for us to the end."
"Not one," said Uncle Dick. "You worked wonders with them, Cob, when
you were here."
"Let's see, uncles," I said; "I've been away eight years."
"Yes," they said.
"Well, I haven't learned yet what it is not to be modest, and I hope I
never shall."
"What do you mean?" said Uncle Dick.
"What do I mean!" I said. "Why, what did I do but what you three dear
old fellows taught me? Eh?"
There was a silence in the office for a few minutes. No; only a pause
as to words, for wheels were turning, blades shrieking, water splashing,
huge hammers thudding, and there was the hiss and whirr of steam-sped
machines, added since I went away, for "Russell's," as the men called
our works, was fast becoming one of the most prosperous of the small
businesses in our town.
Then Uncle Dick spoke gravely, and said: "Cob, there are boys who will
be taught, and boys whom people try to teach and never seem to move.
Now you--"
No, I cannot set down what he said, for I profess to be modest still. I
must leave off sometime, so it shall be here.