Chapter Twelve.

Chapter Twelve.Pannell’s Secret.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 theclink clinkof 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.”“AndIam 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 shaäme?” 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.

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 theclink clinkof 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.”

“AndIam 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.”

“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 shaäme?” 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.

Chapter Thirteen.Only a Glass of Water.The keeping watch of a night had now grown into a regular business habit, and though we discovered nothing, the feeling was always upon us that if we relaxed our watchfulness for a few hours something would happen.The paper stuck on the door was not forgotten by my uncles, but the men went on just as usual, and the workshops were as busy as ever, and after a good deal of drawing and experimenting Uncle Dick or Uncle Jack kept producing designs for knives or tools to be worked up out of the new steel.“But,” said I one day, “I don’t see that this reaping-hook will be any better than the old-fashioned one.”“The steel is better and will keep sharp longer, my lad, but people would not believe that it was in the slightest degree different, unless they had something to see,” said Uncle Dick.So the men were set to forge and grind the different shaped tools and implements that were designed, and I often heard them laughing and jeering at what they called the “contrapshions.”My turn came round to keep the morning watch about a week after the new bands had been fitted. Uncle Bob had been on guard during the night, and just as I was comfortably dreaming of a pleasant country excursion I was awakened by a cheery, “Tumble up, Tumble up!”I sat up confused and drowsy, but that soon passed off as Uncle Bob laughingly told me, in sham nautical parlance, that all was well on deck; weather hazy, and no rocks ahead as far as he knew.“Oh,” I said yawning, “I do wish all this watching was over!”“So do I, Cob,” he cried; “but never mind, we shall tire the rascals out yet.”I thought to myself that they would tire us out first, as I went down grumpily and disposed to shiver; and then, to thoroughly waken and warm myself, I had a good trot round the big furnace, where the men had tried to fire the powder.It was circus-horse sort of work, that running round on the black ashes and iron scales, but it warmed me, and as the miserable shivery feeling went off I felt brighter and more ready for my task.Piter was with me trotting close behind, as I ran round and round; and when at last I was pretty well out of breath I sat down on a bench, and took the dog’s fore-paws on my knees, as I thought about how different my life here seemed from what I had expected. There had been some unpleasant adventures, and a good deal of work, but otherwise my daily career seemed to be very monotonous, and I wondered when our old country trips were to be renewed.Then I had a good look round the place upstairs and down; and, so sure as I passed an open window, I felt about with my hands for wires, the memory of that powder-tin being too vivid to be forgotten.I went and listened by the office door, and could hear my uncle breathing heavily.I went and looked out at the dam, which was always worth looking at for its reflections of the heavens, but it was perfectly still. There was no raft gliding down towards the building.Down in the grinders’ shop all was still, and in the darkness the different shafts and wheels looked very curious and threatening, so much so that it only wanted a little imagination for one to think that this was some terrible torture chamber, the door at the end leading into the place where the water torment was administered, for the curious musical dripping and plashing sounded very thrilling and strange in the solemnity of the night.That place always attracted me, and though there in the darkness I did not care to open the door and look down at the black water, I went and listened, and as I did so it seemed that there was something going on there. Every now and then, came a splash, and then a hurrying as of something being drawn over wet bars of wood. Then there were a series of soft thuds at irregular intervals, and as I listened all this was magnified by imagination, and I was ready to go and call for Uncle Bob to descend when a faint squeaking noise brought me to my senses and I laughed.“Why, Piter,” I said, “what a dog you are! Don’t you hear the rats?”Piter rubbed his great head against me and whined softly.“Don’t care for rats?” I said. “All right, old fellow. I forgot that you were a bull-dog and did not care for anything smaller than a bull, unless it were a man.”I stood listening for a few minutes longer, wondering whether some of the sounds I could hear down by the stonework were made by eels, and, recalling what Gentles had said, I determined that some evening I would have a try for the slimy fellows either down below the great water-wheel or out of the office-window, where I could drop a line into the deepest part of the dam.Then I went into the smiths’ shops and thought about how sulky Pannell had been ever since I had talked to him about the wheel-bands.“This won’t do, Piter,” I said, trying to rouse myself, for I was dreadfully sleepy; and I had another trot with the dog after me in his solid, silent way—for he rarely barked unless it was in anger—but trotted close behind me wherever I might go.I cannot tell you what a fight I had that night—for it was more like night than morning. I walked fast; I tried all sorts of gymnastic attitudes; I leaped up, caught hold of an iron bar and swung by my arms, and whenever I did these things I grew as lively as a cricket; but as soon as, from utter weariness, I ceased, the horrible drowsiness came on again, and as I walked I actually dreamed that there was a man creeping along the ground towards the building.This seemed to wake me, and it was so real that I went out to see—nothing.Then I had another tour of the place; stood leaning against door-posts, and up in corners, ready to drop down with sleep, but fighting it off again.I went out across the yard and had a look at the dam, lay down on the stone edge, and bathed my face with the fresh cold water, turned my handkerchief into a towel, and walked back in the dim, grey light, seeing that morning was breaking, and beginning to rejoice that I had got rid of my drowsy fit, which seemed unaccountable.Piter seemed as drowsy as I, holding his head down in a heavy way as if it were more than he could bear.“Poor old boy! Why, you seem as sleepy as I am, Piter!” I said, as I seated myself on the stairs leading up to the office; and he whined softly and laid his head in my lap.I thought I heard a noise just then, and looked up, but there was no repetition of the sound, and I sat there at a turn of the stairs, leaning against the wall, and wondering why the dog had not started up instead of letting his heavy head drop lower in my lap.“Why, you are as drowsy as I am, Piter,” I cried again, playing with his ears; “anyone would think you had been taking a sleeping draught or something of that kind.”He answered with a heavy snore, just like a human being, and I sat gazing down and out through the open doorway into the yard, thinking that it would not be long now before it was broad daylight instead of that half darkness that seemed so strange and misty that I could only just see through the doorway and distinguish the stones.Then I could hardly see them at all, and then they seemed to disappear, and I could see all over the yard, and the dam and the works all at once. It was a wonderful power of sight that I seemed to possess, for I was looking through the walls of the upper shop, and all through the lower shop, and down into the water-pit. Then I was looking round the furnace, and in at the smiths’ forges, and at the great chimney-shaft, and at the precipice by Dome Tor.What a place that seemed! Since my uncle slipped over it the slaty, shaley face appeared to have grown twice as big and high, and over it and down the steep slope a man was crawling right in from the Dome Tor slip to our works. I saw him come along the stone edge of the dam and over the wheel with the water, to bob up and down in the black pit like a cork float when an eel is biting at a bait. There he went—bob—bob—bob—and down out of sight.It seemed such a splendid bite, that, being fond of fishing, I was about to strike, the absurdity of the idea of fishing with a man for a float never striking me for a moment; but, just as I was going to pull up, the man was crawling over the floor of the grinders’ shop, and the water was not there, though the wheel seemed to be going round and uttering a heavy groan at every turn for want of grease.There he was again, creeping and writhing up the stairs, and higher and higher along the floor among the lathes; then he was in the office, and over the bed where Uncle Bob lay making a snoring noise like the great water-wheel as it turned. What a curiously-long, thin, writhing man he seemed to be as he crawled and wriggled all over the floor and lathes and polishing-wheels. Down, too, into the smiths’ shops, and over the half-extinct fires without burning himself, and all the time the wheel went round with its snoring noise, and the man—who was really a big eel—was ringing a loud bell, and—I jumped up wide-awake, upsetting Piter, and throwing his head out of my lap, when, instead of springing up, he rolled heavily half-way down the stairs as if he were dead.“Why, I’ve been to sleep,” I said angrily to myself, “and dreaming all sorts of absurd nonsense! That comes of thinking about fishing for eels.”I was cold and stiff, and there was a bell ringing in the distance at some works, where the men began an hour sooner than ours. But I took no notice of that, for I was thinking about Piter, and wondering how he could lie so still.“Is he dead?” I thought; and I went down and felt him.He did not move; but it was evident that he was not dead, for he snored heavily, and felt warm enough; but he was too fast asleep to be roused, even when I took hold of his collar and shook him.I was puzzled, and wondered whether he could have had anything to make him so sleepy.But if he had had anything to make him sleepy I had not, and yet I must have been soundly asleep for two or three hours.I remembered, though, that when I last went round the yard Piter had been sniffing about at something, and perhaps he might have eaten what had not agreed with him then.“Poor old boy! He’ll wake up presently,” I said to myself as I lifted him up; and heavy enough he seemed as I carried him down to his kennel, just inside the door, where he lay motionless, snoring heavily still.“Lucky thing that no one has been,” I said to myself, as, feeling thoroughly ashamed of my breach of trust, I went down to the dam, taking a towel with me this time from out of my office-drawer, and there, kneeling on the stones, I had a good bathe at my face and forehead, and went back feeling ever so much fresher.The sounds of toil were rising in the distance, and over the great town the throb and hum and whirr of the busy hive was rising in the sunny morning air, as, with the events of the night fading away, I went in to my office to put away the towel and use the comb and brush I kept there.That done, I was going to call Uncle Bob and walk back with him to our home, for the men would soon be there.Just then the water-bottle and glass upon my desk caught my eye, and, like a flash, I remembered that I had filled the glass and drunk a little water, leaving the glass nearly full so as to take some more if I wanted it, for a glass of water was, I found, a capital thing to keep off drowsiness when one was watching.I was sure I had left that glass nearly full, and standing on the desk; but I had not been and drunk any more, of that I was sure. I don’t know why I had not gone back to have some, considering how sleepy I was, but I certainly had not. I was sure of it.Then the water-bottle! It was a common plain bottle such as is used on a wash-stand, and we had three of them always filled with fresh cold water on the desks. Mine was full when I poured some out in the night, and now it was quite empty; and as I stared at it and then about the room I saw a great patch of wet on the carpet.I looked farther and there was another patch—a smaller patch or big splash, as if the contents of the glass had been thrown down.It was very strange, and I could not understand it. I had not thrown the water down. If I had wanted to get rid of it, I should have gone to the sink outside or have opened the window, and thrown it out into the dam.The matter was of small consequence, and I paid no more attention to it, but went to Uncle Bob, where he was lying, fighting with myself as to whether I should tell him that I had been to sleep.I did not like to speak, for I felt—well I felt as most boys would under the circumstances; but I mastered my moral cowardice, as I thought, and determined to tell him—after breakfast.“Ah, Cob, old chap,” he cried, jumping up as I laid my hand on his shoulder, “what a delicious sleep! What a morning too—Hah! That’s better.”He was dressed, for though whoever lay down, so to speak, went to bed, he never undressed; so that after a plunge of the face and hands in the cool fresh water, and a scrub and brush, Uncle Bob was ready.“I want my breakfast horribly, Cob,” he said; “and we’ve an hour to wait. Let’s have a walk round by the hill as we go home. Have you unlocked the gate?”“Yes,” I said; “before I came up to call you.”“That’s right. Ah, here the men come!” for there was the trampling of feet, and the noise of voices crossing the yard. “Fed Piter?”“No; not yet,” I said. “He’s asleep.”“Asleep!”“Yes; he has been asleep these three hours past—asleep and snoring. He’s in his kennel now. I couldn’t wake him.”“Nice sort of a watch-dog, Cob!”“Yes,” I said, feeling very guilty and shrinking from my confession.“Do you say you tried to wake him?”“Yes,” I said, “I took him up in my arms, and carried him down to his kennel, and he was snoring all the time.”“Carried him down! Where from?”“The stairs. He went to sleep there.”“Cob!” he cried, making the blood flush to my face, and then run back to my heart—“why, what’s the matter, boy, aren’t you well?”“My head aches a little, and my mouth feels rather hot and dry.”“And you’ve got dark marks under your eyes, boy. You’ve not been asleep too, have you?”I stared at him wildly, and felt far more unwell now.“Why don’t you speak?” he cried angrily. “You haven’t been to sleep, have you?”“I was going to confess it, uncle, if you had given me time,” I said. “I never did such a thing before; but I couldn’t keep awake, and fell asleep for over two hours.”“Oh, Cob! Cob!”“I couldn’t help it, uncle,” I cried passionately. “I did try so hard. I walked and ran about. I stood up, and danced and jumped, and went in the yard, but it was all of no use, and at last I dropped down on the stairs with Piter, and before I knew it I was fast.”“Was the dog asleep too?”“He went to sleep before I did,” I said bitterly.“Humph!”“Don’t be angry with me, Uncle Bob,” I cried. “I did try so hard.”“Did you take anything last night after I left you?”“No, uncle. You know I was very sleepy when you called me.”“Nothing at all?”“Only a drop of water out of the bottle.”“Go and fetch what is left,” he said. “Or no, I’ll come. But Piter; what did he have?”“I don’t know, only that he seemed to pick up something just as we were walking along the yard. That’s all.”“There’s some fresh mischief afoot, Cob,” cried Uncle Bob, “and—ah, here it is! Well, my man, what is it?”This was to Gentles, whose smooth fat face was full of wrinkles, and his eyes half-closed.He took off his cap—a soft fur cap, and wrung it gently as if it were full of water. Then he began shaking it out, and brushing it with his cuff, and looked from one to the other, giving me a salute by jerking up one elbow.“Well, why don’t you speak, man; what is it?” cried Uncle Bob. “Is anything wrong?”“No, mester, there aren’t nought wrong, as you may say, though happen you may think it is. Wheel-bands hev been touched again.”

The keeping watch of a night had now grown into a regular business habit, and though we discovered nothing, the feeling was always upon us that if we relaxed our watchfulness for a few hours something would happen.

The paper stuck on the door was not forgotten by my uncles, but the men went on just as usual, and the workshops were as busy as ever, and after a good deal of drawing and experimenting Uncle Dick or Uncle Jack kept producing designs for knives or tools to be worked up out of the new steel.

“But,” said I one day, “I don’t see that this reaping-hook will be any better than the old-fashioned one.”

“The steel is better and will keep sharp longer, my lad, but people would not believe that it was in the slightest degree different, unless they had something to see,” said Uncle Dick.

So the men were set to forge and grind the different shaped tools and implements that were designed, and I often heard them laughing and jeering at what they called the “contrapshions.”

My turn came round to keep the morning watch about a week after the new bands had been fitted. Uncle Bob had been on guard during the night, and just as I was comfortably dreaming of a pleasant country excursion I was awakened by a cheery, “Tumble up, Tumble up!”

I sat up confused and drowsy, but that soon passed off as Uncle Bob laughingly told me, in sham nautical parlance, that all was well on deck; weather hazy, and no rocks ahead as far as he knew.

“Oh,” I said yawning, “I do wish all this watching was over!”

“So do I, Cob,” he cried; “but never mind, we shall tire the rascals out yet.”

I thought to myself that they would tire us out first, as I went down grumpily and disposed to shiver; and then, to thoroughly waken and warm myself, I had a good trot round the big furnace, where the men had tried to fire the powder.

It was circus-horse sort of work, that running round on the black ashes and iron scales, but it warmed me, and as the miserable shivery feeling went off I felt brighter and more ready for my task.

Piter was with me trotting close behind, as I ran round and round; and when at last I was pretty well out of breath I sat down on a bench, and took the dog’s fore-paws on my knees, as I thought about how different my life here seemed from what I had expected. There had been some unpleasant adventures, and a good deal of work, but otherwise my daily career seemed to be very monotonous, and I wondered when our old country trips were to be renewed.

Then I had a good look round the place upstairs and down; and, so sure as I passed an open window, I felt about with my hands for wires, the memory of that powder-tin being too vivid to be forgotten.

I went and listened by the office door, and could hear my uncle breathing heavily.

I went and looked out at the dam, which was always worth looking at for its reflections of the heavens, but it was perfectly still. There was no raft gliding down towards the building.

Down in the grinders’ shop all was still, and in the darkness the different shafts and wheels looked very curious and threatening, so much so that it only wanted a little imagination for one to think that this was some terrible torture chamber, the door at the end leading into the place where the water torment was administered, for the curious musical dripping and plashing sounded very thrilling and strange in the solemnity of the night.

That place always attracted me, and though there in the darkness I did not care to open the door and look down at the black water, I went and listened, and as I did so it seemed that there was something going on there. Every now and then, came a splash, and then a hurrying as of something being drawn over wet bars of wood. Then there were a series of soft thuds at irregular intervals, and as I listened all this was magnified by imagination, and I was ready to go and call for Uncle Bob to descend when a faint squeaking noise brought me to my senses and I laughed.

“Why, Piter,” I said, “what a dog you are! Don’t you hear the rats?”

Piter rubbed his great head against me and whined softly.

“Don’t care for rats?” I said. “All right, old fellow. I forgot that you were a bull-dog and did not care for anything smaller than a bull, unless it were a man.”

I stood listening for a few minutes longer, wondering whether some of the sounds I could hear down by the stonework were made by eels, and, recalling what Gentles had said, I determined that some evening I would have a try for the slimy fellows either down below the great water-wheel or out of the office-window, where I could drop a line into the deepest part of the dam.

Then I went into the smiths’ shops and thought about how sulky Pannell had been ever since I had talked to him about the wheel-bands.

“This won’t do, Piter,” I said, trying to rouse myself, for I was dreadfully sleepy; and I had another trot with the dog after me in his solid, silent way—for he rarely barked unless it was in anger—but trotted close behind me wherever I might go.

I cannot tell you what a fight I had that night—for it was more like night than morning. I walked fast; I tried all sorts of gymnastic attitudes; I leaped up, caught hold of an iron bar and swung by my arms, and whenever I did these things I grew as lively as a cricket; but as soon as, from utter weariness, I ceased, the horrible drowsiness came on again, and as I walked I actually dreamed that there was a man creeping along the ground towards the building.

This seemed to wake me, and it was so real that I went out to see—nothing.

Then I had another tour of the place; stood leaning against door-posts, and up in corners, ready to drop down with sleep, but fighting it off again.

I went out across the yard and had a look at the dam, lay down on the stone edge, and bathed my face with the fresh cold water, turned my handkerchief into a towel, and walked back in the dim, grey light, seeing that morning was breaking, and beginning to rejoice that I had got rid of my drowsy fit, which seemed unaccountable.

Piter seemed as drowsy as I, holding his head down in a heavy way as if it were more than he could bear.

“Poor old boy! Why, you seem as sleepy as I am, Piter!” I said, as I seated myself on the stairs leading up to the office; and he whined softly and laid his head in my lap.

I thought I heard a noise just then, and looked up, but there was no repetition of the sound, and I sat there at a turn of the stairs, leaning against the wall, and wondering why the dog had not started up instead of letting his heavy head drop lower in my lap.

“Why, you are as drowsy as I am, Piter,” I cried again, playing with his ears; “anyone would think you had been taking a sleeping draught or something of that kind.”

He answered with a heavy snore, just like a human being, and I sat gazing down and out through the open doorway into the yard, thinking that it would not be long now before it was broad daylight instead of that half darkness that seemed so strange and misty that I could only just see through the doorway and distinguish the stones.

Then I could hardly see them at all, and then they seemed to disappear, and I could see all over the yard, and the dam and the works all at once. It was a wonderful power of sight that I seemed to possess, for I was looking through the walls of the upper shop, and all through the lower shop, and down into the water-pit. Then I was looking round the furnace, and in at the smiths’ forges, and at the great chimney-shaft, and at the precipice by Dome Tor.

What a place that seemed! Since my uncle slipped over it the slaty, shaley face appeared to have grown twice as big and high, and over it and down the steep slope a man was crawling right in from the Dome Tor slip to our works. I saw him come along the stone edge of the dam and over the wheel with the water, to bob up and down in the black pit like a cork float when an eel is biting at a bait. There he went—bob—bob—bob—and down out of sight.

It seemed such a splendid bite, that, being fond of fishing, I was about to strike, the absurdity of the idea of fishing with a man for a float never striking me for a moment; but, just as I was going to pull up, the man was crawling over the floor of the grinders’ shop, and the water was not there, though the wheel seemed to be going round and uttering a heavy groan at every turn for want of grease.

There he was again, creeping and writhing up the stairs, and higher and higher along the floor among the lathes; then he was in the office, and over the bed where Uncle Bob lay making a snoring noise like the great water-wheel as it turned. What a curiously-long, thin, writhing man he seemed to be as he crawled and wriggled all over the floor and lathes and polishing-wheels. Down, too, into the smiths’ shops, and over the half-extinct fires without burning himself, and all the time the wheel went round with its snoring noise, and the man—who was really a big eel—was ringing a loud bell, and—

I jumped up wide-awake, upsetting Piter, and throwing his head out of my lap, when, instead of springing up, he rolled heavily half-way down the stairs as if he were dead.

“Why, I’ve been to sleep,” I said angrily to myself, “and dreaming all sorts of absurd nonsense! That comes of thinking about fishing for eels.”

I was cold and stiff, and there was a bell ringing in the distance at some works, where the men began an hour sooner than ours. But I took no notice of that, for I was thinking about Piter, and wondering how he could lie so still.

“Is he dead?” I thought; and I went down and felt him.

He did not move; but it was evident that he was not dead, for he snored heavily, and felt warm enough; but he was too fast asleep to be roused, even when I took hold of his collar and shook him.

I was puzzled, and wondered whether he could have had anything to make him so sleepy.

But if he had had anything to make him sleepy I had not, and yet I must have been soundly asleep for two or three hours.

I remembered, though, that when I last went round the yard Piter had been sniffing about at something, and perhaps he might have eaten what had not agreed with him then.

“Poor old boy! He’ll wake up presently,” I said to myself as I lifted him up; and heavy enough he seemed as I carried him down to his kennel, just inside the door, where he lay motionless, snoring heavily still.

“Lucky thing that no one has been,” I said to myself, as, feeling thoroughly ashamed of my breach of trust, I went down to the dam, taking a towel with me this time from out of my office-drawer, and there, kneeling on the stones, I had a good bathe at my face and forehead, and went back feeling ever so much fresher.

The sounds of toil were rising in the distance, and over the great town the throb and hum and whirr of the busy hive was rising in the sunny morning air, as, with the events of the night fading away, I went in to my office to put away the towel and use the comb and brush I kept there.

That done, I was going to call Uncle Bob and walk back with him to our home, for the men would soon be there.

Just then the water-bottle and glass upon my desk caught my eye, and, like a flash, I remembered that I had filled the glass and drunk a little water, leaving the glass nearly full so as to take some more if I wanted it, for a glass of water was, I found, a capital thing to keep off drowsiness when one was watching.

I was sure I had left that glass nearly full, and standing on the desk; but I had not been and drunk any more, of that I was sure. I don’t know why I had not gone back to have some, considering how sleepy I was, but I certainly had not. I was sure of it.

Then the water-bottle! It was a common plain bottle such as is used on a wash-stand, and we had three of them always filled with fresh cold water on the desks. Mine was full when I poured some out in the night, and now it was quite empty; and as I stared at it and then about the room I saw a great patch of wet on the carpet.

I looked farther and there was another patch—a smaller patch or big splash, as if the contents of the glass had been thrown down.

It was very strange, and I could not understand it. I had not thrown the water down. If I had wanted to get rid of it, I should have gone to the sink outside or have opened the window, and thrown it out into the dam.

The matter was of small consequence, and I paid no more attention to it, but went to Uncle Bob, where he was lying, fighting with myself as to whether I should tell him that I had been to sleep.

I did not like to speak, for I felt—well I felt as most boys would under the circumstances; but I mastered my moral cowardice, as I thought, and determined to tell him—after breakfast.

“Ah, Cob, old chap,” he cried, jumping up as I laid my hand on his shoulder, “what a delicious sleep! What a morning too—Hah! That’s better.”

He was dressed, for though whoever lay down, so to speak, went to bed, he never undressed; so that after a plunge of the face and hands in the cool fresh water, and a scrub and brush, Uncle Bob was ready.

“I want my breakfast horribly, Cob,” he said; “and we’ve an hour to wait. Let’s have a walk round by the hill as we go home. Have you unlocked the gate?”

“Yes,” I said; “before I came up to call you.”

“That’s right. Ah, here the men come!” for there was the trampling of feet, and the noise of voices crossing the yard. “Fed Piter?”

“No; not yet,” I said. “He’s asleep.”

“Asleep!”

“Yes; he has been asleep these three hours past—asleep and snoring. He’s in his kennel now. I couldn’t wake him.”

“Nice sort of a watch-dog, Cob!”

“Yes,” I said, feeling very guilty and shrinking from my confession.

“Do you say you tried to wake him?”

“Yes,” I said, “I took him up in my arms, and carried him down to his kennel, and he was snoring all the time.”

“Carried him down! Where from?”

“The stairs. He went to sleep there.”

“Cob!” he cried, making the blood flush to my face, and then run back to my heart—“why, what’s the matter, boy, aren’t you well?”

“My head aches a little, and my mouth feels rather hot and dry.”

“And you’ve got dark marks under your eyes, boy. You’ve not been asleep too, have you?”

I stared at him wildly, and felt far more unwell now.

“Why don’t you speak?” he cried angrily. “You haven’t been to sleep, have you?”

“I was going to confess it, uncle, if you had given me time,” I said. “I never did such a thing before; but I couldn’t keep awake, and fell asleep for over two hours.”

“Oh, Cob! Cob!”

“I couldn’t help it, uncle,” I cried passionately. “I did try so hard. I walked and ran about. I stood up, and danced and jumped, and went in the yard, but it was all of no use, and at last I dropped down on the stairs with Piter, and before I knew it I was fast.”

“Was the dog asleep too?”

“He went to sleep before I did,” I said bitterly.

“Humph!”

“Don’t be angry with me, Uncle Bob,” I cried. “I did try so hard.”

“Did you take anything last night after I left you?”

“No, uncle. You know I was very sleepy when you called me.”

“Nothing at all?”

“Only a drop of water out of the bottle.”

“Go and fetch what is left,” he said. “Or no, I’ll come. But Piter; what did he have?”

“I don’t know, only that he seemed to pick up something just as we were walking along the yard. That’s all.”

“There’s some fresh mischief afoot, Cob,” cried Uncle Bob, “and—ah, here it is! Well, my man, what is it?”

This was to Gentles, whose smooth fat face was full of wrinkles, and his eyes half-closed.

He took off his cap—a soft fur cap, and wrung it gently as if it were full of water. Then he began shaking it out, and brushing it with his cuff, and looked from one to the other, giving me a salute by jerking up one elbow.

“Well, why don’t you speak, man; what is it?” cried Uncle Bob. “Is anything wrong?”

“No, mester, there aren’t nought wrong, as you may say, though happen you may think it is. Wheel-bands hev been touched again.”

Chapter Fourteen.Uncle Bob’s Patient.Uncle Bob gave me a sharp look that seemed to go through me, and then strode into the workshop, while I followed him trembling with anger and misery, to think that I should have gone to sleep at such a time and let the miscreants annoy us again like this.“Not cut this time,” said Uncle Bob to me, as we went from lathe to lathe, and from to stone. Upstairs and downstairs it was all the same; every band of leather, gutta-percha, catgut, had been taken away, and, of course, the whole of this portion of the works would be brought to a stand.I felt as if stunned, and as guilty as if I had shared in the plot by which the bands had been taken away.The men were standing about stolidly watching us. They did not complain about their work being at a stand-still, nor seem to mind that, as they were paid by the amount they did, they would come short at the end of the week: all they seemed interested in was the way in which we were going to bear the loss, or act.“Does not look like a walk for us, Cob,” said Uncle Bob. “What a cruel shame it is!”“Uncle,” I cried passionately, for we were alone now, “I can’t tell you how ashamed I am. It’s disgraceful. I’m not fit to be trusted. I can never forgive myself, but I did try so very very hard.”“Try, my boy!” he said taking my hand; “why, of course, you did. I haven’t blamed you.”“No, but I blame myself,” I cried.“Nonsense, my boy! Let that rest.”“But if I had kept awake I should have detected the scoundrel.”“No, you would not, Cob, because if you had been awake he would not have come; your being asleep was his opportunity.”“But I ought not, being on sentry, to have gone to sleep.”“But, my dear Cob, people who are drugged cannot help going to sleep.”“Drugged!”“To be sure. Didn’t you say that you drank a little water and afterwards grew sleepy?”“But I did not know it was the water.”“Here, let me look at your bottle and glass.”I took him into the office and showed him the empty receptacles and the two patches on the floor.“Clumsily done, Cob,” he said after looking at and smelling them. “This was done to keep anyone suspicious from examining the water. Yes, Cob, you were drugged.”“Oh, Uncle Bob,” I cried excitedly, “I hope I was!”“I don’t see why you need be so hopeful, but it is very evident that you were. There, don’t worry yourself about it, my boy. You always do your duty and we’ve plenty to think of without that. We shall spoil two breakfasts at home.”“But, uncle,” I cried, clinging to his arm, “do you really think I may believe that my sleepiness came from being drugged?”“Yes, yes, yes,” he cried half angrily. “Now are you satisfied? Come and let’s have a look at the dog.”I felt quite guilty at having forgotten poor Piter so long, and descending with my uncle we were soon kneeling by the kennel.He had not stirred since I put him in, but lay snoring heavily, and no amount of shaking seemed to have the least effect.“The poor brute has had a strong dose, Cob,” said Uncle Bob, “and if we don’t do something he will never wake again.”“Oh, uncle!” I cried, for his words sent a pang through me. I did not know how much I had grown to like the faithful piece of ugliness till my uncle had spoken as he did.“Yes, the wretches have almost done for him, and I’m glad of it.”“Glad!” I cried as I lifted poor Piter’s head in my hand and stroked it.“Glad it was that which made the poor brute silent. I thought he had turned useless through his not giving the alarm.”“Can’t we do something, uncle?” I cried.“I’m thinking, Cob,” he replied, “it’s not an easy thing to give dogs antidotes, and besides we don’t know what he has taken. Must be some narcotic though. I know what we’ll do. Here, carry him down to the dam.”A number of the workmen were looking on stolidly and whispering to one another as if interested in what we were going to do about the dog. Some were in the yard smoking, some on the stairs, and every man’s hands were deep in his pockets.“Say,” shouted a voice as I carried the dog out into the yard, following Uncle Bob while the men made room for us, “they’re a goin’ to drown bull-poop.”I hurried on after my uncle and heard a trampling of feet behind me, but I took no notice, only as I reached the dam there was quite a little crowd closing in.“Wayert a minute, mester,” said one of the grinders. “I’ll get ’ee bit o’ iron and a bit o’ band to tie round poop’s neck.”For answer, Uncle Bob took the dog by his collar and hind-legs, and kneeling down on the stone edge of the dam plunged him head-first into the water, drew him out, and plunged him in again twice.“Yow can’t drownd him like that,” cried one.“He’s dowsing on him to bring him round,” said another; and then, as Uncle Bob laid the dog down and stood up to watch him, there was a burst of laughter in the little crowd, for all our men were collected now.“Yes, laugh away, you cowardly hounds,” said Uncle Bob indignantly, and I looked at him wonderingly, for he had always before seemed to be so quiet and good-tempered a fellow. “It’s a pity, I suppose, that you did not kill the dog right out the same as, but for a lucky accident, you might have poisoned this boy here.”“Who poisoned lad?” said a grinder whom I had seen insolent more than once.“I don’t know,” cried Uncle Bob; “but I know it was done by the man or men who stole those bands last night; and I know that it was done by someone in these works, and that you nearly all of you know who it was.”There was a low growl here.“And a nice cowardly contemptible trick it was!” cried Uncle Bob, standing up taller than any man there, and with his eyes flashing. “I always thought Englishmen were plucky, straightforward fellows, above such blackguards’ tricks as these. Workmen! Why, the scoundrels who did this are unworthy of the name.”There was another menacing growl here.“Too cowardly to fight men openly, they come in the night and strike at boys, and dogs, and steal.”“Yow lookye here,” said the big grinder, taking off his jacket and baring his strong arms; “yow called me a coward, did you?”“Yes, and any of you who know who did this coward’s trick,” cried Uncle Bob angrily.“Then tek that!” cried the man, striking at him full in the face.I saw Uncle Bob catch the blow on his right arm, dart out his left and strike the big grinder in the mouth; and then, before he could recover himself, my uncle’s right fist flashed through the air like lightning, and the man staggered and then fell with a dull thud, the back of his head striking the stones.There was a loud yell at this, and a chorus rose:“In wi’ ’em. Throost ’em i’ th’ dam,” shouted a voice, and half a dozen men advanced menacingly; but Uncle Bob stood firm, and just then Fannell the smith strode before them.“Howd hard theer,” he cried in his shrill voice. “Six to one, and him one o’ the mesters.”Just then Uncles Jack and Dick strode in through the gates, saw the situation at a glance, and ran to strengthen our side.“What’s this?” roared Uncle Dick furiously, as Uncle Jack clenched his fists and looked round, as it seemed to me, for some one to knock down. “In to your work, every man of you.”“Bands is gone,” said a sneering voice.“Then get off our premises, you dogs!” he roared. “Out of that gate, I say, every man who is against us.”“Oh, we’re not agen you, mester,” said Gentles smoothly. “I’m ready for wuck, on’y the bands is gone. Yow mean wuck, eh, mates?”“Then go and wait till we have seen what is to be done. Do you hear?—go.”He advanced on the men so fiercely that they backed from him, leaving Pannell only, and he stooped to help up the big grinder, who rose to his feet shaking his head like a dog does to get the water out of his ears, for there must have been a loud singing noise there.“Off with you!” said Uncle Dick turning upon these two.“Aw reight, mester,” said Pannell. “I were on’y helping the mate. Mester Robert there did gie him a blob.”Pannell was laughing good-humouredly, and just then Uncle Bob turned upon him.“Thank you, Pannell,” he said quickly. “I’m glad we have one true man in the place.”“Oh, it’s aw reight, mester,” said the smith. “Here, coom along, thou’st had anew to last thee these two months.”As he spoke he half dragged the big grinder away to the workshop, and Uncle Bob rapidly explained the state of affairs.“It’s enough to make us give up,” cried Uncle Dick angrily. “We pay well; we’re kind to our men; we never overwork them; and yet they serve us these blackguard tricks. Well, if they want to be out of work they shall be, for I’ll agree to no more bands being bought till the scoundrels come to their senses.”“But we will not be beaten,” cried Uncle Jack, who looked disappointed at there being no more fighting.“No,” said Uncle Bob, wiping his bleeding knuckles. “I feel as if I had tasted blood, as they say, and I’m ready to fight now to the end.”“And all the time we are talking and letting that poor dog perish! The cowards!” cried Uncle Dick fiercely. “Is he dead?”“No,” I said; “I saw one of his ears quiver a little, but he is not breathing so loudly.”“Give him another plunge,” said Uncle Jack.Uncle Bob took the dog as before and plunged him once more in the cold clean water; and this time, as soon as he was out, he struggled slightly and choked and panted to get his breath.“We must get him on his legs if we can,” said Uncle Bob; and for the next half hour he kept trying to make the dog stand, but without avail, till he had almost given up in despair. Then all at once poor Piter began to whine, struggled to his feet, fell down, struggled up again, and then began rapidly to recover, and at last followed us into the office—where, forgetful of breakfast, we began to discuss the present state of the war.The first thing that caught my eye as we went in was a letter stuck in the crack of the desk, so that it was impossible for anyone to pass without seeing it.Uncle Jack took the letter, read it, and passed it round, Uncle Bob reading last.I asked what it was as I stooped over poor Piter, who seemed stupid and confused and shivered with the wet and cold.“Shall I tell him?” said Uncle Bob, looking at his brothers.They looked at one another thoughtfully, nodded, and Uncle Bob handed me the note; and a precious composition it was.“You London Cockneys,” it began, “you’ve had plenty warnings ’bout your gimcracks and contrapshions, and wouldn’t take ’em. Now look here, we won’t hev ’em in Arrowfield, robbing hard-workin’ men of toil of their hard earns and takin’ bread out o’ wife and childers mouths and starvin’ families, so look out. If you three an’ that sorcy boy don’t pack up your traps and be off, we’ll come and pack ’em up for you. So now you know.”“What does this mean?” I said, looking from one to the other.“It means war, my lad,” said Uncle Dick fiercely.“You will not take any notice of this insolent letter?” I said.“Oh yes, but we will!” said Uncle Jack.“Not give up and go like cowards?”“I don’t think we shall, Cob,” said Uncle Jack laughing. “No; we’re in the right and they are in the wrong. We’ve got a strong tower to fight in and defend ourselves; they’ve got to attack us here, and I think they’ll be rather badly off if they do try anything more serious.”“This has been bad enough,” said Uncle Bob. “You did not fully understand how narrow an escape Cob had.”And he related all.“The scoundrels!” said Uncle Jack, grinding his teeth. “And now this means threatenings of future attacks.”“Well,” said Uncle Dick, “if they do come I’m afraid someone will be very much hurt—more so than that man Stevens you knocked down.”“And made a fresh enemy for us,” said Uncle Jack, laughing.“And showed who was a friend,” I said, remembering Pannell’s action.“To be sure,” said Uncle Jack. “Well, if anyone is hurt it will be the attacking party, for I am beginning to feel vicious.”“Well, what about the wheels?” said Uncle Bob. “Every band has gone, and it will be a heavy expense to restore them.”“Let’s go and have breakfast and think it over,” said Uncle Dick. “It’s bad to decide in haste. Listen! What are the men doing?”“Going out in the yard, evidently,” said Uncle Bob. “Yes, and down to the gate.”So it proved, for five minutes later the place was completely empty.“Why, they’ve forsaken us,” said Uncle Dick bitterly.“Never mind,” said Uncle Bob. “Let’s have our breakfast. We can lock up the place.”And this we did, taking poor old Piter with us, who looked so helpless and miserable that several dogs attacked him on our way home, anticipating an easy victory.But they did Piter good, rousing him up to give a bite here and another there—one bite being all his enemies cared to receive before rushing off, yelping apologies for the mistake they had made in attacking the sickly-looking heavy-eyed gentleman of their kind.Piter had jaws like a steel trap, as others beside dogs found before long.When we went back to the works the gate-keeper left in charge said that several of the men had been back, but had gone again, it having been settled that no more work was to be done till the wheel-bands were restored; so the fires were going out, and the smiths, who could have gone on, had to leave their forges.“Well,” said Uncle Dick, laughing bitterly, as he gave his beard a sharp tug, “I thought that we were masters here.”“Quite a mistake,” said Uncle Jack; “the men are the masters; and if we do anything that they in their blind ignorance consider opposed to their interests they punish us.”“Well, you see, sir,” said the gate-keeper, “it’s like this here, sir—work’s quite scarce enough, and the men are afraid, that new steel or new machinery will make it worse.”“Tell them to take the scales off their eyes, then,” said Uncle Dick. “Oppose machinery, do they?”“Yes, sir.”“Then if someone invented a new kind of grindstone to grind tools and blades in a quarter of the time, what would they do?”“Smash it, sir, or burn the place it was in,” said the man with a grin.“Then why don’t they smash up the grindstones they use now? They are machinery.”“What! Grindstones, sir? Oh, no!”“But they are, man, I tell you,” cried Uncle Dick angrily. “The first men who ground knives or shears rubbed, them on a rough piece of stone; then I dare say a cleverer man found it was handier to rub the blade with the stone instead of the stone with the blade; and then someone invented the round grindstone which turned and ground whatever was held against it.”“Come along,” said Uncle Jack sharply. “You are wasting breath. They will not believe till they find all this out for themselves.”We went in and had a good look round the place, but there was not a band to be found. There had been no cutting—every one had been carried away, leaving no trace behind; and I wanted a good deal of comforting to make me satisfied that it was not my fault.But my uncles were very kind to me, and told me at once that I was to say no more, only to be thankful that I had not drunk more heartily of the water, and been made ill as the dog, who, in spite of seeming better, kept having what I may call relapses, and lying down anywhere to have a fresh sleep.The look round produced no result, and the day was spent in the silent works writing letters, book-keeping, and talking rather despondently about the future.It seemed so strange to me as I went about. No roaring fires and puffing bellows; no clink of hammer or anvil, and no churr and screech of steel being held against the revolving stones. There was no buzz of voices or shouting from end to end of the workshop, and instead of great volumes of smoke rolling out of the top of the tall chimney-shaft, a little faint grey cloud slowly curled away into the air.Then there was the great wheel. The dam was full and overflowing, but the wheel was still; and when I looked in, the water trickled and plashed down into the gloomy chamber with its mossy, slimy stone sides, while the light shone in at the opening, and seemed to make bright bands across the darkness before it played upon the slightly agitated waters.Then a long discussion took place, in which it was asked whether it would be wise to buy new bands, and to ask the men to come back and work; but opinion was against this.“No,” said Uncle Jack. “I’m for being as obstinate as they are. We’ve had our bands injured once; now let’s show them that if they can afford to wait so can we. We can’t, neither can they, but there must be a little obstinacy practised, and perhaps it will bring them to their senses.”“And make them bring back our bands?” I ventured to say.“Ah, I’m not so hopeful about that!” cried Uncle Bob. “I’m afraid that we shall have to buy new ones.”“Yes,” said Uncle Dick; “but I would not mind that if by so doing we could get the men to behave well to us in the future.”“And we never shall,” said Uncle Jack, “till Cob here ceases to be such a tyrant. The men are afraid of him.”“Why, uncle!” I exclaimed; and they all laughed at my look of injury.That night Uncle Jack and Uncle Dick kept watch; next night we took our turn again, and so matters went on for a week. Now and then we saw some of our men idling about, but they looked at us in a heavy stolid way, and then slouched off.The works seemed to be very melancholy and strange, but we went there regularly enough, and when we had a fire going and stayed in there was no doubt about the matter; we were watched.Piter grew quite well again, and in his thick head there seemed to be an idea that he had been very badly used, for, as he walked close at my heels, I used to see him give the workmen very ugly looks in a side wise fashion that I used to call measuring legs.One morning my uncles said that they should not go to the works that day, and as they did not seem to want me I thought I would go back and put a project I had in my mind in force.I had passed the night at the works in company with Uncle Jack, and all had been perfectly quiet, so, putting some bones in the basket for Piter, I also thrust in some necessaries for the task I had in hand, and started.About half-way there I met Gentles, the fat-faced grinder, and he shut his eyes at me and slouched up in his affectionate way.“Ah! Mester Jacob,” he said, “when’s this here unhappy strike going to end?”“When the rascals who stole our bands bring them back,” I said, “and return to their work.”“Ah!” he sighed, “I’m afraid they wean’t do that, my lad. Hedn’t the mesters better give in, and not make no more noofangle stoof?”“Oh, that’s what you think, is it, Gentles?” I said.“Who? Me, mester? Oh, no: I’m only a pore hardworking chap who wants to get back to his horse. It’s what the other men say. For my part I wishes as there was no unions, stopping a man’s work and upsetting him; that I do. Think the mesters’ll give in, Mester Jacob, sir?”“I’m sure they will not, Gentles,” I said, “and you had better tell the men so.”“Nay, I durstn’t tell ’em. Oh, dear, no, Mester Jacob, sir. I’m a quiet peaceable man, I am. I on’y wants to be let alone.”I went on, thinking, and had nearly reached the lane by the works, when I met Pannell, who was smoking a short black pipe.“Hello!” he cried.“Hello! Pannell,” I said.“Goin’ to open wucks, and let’s get on again, lad?”“Whenever you men like to bring back the bands and apologise, Pannell.”“Nay, I’ve got nowt to ’pologise for. I did my wuck, and on’y wanted to be let alone.”“But you know who took the bands,” I cried. “You know who tried to poison our poor dog and tried to blow up the furnace, now don’t you?”He showed his great teeth as he looked full at me.“Why, my lad,” he said, “yow don’t think I’m going to tell, do ’ee?”“You ought to tell,” I cried. “I’m sure you know; and it’s a cowardly shame.”“Ay, I s’pose that’s what you think,” he said quietly. “But, say, lad, isn’t it time wuck began again?”“Time! Yes,” I said. “Why don’t you take our side, Pannell; my uncles are your masters?”“Ay, I know that, lad,” said the big smith quietly; “but man can’t do as he likes here i’ Arrowfield. Eh, look at that!”“Well, mate,” said a rough voice behind me; and I saw the smith start as Stevens, the fierce grinder, came up, and without taking any notice of me address the smith in a peculiar way, fixing him with his eye and clapping him on the shoulder.“Here, I want to speak wi’ thee,” he said sharply. “Coom and drink.”It seemed to me that he regularly took the big smith into custody, and marched him off.This set me thinking about how they must be all leagued together; but I forgot all about the matter as I opened the gate, and Piter came charging down at me, delighted to have company once more in the great lonely works.The next minute he was showing his intelligence by smelling the basket as we walked up to the door together.I gave him some of the contents to amuse him, and then entering the deserted grinding-shop, walked straight to the door at the end opening into the great wheel-pit, and throwing it back stood upon the little platform built out, and looked down at the black water, which received enough from the full dam to keep it in motion and make the surface seem to be covered with a kind of thready film that was always opening and closing, and spreading all over the place to the very walls.It looked rather black and unpleasant, and seemed to be a place that might contain monsters of eels or other fish, and it was to try and catch some of these that I had taken advantage of the holiday-time and come.For I had several times called to mind what Gentles had said about the fish in the dam and pit, and meant to have a turn; but now I was here everything was so silent and mysterious and strange, that I rather shrank from my task, and began to wonder what I should do if I hooked some monster too large to draw out.“What a coward I am!” I said aloud; and taking the stout eel-line I had brought, and baiting the two hooks upon it with big worms, I gathered up the cord quite ready and then made a throw, so that my bait went down right beneath the wheel, making a strange echoing splash that whispered about the slimy walls.“Looks more horrible than ever,” I said to myself, as I shook off my dislike, and sat down on the little platform with my legs dangling over the water.But I could not quite shake off my dread, for the feeling came over me: suppose some horrible serpentlike water creature were to raise its head out of the black depths, seize me by the foot, and drag me down.It was an absurd idea, but I could not fight against it, and I found myself drawing my legs up and sitting down tailor fashion with my feet beneath me.And there I sat with not a sound but the dripping water to be heard, and a curious rustling that I soon after made out to be Piter busy with his bone.A quarter of an hour, half an hour, passed away, and I did not get a touch, so drawing up my line I restored the baits and threw in again, choosing the far-off corner of the pit close by where the water escaped to the stream below.The bait had not been down a minute, and I was just wondering whether Gentles was correct about there being any fish there, when I felt the line softly drawn through my fingers, then there was a slight quivering vibration, and a series of tiny jerks, and the line began to run faster, while my heart began to beat with anticipation.“He was right,” I exclaimed, as I tightened the line with a jerk, and then a sharp little struggle began, as the fish I had hooked rushed hither and thither, and fought back, and finally was dragged out of the water, tying itself up in a knot which bobbed and slipped about upon the floor as I dragged it into the grinding-room, and cut the line to set it free, for it was impossible to get the hook out of the writhing creature’s jaws.It was an eel of about a pound weight, and, excited now by the struggle, I fastened on a fresh hook, baited it, and threw in the same place again.Quite half an hour elapsed before I had another bite, and knowing how nocturnal these creatures are in their habits, I was just thinking that if I liked next time I was on the watch I might throw a line in here, and keep catching an eel every now and then, when—Check! A regular sharp jerk at the line, and I knew that I had hooked a good one, but instead of the line tightening it suddenly grew quite slack.For a moment I was afraid that the fish had broken away, but I realised directly that it had rushed over to my side of the wheel-pit, and it had come so swiftly that I began to think that it could not be an eel.I had not much line to gather in, though, before I felt the check again, and a furious tug given so hard that I let the line run, and several yards were drawn through my fingers before I began to wonder where the eel or other fish I had hooked had gone.“Perhaps there is a passage or drain under the works,” I thought as I dragged at the line, now to feel some answering throbs; but the fish did not run any farther, only remained stationary.“What a monster!” I cried, as I felt what a tremendous weight there was against me. I drew the line and gained a little, but gave way for fear it should break.This went on for ten minutes or so. I was in a state of the greatest excitement, for I felt that I had got hold of a monster, and began to despair of dragging it up to where I was. Such a thing seemed impossible, for the line would give way or the hook break from its hold I was sure.In place of jerking about now, the fish was very still, exercising a kind of inert force against its captor; but I was in momentary expectation of a renewal of the battle, and so powerful did the creature seem, so enormously heavy was it, that I began to regret my success, and to wonder what the consequences would be if I were to get the large eel up there on the floor.One moment I saw myself flying for my life from a huge writhing open-mouthed creature, and saved by a gallant attack made by Piter, who, hearing the noise, had dashed in open-jawed to seize the fierce monster by the neck; the next I was calling myself a donkey.“Why, of course!” I cried. “When I hooked it the creature ran in towards me, and has darted in and out of some grating and wound the line tightly there.”That could not be the case, I felt as I pulled, for though it was evident that the fish had entangled the line, it was in something loose which I got nearly to the surface several times, as I gazed down there in the darkness till all at once, just as I was straining my eyes to make out what it was that was entangled with my hook, the cord snapped, there was a dull plash below me, the water rippled and babbled against the side, and all was still once more.I stood gazing down for a few minutes, and then a flash of intelligence shot through me, and I darted back, rapidly coiling up my wet line and taking it and my basket up into the office, from whence I came hurrying out, and ready to dash down two steps at a time.“Why, of course,” I kept on saying to myself; “what stupids!”I ran across the yard, unlocked and relocked the gate, leaving Piter disappointed and barking, and hurried back to the house, where my uncles were busy over some correspondence.“Hurrah!” I cried. “I’ve found it all out. Come along! Down to the works!”“You’ve found out!” cried Uncle Dick starting.“Found it all out!” I cried excitedly. “Now, then, all of you! Come on and see.”I slipped down to Mrs Stephenson after telling my uncles to go slowly on and that I would overtake them, and that lady smiled in my face as soon as she saw me.“Don’t say a word!” she cried. “I know what you want. Tattsey, get out the pork-pie.”“No, no,” I cried; “you mistake. I’m not hungry.”“Nonsense, my dear! And if you’re not hungry now, you will be before long. I’ve a beautiful raised pie of my own making. Have a bit, my dear. Bring it, Tattsey.”It was, I found, one of the peculiarities of these people to imagine everybody was hungry, and their hospitality to their friends was without stint.Tattsey had not so much black-lead on her face as usual. In fact it was almost clean, while her hands were beautifully white, consequent upon its being peggy day; that is to say, the day in which clothes were washed in the peggy tub, and kept in motion by a four-legged peggy, a curious kind of machine with a cross handle.So before I could say another word the pork-pie was brought out on the white kitchen-table, and Mrs Stephenson began to cut out a wedge.“May I take it with me,” I said, “and eat it as I go along?”“Bless the boy; yes, of course,” said our homely landlady. “Boys who are growing want plenty to eat. I hate to see people starve.”“But I want you to do me a favour,” I said.“Of course, my dear. What is it?”“I want you to lend me your clothes-line.”“What, that we are just going to put out in the yard for the clean clothes? I should just think not indeed.”“How tiresome!” I cried. “Well, never mind; I must buy a bit. But will you lend me a couple of meat-hooks?”“Now, what in the world are you going to do with a clothes-line and two meat-hooks?”“I’m going fishing,” I said impatiently.“Now don’t you talk nonsense, my dear,” said our plump landlady, looking rather red. “Do you think I don’t know better than that?”“But I am going fishing,” I cried.“Where?”“In our wheel-pit.”“Then there’s someone drownded, and you are going to fish him out.”“No, no,” I cried. “Will you lend me the hooks?”“Yes, I’ll lend you the hooks,” she said, getting them out of a drawer.“We sha’n’t want the old clothes-line,” said Tattsey slowly.“No, we sha’n’t want the old clothes-line,” said Mrs Stephenson, looking at me curiously. “There, you can have that.”“I’ll tell you all about it when I come back,” I cried as the knot of clean cord was handed to me; and putting an arm through it and the hooks in my pocket I started off at a run, to find myself face to face with Gentles before I overtook my uncles.“Going a wallucking, Mester Jacob?” he said.“No; I’m going a-fishing.”“What, wi’ that line, Mester?”“Yes.”“Arn’t it a bit too thick, Mester?”“Not in the least, Gentles,” I said; and leaving him rubbing his face as if to smooth it after being shaved, I ran on and overtook my uncles just before we reached the works.“Thought you weren’t coming, Cob,” said Uncle Dick. “What are you going to do with the rope?”“Have patience,” I said laughing.Just then we passed Stevens, who scowled at us as he saw me with the rope, while Pannell, who was with him, stared, and his face slowly lit up with a broad grin.They turned round to stare after us as we went to the gate, and then walked off quickly.“What does that mean, oh, boy of mystery?” said Uncle Jack.“They suspect that I have discovered their plans,” I cried joyfully.“And have you—are you sure?”“Only wait five minutes, uncle, and you shall see,” I cried.We entered the works, fastened the gate after us, and then, taking the end of my fishing-line as soon as we reached the grinding-shop, I began to bind the two meat-hooks one across the other.“What, are you going to try for eels that way?” said Uncle Bob laughing, as my uncles seemed to be gradually making out what was to come.“Well,” I said, “they broke my other line.”By this time I had fastened the hooks pretty firmly, and to the cross I now secured the end of the clothes-line.“Fine eel that, Cob,” said Uncle Dick, hunting the one I had caught into a corner, for it had been travelling all over the place.“Yes,” I said; “and now the tackle’s ready, throw in and see if you can’t get another.”Uncle Dick went straight to the doorway, stepped on to the platform, and threw in the hook, which seemed to catch in something and gave way again.“Come, I had a bite,” he said laughing. “What has been thrown in here—some bundles of wire or steel rods?”“Try again,” I said laughing, and he had another throw, this time getting tight hold of something which hung fast to the hooks, and came up dripping and splashing to the little platform, where it was seized, and Uncle Bob gave a shout of delight.“Why, I never expected to catch that,” cried Uncle Dick.“I thought it was some stolen rings of wire,” said Uncle Jack, as he seized hold, and together they dragged a great tangle of leather and catgut bands over the platform into the grinding-shop, fully half falling back with a tremendous splash.“Cob, you’re a hero,” cried Uncle Dick.“The malicious scoundrels!” cried Uncle Jack.“Throw in again,” said Uncle Bob.And then Uncle Dick fished and dragged and hauled up tangle after tangle till there was quite a heap of the dripping bands, with rivulets of water streaming away over the stone floor, and right in the middle a monster of an eel, the gentleman I had hooked, and which had wound itself in and out of the catgut bands till it was held tight by the mouth.“He deserves to have his freedom,” said Uncle Dick, as he gave the bands a shake so that the hook came out of the eel’s mouth, and it began to writhe and twine about the floor.“And he shall have it,” I cried, taking a walking-stick, and for the next five minutes I was employed trying to guide my prisoner to the doorway leading into the pit.I suppose you never tried to drive an eel? No? Well, let me assure you that pig-driving is a pleasant pastime in comparison. We have it on good authority that if you want to drive a pig in a particular direction all you have to do is to point his nose straight and then try to pull him back by the tail. Away he goes directly.Try and drive a big thick eel, two feet six inches long, with a walking-stick, and you’ll find it a task that needs an education first. Put his head straight, and he curves to right or left. Pull his tail, and he’ll turn round and bite you, and hold fast too. Mine turned round and bit, but it was the walking-stick he seized with his strong jaws, and it wanted a good shake to get it free.Every way but the right would that eel squirm and wriggle. I chased him round grindstones, in and out of water-troughs, from behind posts and planks, from under benches, but I could not get him to the door; and I firmly believe that night would have fallen with me still hunting the slimy wriggling creature if Uncle Bob had not seized it with his hands after throwing his pocket-handkerchief over its back.The next instant it was curled up in the silk, writhing itself into a knot, no doubt in an agony of fear, if eels can feel fear. Then it was held over the pit, the handkerchief taken by one corner, and I expected to hear it drop with a splash into the water; but no, it held on, and though the handkerchief was shaken it was some time before it would quit its hold of the silk, a good piece of which was tight in its jaws.At last: an echoing splash, and we turned back to where my Uncles Jack and Dick were busy with the bands.“The best day’s fishing I ever saw, Cob,” cried Uncle Jack. “It was stupid of us not to drag the pit or the dam before.”“I don’t know about stupid,” said Uncle Bob. “You see we thought the bands were stolen or destroyed. We are learning fast, but we don’t understand yet all the pleasant ways of the Arrowfield men.”The rest of the day was spent over the tiresome job of sorting out the different bands and hanging them on their own special wheels to drain or dry ready for use, and when this was done there was a feeling of satisfaction in every breast, for it meant beginning work again, and Uncle Bob said so.“Yes,” said Uncle Jack; “but also means a fresh attempt to stop our work as soon as the scoundrels know.”“Never mind,” replied Uncle Dick. “It’s a race to see who will tire first: the right side or the wrong, and I think I know.”“What’s to be done next?” said Uncle Bob.“Let the men know that we are ready for them to come back to work if they like to do so,” said Uncle Jack.“Why not get fresh hands altogether?”“Because they would be just as great children as those we have now. No; let us be manly and straightforward with them in everything. We shall fight for our place, but we will not be petty.”“But they will serve us some other scurvy trick,” said Uncle Bob.“Let them,” said Uncle Dick; “never mind. There,” he cried, “those bands will be fit to use to-morrow with this clear dry air blowing through. Let’s go home now and have a quiet hour or two before we come to watch.”“I wish,” said Uncle Jack, “that the works joined our house.”“Go on wishing,” said Uncle Bob, “and they won’t join. Now, how about telling the men?”“Let’s call and see Dunning and tell him to start the fires,” said Uncle Dick; and as we went back the gate-keeper was spoken to, and the old man’s face lit up at the idea of the place being busy again.“And I hope, gentlemen,” he whispered from behind his hand, “that you will be let alone now.”“To which,” said Uncle Bob as we walked on, “I most devoutly say, Amen.”

Uncle Bob gave me a sharp look that seemed to go through me, and then strode into the workshop, while I followed him trembling with anger and misery, to think that I should have gone to sleep at such a time and let the miscreants annoy us again like this.

“Not cut this time,” said Uncle Bob to me, as we went from lathe to lathe, and from to stone. Upstairs and downstairs it was all the same; every band of leather, gutta-percha, catgut, had been taken away, and, of course, the whole of this portion of the works would be brought to a stand.

I felt as if stunned, and as guilty as if I had shared in the plot by which the bands had been taken away.

The men were standing about stolidly watching us. They did not complain about their work being at a stand-still, nor seem to mind that, as they were paid by the amount they did, they would come short at the end of the week: all they seemed interested in was the way in which we were going to bear the loss, or act.

“Does not look like a walk for us, Cob,” said Uncle Bob. “What a cruel shame it is!”

“Uncle,” I cried passionately, for we were alone now, “I can’t tell you how ashamed I am. It’s disgraceful. I’m not fit to be trusted. I can never forgive myself, but I did try so very very hard.”

“Try, my boy!” he said taking my hand; “why, of course, you did. I haven’t blamed you.”

“No, but I blame myself,” I cried.

“Nonsense, my boy! Let that rest.”

“But if I had kept awake I should have detected the scoundrel.”

“No, you would not, Cob, because if you had been awake he would not have come; your being asleep was his opportunity.”

“But I ought not, being on sentry, to have gone to sleep.”

“But, my dear Cob, people who are drugged cannot help going to sleep.”

“Drugged!”

“To be sure. Didn’t you say that you drank a little water and afterwards grew sleepy?”

“But I did not know it was the water.”

“Here, let me look at your bottle and glass.”

I took him into the office and showed him the empty receptacles and the two patches on the floor.

“Clumsily done, Cob,” he said after looking at and smelling them. “This was done to keep anyone suspicious from examining the water. Yes, Cob, you were drugged.”

“Oh, Uncle Bob,” I cried excitedly, “I hope I was!”

“I don’t see why you need be so hopeful, but it is very evident that you were. There, don’t worry yourself about it, my boy. You always do your duty and we’ve plenty to think of without that. We shall spoil two breakfasts at home.”

“But, uncle,” I cried, clinging to his arm, “do you really think I may believe that my sleepiness came from being drugged?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” he cried half angrily. “Now are you satisfied? Come and let’s have a look at the dog.”

I felt quite guilty at having forgotten poor Piter so long, and descending with my uncle we were soon kneeling by the kennel.

He had not stirred since I put him in, but lay snoring heavily, and no amount of shaking seemed to have the least effect.

“The poor brute has had a strong dose, Cob,” said Uncle Bob, “and if we don’t do something he will never wake again.”

“Oh, uncle!” I cried, for his words sent a pang through me. I did not know how much I had grown to like the faithful piece of ugliness till my uncle had spoken as he did.

“Yes, the wretches have almost done for him, and I’m glad of it.”

“Glad!” I cried as I lifted poor Piter’s head in my hand and stroked it.

“Glad it was that which made the poor brute silent. I thought he had turned useless through his not giving the alarm.”

“Can’t we do something, uncle?” I cried.

“I’m thinking, Cob,” he replied, “it’s not an easy thing to give dogs antidotes, and besides we don’t know what he has taken. Must be some narcotic though. I know what we’ll do. Here, carry him down to the dam.”

A number of the workmen were looking on stolidly and whispering to one another as if interested in what we were going to do about the dog. Some were in the yard smoking, some on the stairs, and every man’s hands were deep in his pockets.

“Say,” shouted a voice as I carried the dog out into the yard, following Uncle Bob while the men made room for us, “they’re a goin’ to drown bull-poop.”

I hurried on after my uncle and heard a trampling of feet behind me, but I took no notice, only as I reached the dam there was quite a little crowd closing in.

“Wayert a minute, mester,” said one of the grinders. “I’ll get ’ee bit o’ iron and a bit o’ band to tie round poop’s neck.”

For answer, Uncle Bob took the dog by his collar and hind-legs, and kneeling down on the stone edge of the dam plunged him head-first into the water, drew him out, and plunged him in again twice.

“Yow can’t drownd him like that,” cried one.

“He’s dowsing on him to bring him round,” said another; and then, as Uncle Bob laid the dog down and stood up to watch him, there was a burst of laughter in the little crowd, for all our men were collected now.

“Yes, laugh away, you cowardly hounds,” said Uncle Bob indignantly, and I looked at him wonderingly, for he had always before seemed to be so quiet and good-tempered a fellow. “It’s a pity, I suppose, that you did not kill the dog right out the same as, but for a lucky accident, you might have poisoned this boy here.”

“Who poisoned lad?” said a grinder whom I had seen insolent more than once.

“I don’t know,” cried Uncle Bob; “but I know it was done by the man or men who stole those bands last night; and I know that it was done by someone in these works, and that you nearly all of you know who it was.”

There was a low growl here.

“And a nice cowardly contemptible trick it was!” cried Uncle Bob, standing up taller than any man there, and with his eyes flashing. “I always thought Englishmen were plucky, straightforward fellows, above such blackguards’ tricks as these. Workmen! Why, the scoundrels who did this are unworthy of the name.”

There was another menacing growl here.

“Too cowardly to fight men openly, they come in the night and strike at boys, and dogs, and steal.”

“Yow lookye here,” said the big grinder, taking off his jacket and baring his strong arms; “yow called me a coward, did you?”

“Yes, and any of you who know who did this coward’s trick,” cried Uncle Bob angrily.

“Then tek that!” cried the man, striking at him full in the face.

I saw Uncle Bob catch the blow on his right arm, dart out his left and strike the big grinder in the mouth; and then, before he could recover himself, my uncle’s right fist flashed through the air like lightning, and the man staggered and then fell with a dull thud, the back of his head striking the stones.

There was a loud yell at this, and a chorus rose:

“In wi’ ’em. Throost ’em i’ th’ dam,” shouted a voice, and half a dozen men advanced menacingly; but Uncle Bob stood firm, and just then Fannell the smith strode before them.

“Howd hard theer,” he cried in his shrill voice. “Six to one, and him one o’ the mesters.”

Just then Uncles Jack and Dick strode in through the gates, saw the situation at a glance, and ran to strengthen our side.

“What’s this?” roared Uncle Dick furiously, as Uncle Jack clenched his fists and looked round, as it seemed to me, for some one to knock down. “In to your work, every man of you.”

“Bands is gone,” said a sneering voice.

“Then get off our premises, you dogs!” he roared. “Out of that gate, I say, every man who is against us.”

“Oh, we’re not agen you, mester,” said Gentles smoothly. “I’m ready for wuck, on’y the bands is gone. Yow mean wuck, eh, mates?”

“Then go and wait till we have seen what is to be done. Do you hear?—go.”

He advanced on the men so fiercely that they backed from him, leaving Pannell only, and he stooped to help up the big grinder, who rose to his feet shaking his head like a dog does to get the water out of his ears, for there must have been a loud singing noise there.

“Off with you!” said Uncle Dick turning upon these two.

“Aw reight, mester,” said Pannell. “I were on’y helping the mate. Mester Robert there did gie him a blob.”

Pannell was laughing good-humouredly, and just then Uncle Bob turned upon him.

“Thank you, Pannell,” he said quickly. “I’m glad we have one true man in the place.”

“Oh, it’s aw reight, mester,” said the smith. “Here, coom along, thou’st had anew to last thee these two months.”

As he spoke he half dragged the big grinder away to the workshop, and Uncle Bob rapidly explained the state of affairs.

“It’s enough to make us give up,” cried Uncle Dick angrily. “We pay well; we’re kind to our men; we never overwork them; and yet they serve us these blackguard tricks. Well, if they want to be out of work they shall be, for I’ll agree to no more bands being bought till the scoundrels come to their senses.”

“But we will not be beaten,” cried Uncle Jack, who looked disappointed at there being no more fighting.

“No,” said Uncle Bob, wiping his bleeding knuckles. “I feel as if I had tasted blood, as they say, and I’m ready to fight now to the end.”

“And all the time we are talking and letting that poor dog perish! The cowards!” cried Uncle Dick fiercely. “Is he dead?”

“No,” I said; “I saw one of his ears quiver a little, but he is not breathing so loudly.”

“Give him another plunge,” said Uncle Jack.

Uncle Bob took the dog as before and plunged him once more in the cold clean water; and this time, as soon as he was out, he struggled slightly and choked and panted to get his breath.

“We must get him on his legs if we can,” said Uncle Bob; and for the next half hour he kept trying to make the dog stand, but without avail, till he had almost given up in despair. Then all at once poor Piter began to whine, struggled to his feet, fell down, struggled up again, and then began rapidly to recover, and at last followed us into the office—where, forgetful of breakfast, we began to discuss the present state of the war.

The first thing that caught my eye as we went in was a letter stuck in the crack of the desk, so that it was impossible for anyone to pass without seeing it.

Uncle Jack took the letter, read it, and passed it round, Uncle Bob reading last.

I asked what it was as I stooped over poor Piter, who seemed stupid and confused and shivered with the wet and cold.

“Shall I tell him?” said Uncle Bob, looking at his brothers.

They looked at one another thoughtfully, nodded, and Uncle Bob handed me the note; and a precious composition it was.

“You London Cockneys,” it began, “you’ve had plenty warnings ’bout your gimcracks and contrapshions, and wouldn’t take ’em. Now look here, we won’t hev ’em in Arrowfield, robbing hard-workin’ men of toil of their hard earns and takin’ bread out o’ wife and childers mouths and starvin’ families, so look out. If you three an’ that sorcy boy don’t pack up your traps and be off, we’ll come and pack ’em up for you. So now you know.”

“You London Cockneys,” it began, “you’ve had plenty warnings ’bout your gimcracks and contrapshions, and wouldn’t take ’em. Now look here, we won’t hev ’em in Arrowfield, robbing hard-workin’ men of toil of their hard earns and takin’ bread out o’ wife and childers mouths and starvin’ families, so look out. If you three an’ that sorcy boy don’t pack up your traps and be off, we’ll come and pack ’em up for you. So now you know.”

“What does this mean?” I said, looking from one to the other.

“It means war, my lad,” said Uncle Dick fiercely.

“You will not take any notice of this insolent letter?” I said.

“Oh yes, but we will!” said Uncle Jack.

“Not give up and go like cowards?”

“I don’t think we shall, Cob,” said Uncle Jack laughing. “No; we’re in the right and they are in the wrong. We’ve got a strong tower to fight in and defend ourselves; they’ve got to attack us here, and I think they’ll be rather badly off if they do try anything more serious.”

“This has been bad enough,” said Uncle Bob. “You did not fully understand how narrow an escape Cob had.”

And he related all.

“The scoundrels!” said Uncle Jack, grinding his teeth. “And now this means threatenings of future attacks.”

“Well,” said Uncle Dick, “if they do come I’m afraid someone will be very much hurt—more so than that man Stevens you knocked down.”

“And made a fresh enemy for us,” said Uncle Jack, laughing.

“And showed who was a friend,” I said, remembering Pannell’s action.

“To be sure,” said Uncle Jack. “Well, if anyone is hurt it will be the attacking party, for I am beginning to feel vicious.”

“Well, what about the wheels?” said Uncle Bob. “Every band has gone, and it will be a heavy expense to restore them.”

“Let’s go and have breakfast and think it over,” said Uncle Dick. “It’s bad to decide in haste. Listen! What are the men doing?”

“Going out in the yard, evidently,” said Uncle Bob. “Yes, and down to the gate.”

So it proved, for five minutes later the place was completely empty.

“Why, they’ve forsaken us,” said Uncle Dick bitterly.

“Never mind,” said Uncle Bob. “Let’s have our breakfast. We can lock up the place.”

And this we did, taking poor old Piter with us, who looked so helpless and miserable that several dogs attacked him on our way home, anticipating an easy victory.

But they did Piter good, rousing him up to give a bite here and another there—one bite being all his enemies cared to receive before rushing off, yelping apologies for the mistake they had made in attacking the sickly-looking heavy-eyed gentleman of their kind.

Piter had jaws like a steel trap, as others beside dogs found before long.

When we went back to the works the gate-keeper left in charge said that several of the men had been back, but had gone again, it having been settled that no more work was to be done till the wheel-bands were restored; so the fires were going out, and the smiths, who could have gone on, had to leave their forges.

“Well,” said Uncle Dick, laughing bitterly, as he gave his beard a sharp tug, “I thought that we were masters here.”

“Quite a mistake,” said Uncle Jack; “the men are the masters; and if we do anything that they in their blind ignorance consider opposed to their interests they punish us.”

“Well, you see, sir,” said the gate-keeper, “it’s like this here, sir—work’s quite scarce enough, and the men are afraid, that new steel or new machinery will make it worse.”

“Tell them to take the scales off their eyes, then,” said Uncle Dick. “Oppose machinery, do they?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then if someone invented a new kind of grindstone to grind tools and blades in a quarter of the time, what would they do?”

“Smash it, sir, or burn the place it was in,” said the man with a grin.

“Then why don’t they smash up the grindstones they use now? They are machinery.”

“What! Grindstones, sir? Oh, no!”

“But they are, man, I tell you,” cried Uncle Dick angrily. “The first men who ground knives or shears rubbed, them on a rough piece of stone; then I dare say a cleverer man found it was handier to rub the blade with the stone instead of the stone with the blade; and then someone invented the round grindstone which turned and ground whatever was held against it.”

“Come along,” said Uncle Jack sharply. “You are wasting breath. They will not believe till they find all this out for themselves.”

We went in and had a good look round the place, but there was not a band to be found. There had been no cutting—every one had been carried away, leaving no trace behind; and I wanted a good deal of comforting to make me satisfied that it was not my fault.

But my uncles were very kind to me, and told me at once that I was to say no more, only to be thankful that I had not drunk more heartily of the water, and been made ill as the dog, who, in spite of seeming better, kept having what I may call relapses, and lying down anywhere to have a fresh sleep.

The look round produced no result, and the day was spent in the silent works writing letters, book-keeping, and talking rather despondently about the future.

It seemed so strange to me as I went about. No roaring fires and puffing bellows; no clink of hammer or anvil, and no churr and screech of steel being held against the revolving stones. There was no buzz of voices or shouting from end to end of the workshop, and instead of great volumes of smoke rolling out of the top of the tall chimney-shaft, a little faint grey cloud slowly curled away into the air.

Then there was the great wheel. The dam was full and overflowing, but the wheel was still; and when I looked in, the water trickled and plashed down into the gloomy chamber with its mossy, slimy stone sides, while the light shone in at the opening, and seemed to make bright bands across the darkness before it played upon the slightly agitated waters.

Then a long discussion took place, in which it was asked whether it would be wise to buy new bands, and to ask the men to come back and work; but opinion was against this.

“No,” said Uncle Jack. “I’m for being as obstinate as they are. We’ve had our bands injured once; now let’s show them that if they can afford to wait so can we. We can’t, neither can they, but there must be a little obstinacy practised, and perhaps it will bring them to their senses.”

“And make them bring back our bands?” I ventured to say.

“Ah, I’m not so hopeful about that!” cried Uncle Bob. “I’m afraid that we shall have to buy new ones.”

“Yes,” said Uncle Dick; “but I would not mind that if by so doing we could get the men to behave well to us in the future.”

“And we never shall,” said Uncle Jack, “till Cob here ceases to be such a tyrant. The men are afraid of him.”

“Why, uncle!” I exclaimed; and they all laughed at my look of injury.

That night Uncle Jack and Uncle Dick kept watch; next night we took our turn again, and so matters went on for a week. Now and then we saw some of our men idling about, but they looked at us in a heavy stolid way, and then slouched off.

The works seemed to be very melancholy and strange, but we went there regularly enough, and when we had a fire going and stayed in there was no doubt about the matter; we were watched.

Piter grew quite well again, and in his thick head there seemed to be an idea that he had been very badly used, for, as he walked close at my heels, I used to see him give the workmen very ugly looks in a side wise fashion that I used to call measuring legs.

One morning my uncles said that they should not go to the works that day, and as they did not seem to want me I thought I would go back and put a project I had in my mind in force.

I had passed the night at the works in company with Uncle Jack, and all had been perfectly quiet, so, putting some bones in the basket for Piter, I also thrust in some necessaries for the task I had in hand, and started.

About half-way there I met Gentles, the fat-faced grinder, and he shut his eyes at me and slouched up in his affectionate way.

“Ah! Mester Jacob,” he said, “when’s this here unhappy strike going to end?”

“When the rascals who stole our bands bring them back,” I said, “and return to their work.”

“Ah!” he sighed, “I’m afraid they wean’t do that, my lad. Hedn’t the mesters better give in, and not make no more noofangle stoof?”

“Oh, that’s what you think, is it, Gentles?” I said.

“Who? Me, mester? Oh, no: I’m only a pore hardworking chap who wants to get back to his horse. It’s what the other men say. For my part I wishes as there was no unions, stopping a man’s work and upsetting him; that I do. Think the mesters’ll give in, Mester Jacob, sir?”

“I’m sure they will not, Gentles,” I said, “and you had better tell the men so.”

“Nay, I durstn’t tell ’em. Oh, dear, no, Mester Jacob, sir. I’m a quiet peaceable man, I am. I on’y wants to be let alone.”

I went on, thinking, and had nearly reached the lane by the works, when I met Pannell, who was smoking a short black pipe.

“Hello!” he cried.

“Hello! Pannell,” I said.

“Goin’ to open wucks, and let’s get on again, lad?”

“Whenever you men like to bring back the bands and apologise, Pannell.”

“Nay, I’ve got nowt to ’pologise for. I did my wuck, and on’y wanted to be let alone.”

“But you know who took the bands,” I cried. “You know who tried to poison our poor dog and tried to blow up the furnace, now don’t you?”

He showed his great teeth as he looked full at me.

“Why, my lad,” he said, “yow don’t think I’m going to tell, do ’ee?”

“You ought to tell,” I cried. “I’m sure you know; and it’s a cowardly shame.”

“Ay, I s’pose that’s what you think,” he said quietly. “But, say, lad, isn’t it time wuck began again?”

“Time! Yes,” I said. “Why don’t you take our side, Pannell; my uncles are your masters?”

“Ay, I know that, lad,” said the big smith quietly; “but man can’t do as he likes here i’ Arrowfield. Eh, look at that!”

“Well, mate,” said a rough voice behind me; and I saw the smith start as Stevens, the fierce grinder, came up, and without taking any notice of me address the smith in a peculiar way, fixing him with his eye and clapping him on the shoulder.

“Here, I want to speak wi’ thee,” he said sharply. “Coom and drink.”

It seemed to me that he regularly took the big smith into custody, and marched him off.

This set me thinking about how they must be all leagued together; but I forgot all about the matter as I opened the gate, and Piter came charging down at me, delighted to have company once more in the great lonely works.

The next minute he was showing his intelligence by smelling the basket as we walked up to the door together.

I gave him some of the contents to amuse him, and then entering the deserted grinding-shop, walked straight to the door at the end opening into the great wheel-pit, and throwing it back stood upon the little platform built out, and looked down at the black water, which received enough from the full dam to keep it in motion and make the surface seem to be covered with a kind of thready film that was always opening and closing, and spreading all over the place to the very walls.

It looked rather black and unpleasant, and seemed to be a place that might contain monsters of eels or other fish, and it was to try and catch some of these that I had taken advantage of the holiday-time and come.

For I had several times called to mind what Gentles had said about the fish in the dam and pit, and meant to have a turn; but now I was here everything was so silent and mysterious and strange, that I rather shrank from my task, and began to wonder what I should do if I hooked some monster too large to draw out.

“What a coward I am!” I said aloud; and taking the stout eel-line I had brought, and baiting the two hooks upon it with big worms, I gathered up the cord quite ready and then made a throw, so that my bait went down right beneath the wheel, making a strange echoing splash that whispered about the slimy walls.

“Looks more horrible than ever,” I said to myself, as I shook off my dislike, and sat down on the little platform with my legs dangling over the water.

But I could not quite shake off my dread, for the feeling came over me: suppose some horrible serpentlike water creature were to raise its head out of the black depths, seize me by the foot, and drag me down.

It was an absurd idea, but I could not fight against it, and I found myself drawing my legs up and sitting down tailor fashion with my feet beneath me.

And there I sat with not a sound but the dripping water to be heard, and a curious rustling that I soon after made out to be Piter busy with his bone.

A quarter of an hour, half an hour, passed away, and I did not get a touch, so drawing up my line I restored the baits and threw in again, choosing the far-off corner of the pit close by where the water escaped to the stream below.

The bait had not been down a minute, and I was just wondering whether Gentles was correct about there being any fish there, when I felt the line softly drawn through my fingers, then there was a slight quivering vibration, and a series of tiny jerks, and the line began to run faster, while my heart began to beat with anticipation.

“He was right,” I exclaimed, as I tightened the line with a jerk, and then a sharp little struggle began, as the fish I had hooked rushed hither and thither, and fought back, and finally was dragged out of the water, tying itself up in a knot which bobbed and slipped about upon the floor as I dragged it into the grinding-room, and cut the line to set it free, for it was impossible to get the hook out of the writhing creature’s jaws.

It was an eel of about a pound weight, and, excited now by the struggle, I fastened on a fresh hook, baited it, and threw in the same place again.

Quite half an hour elapsed before I had another bite, and knowing how nocturnal these creatures are in their habits, I was just thinking that if I liked next time I was on the watch I might throw a line in here, and keep catching an eel every now and then, when—

Check! A regular sharp jerk at the line, and I knew that I had hooked a good one, but instead of the line tightening it suddenly grew quite slack.

For a moment I was afraid that the fish had broken away, but I realised directly that it had rushed over to my side of the wheel-pit, and it had come so swiftly that I began to think that it could not be an eel.

I had not much line to gather in, though, before I felt the check again, and a furious tug given so hard that I let the line run, and several yards were drawn through my fingers before I began to wonder where the eel or other fish I had hooked had gone.

“Perhaps there is a passage or drain under the works,” I thought as I dragged at the line, now to feel some answering throbs; but the fish did not run any farther, only remained stationary.

“What a monster!” I cried, as I felt what a tremendous weight there was against me. I drew the line and gained a little, but gave way for fear it should break.

This went on for ten minutes or so. I was in a state of the greatest excitement, for I felt that I had got hold of a monster, and began to despair of dragging it up to where I was. Such a thing seemed impossible, for the line would give way or the hook break from its hold I was sure.

In place of jerking about now, the fish was very still, exercising a kind of inert force against its captor; but I was in momentary expectation of a renewal of the battle, and so powerful did the creature seem, so enormously heavy was it, that I began to regret my success, and to wonder what the consequences would be if I were to get the large eel up there on the floor.

One moment I saw myself flying for my life from a huge writhing open-mouthed creature, and saved by a gallant attack made by Piter, who, hearing the noise, had dashed in open-jawed to seize the fierce monster by the neck; the next I was calling myself a donkey.

“Why, of course!” I cried. “When I hooked it the creature ran in towards me, and has darted in and out of some grating and wound the line tightly there.”

That could not be the case, I felt as I pulled, for though it was evident that the fish had entangled the line, it was in something loose which I got nearly to the surface several times, as I gazed down there in the darkness till all at once, just as I was straining my eyes to make out what it was that was entangled with my hook, the cord snapped, there was a dull plash below me, the water rippled and babbled against the side, and all was still once more.

I stood gazing down for a few minutes, and then a flash of intelligence shot through me, and I darted back, rapidly coiling up my wet line and taking it and my basket up into the office, from whence I came hurrying out, and ready to dash down two steps at a time.

“Why, of course,” I kept on saying to myself; “what stupids!”

I ran across the yard, unlocked and relocked the gate, leaving Piter disappointed and barking, and hurried back to the house, where my uncles were busy over some correspondence.

“Hurrah!” I cried. “I’ve found it all out. Come along! Down to the works!”

“You’ve found out!” cried Uncle Dick starting.

“Found it all out!” I cried excitedly. “Now, then, all of you! Come on and see.”

I slipped down to Mrs Stephenson after telling my uncles to go slowly on and that I would overtake them, and that lady smiled in my face as soon as she saw me.

“Don’t say a word!” she cried. “I know what you want. Tattsey, get out the pork-pie.”

“No, no,” I cried; “you mistake. I’m not hungry.”

“Nonsense, my dear! And if you’re not hungry now, you will be before long. I’ve a beautiful raised pie of my own making. Have a bit, my dear. Bring it, Tattsey.”

It was, I found, one of the peculiarities of these people to imagine everybody was hungry, and their hospitality to their friends was without stint.

Tattsey had not so much black-lead on her face as usual. In fact it was almost clean, while her hands were beautifully white, consequent upon its being peggy day; that is to say, the day in which clothes were washed in the peggy tub, and kept in motion by a four-legged peggy, a curious kind of machine with a cross handle.

So before I could say another word the pork-pie was brought out on the white kitchen-table, and Mrs Stephenson began to cut out a wedge.

“May I take it with me,” I said, “and eat it as I go along?”

“Bless the boy; yes, of course,” said our homely landlady. “Boys who are growing want plenty to eat. I hate to see people starve.”

“But I want you to do me a favour,” I said.

“Of course, my dear. What is it?”

“I want you to lend me your clothes-line.”

“What, that we are just going to put out in the yard for the clean clothes? I should just think not indeed.”

“How tiresome!” I cried. “Well, never mind; I must buy a bit. But will you lend me a couple of meat-hooks?”

“Now, what in the world are you going to do with a clothes-line and two meat-hooks?”

“I’m going fishing,” I said impatiently.

“Now don’t you talk nonsense, my dear,” said our plump landlady, looking rather red. “Do you think I don’t know better than that?”

“But I am going fishing,” I cried.

“Where?”

“In our wheel-pit.”

“Then there’s someone drownded, and you are going to fish him out.”

“No, no,” I cried. “Will you lend me the hooks?”

“Yes, I’ll lend you the hooks,” she said, getting them out of a drawer.

“We sha’n’t want the old clothes-line,” said Tattsey slowly.

“No, we sha’n’t want the old clothes-line,” said Mrs Stephenson, looking at me curiously. “There, you can have that.”

“I’ll tell you all about it when I come back,” I cried as the knot of clean cord was handed to me; and putting an arm through it and the hooks in my pocket I started off at a run, to find myself face to face with Gentles before I overtook my uncles.

“Going a wallucking, Mester Jacob?” he said.

“No; I’m going a-fishing.”

“What, wi’ that line, Mester?”

“Yes.”

“Arn’t it a bit too thick, Mester?”

“Not in the least, Gentles,” I said; and leaving him rubbing his face as if to smooth it after being shaved, I ran on and overtook my uncles just before we reached the works.

“Thought you weren’t coming, Cob,” said Uncle Dick. “What are you going to do with the rope?”

“Have patience,” I said laughing.

Just then we passed Stevens, who scowled at us as he saw me with the rope, while Pannell, who was with him, stared, and his face slowly lit up with a broad grin.

They turned round to stare after us as we went to the gate, and then walked off quickly.

“What does that mean, oh, boy of mystery?” said Uncle Jack.

“They suspect that I have discovered their plans,” I cried joyfully.

“And have you—are you sure?”

“Only wait five minutes, uncle, and you shall see,” I cried.

We entered the works, fastened the gate after us, and then, taking the end of my fishing-line as soon as we reached the grinding-shop, I began to bind the two meat-hooks one across the other.

“What, are you going to try for eels that way?” said Uncle Bob laughing, as my uncles seemed to be gradually making out what was to come.

“Well,” I said, “they broke my other line.”

By this time I had fastened the hooks pretty firmly, and to the cross I now secured the end of the clothes-line.

“Fine eel that, Cob,” said Uncle Dick, hunting the one I had caught into a corner, for it had been travelling all over the place.

“Yes,” I said; “and now the tackle’s ready, throw in and see if you can’t get another.”

Uncle Dick went straight to the doorway, stepped on to the platform, and threw in the hook, which seemed to catch in something and gave way again.

“Come, I had a bite,” he said laughing. “What has been thrown in here—some bundles of wire or steel rods?”

“Try again,” I said laughing, and he had another throw, this time getting tight hold of something which hung fast to the hooks, and came up dripping and splashing to the little platform, where it was seized, and Uncle Bob gave a shout of delight.

“Why, I never expected to catch that,” cried Uncle Dick.

“I thought it was some stolen rings of wire,” said Uncle Jack, as he seized hold, and together they dragged a great tangle of leather and catgut bands over the platform into the grinding-shop, fully half falling back with a tremendous splash.

“Cob, you’re a hero,” cried Uncle Dick.

“The malicious scoundrels!” cried Uncle Jack.

“Throw in again,” said Uncle Bob.

And then Uncle Dick fished and dragged and hauled up tangle after tangle till there was quite a heap of the dripping bands, with rivulets of water streaming away over the stone floor, and right in the middle a monster of an eel, the gentleman I had hooked, and which had wound itself in and out of the catgut bands till it was held tight by the mouth.

“He deserves to have his freedom,” said Uncle Dick, as he gave the bands a shake so that the hook came out of the eel’s mouth, and it began to writhe and twine about the floor.

“And he shall have it,” I cried, taking a walking-stick, and for the next five minutes I was employed trying to guide my prisoner to the doorway leading into the pit.

I suppose you never tried to drive an eel? No? Well, let me assure you that pig-driving is a pleasant pastime in comparison. We have it on good authority that if you want to drive a pig in a particular direction all you have to do is to point his nose straight and then try to pull him back by the tail. Away he goes directly.

Try and drive a big thick eel, two feet six inches long, with a walking-stick, and you’ll find it a task that needs an education first. Put his head straight, and he curves to right or left. Pull his tail, and he’ll turn round and bite you, and hold fast too. Mine turned round and bit, but it was the walking-stick he seized with his strong jaws, and it wanted a good shake to get it free.

Every way but the right would that eel squirm and wriggle. I chased him round grindstones, in and out of water-troughs, from behind posts and planks, from under benches, but I could not get him to the door; and I firmly believe that night would have fallen with me still hunting the slimy wriggling creature if Uncle Bob had not seized it with his hands after throwing his pocket-handkerchief over its back.

The next instant it was curled up in the silk, writhing itself into a knot, no doubt in an agony of fear, if eels can feel fear. Then it was held over the pit, the handkerchief taken by one corner, and I expected to hear it drop with a splash into the water; but no, it held on, and though the handkerchief was shaken it was some time before it would quit its hold of the silk, a good piece of which was tight in its jaws.

At last: an echoing splash, and we turned back to where my Uncles Jack and Dick were busy with the bands.

“The best day’s fishing I ever saw, Cob,” cried Uncle Jack. “It was stupid of us not to drag the pit or the dam before.”

“I don’t know about stupid,” said Uncle Bob. “You see we thought the bands were stolen or destroyed. We are learning fast, but we don’t understand yet all the pleasant ways of the Arrowfield men.”

The rest of the day was spent over the tiresome job of sorting out the different bands and hanging them on their own special wheels to drain or dry ready for use, and when this was done there was a feeling of satisfaction in every breast, for it meant beginning work again, and Uncle Bob said so.

“Yes,” said Uncle Jack; “but also means a fresh attempt to stop our work as soon as the scoundrels know.”

“Never mind,” replied Uncle Dick. “It’s a race to see who will tire first: the right side or the wrong, and I think I know.”

“What’s to be done next?” said Uncle Bob.

“Let the men know that we are ready for them to come back to work if they like to do so,” said Uncle Jack.

“Why not get fresh hands altogether?”

“Because they would be just as great children as those we have now. No; let us be manly and straightforward with them in everything. We shall fight for our place, but we will not be petty.”

“But they will serve us some other scurvy trick,” said Uncle Bob.

“Let them,” said Uncle Dick; “never mind. There,” he cried, “those bands will be fit to use to-morrow with this clear dry air blowing through. Let’s go home now and have a quiet hour or two before we come to watch.”

“I wish,” said Uncle Jack, “that the works joined our house.”

“Go on wishing,” said Uncle Bob, “and they won’t join. Now, how about telling the men?”

“Let’s call and see Dunning and tell him to start the fires,” said Uncle Dick; and as we went back the gate-keeper was spoken to, and the old man’s face lit up at the idea of the place being busy again.

“And I hope, gentlemen,” he whispered from behind his hand, “that you will be let alone now.”

“To which,” said Uncle Bob as we walked on, “I most devoutly say, Amen.”

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