Chapter Twenty One.

Chapter Twenty One.What I caught and heard.“I should say you will very likely have some sport,” said Uncle Dick. “Try by all means.”“I hardly like to, uncle,” I said.“Nonsense, my lad! All work and no play makes Jack—I mean Jacob—a dull boy.”“But it will seem as if I am neglecting my work.”“By no means. Besides, we shall not be busy for a day or two. Have a few hours’ fishing, and I daresay one of us will come and see how you are getting on.”The opportunity was too tempting to be lost, so I got a cheap rod and a dear line—a thoroughly good one, asked a gardener just outside to dig up some small red worms for me, and, furnishing myself with some paste and boiled rice, I one morning took my place up at the head of the dam where the stream came in, chose a place where the current whirled round in a deep hole and began fitting my tackle together prior to throwing in.I had been longing for this trial, for I felt sure that there must be some big fish in the dam. It was quite amongst the houses and factories, but all the same it was deep, there was a constant run of fresh water through it, and I had more than once seen pieces of bread sucked down in a curiously quiet way, as if taken by a great slow moving fish, a carp or tench, an old inhabitant of the place.Certainly it was not the sort of spot I should have selected for a day’s fishing had I been offered my choice, but it was the best I could obtain then, and I was going to make the most of it.I laughed to myself as I thought of the eels, and the great haul I had made down in the wheel-pit, and then I shuddered as I thought of the horrors I had suffered down there, and wondered whether our troubles with the men were pretty well over.I hoped so, for from what I heard the business was succeeding beyond the hopes of the most sanguine of my uncles, and if we were left alone success on the whole was assured.Of course it was this brilliant prospect that induced them to stay on and dare the perils that lurked around, though, during the past few weeks, everything had been so quiet that once more we were indulging in the hope that the war was at an end.In spite of Dr Johnson’s harsh saying about a fisherman, I know of no more satisfactory amusement than is to be found in company with a rod and line. The sport may be bad, but there is the country, the bright sky, the waving trees, the dancing waters, and that delicious feeling of expectation of the finest bite and the biggest fish that never comes but always may.I was in this state of expectancy that day. The sport was not good certainly, for the fish I caught were small, but I argued that where there were small fish there must be large, and sooner or later some of the monsters of the dam would see and take my bait.I fished till dinner-time, varying my position, and when the bell rang some of the men came and sat on the edge and watched me, chatting civilly enough as they smoked their pipes.As luck had it I caught a couple of good-sized silvery roach, and Stevens gave his leg a regular slap as he exclaimed:“Well if they’d towd me there was fish like that i’ th’ dam I wouldn’t hev believed it.”The bell rang for work to be resumed, and the men slowly moved along the dam edge, Stevens being left, and he stopped to fill and light his pipe—so it seemed to me; but as he stooped over it, puffing away large clouds of smoke, I heard him say:“Don’t look. Soon as men’s gone in, yow go and stand on ledge close under grinding-shop windows, and see what you catch.”“It’s such an awkward place to get to,” I said. “I suppose it’s deep, but—”“You do what I tell’ee, and don’t talk,” growled Stevens, and he strolled off with his hands in his pockets after his mates.“I sha’n’t go,” I said. “It’s a very awkward place to get to; the ledge is not above nine inches wide, and if I got hold of a big fish, how am I to land him!”The very idea of getting hold of a fish that would be too hard to land was too much for me, and I should have gone to the ledge if it had only been four and a half inches wide. So, waiting to have a few more throws, which were without result, I picked up my basket, walked right round the end of the dam, and then along the top of a narrow wall till I reached the end of the works at the far side, and from there lowered myself gently down on the ledge, along which Pannell had brought me when he rescued me from the wheel-pit, right at the other end, and towards which I was slowly making my way.It was slow travelling, and my feet were not above a couple of inches above the water, while the windows of the grinding-shop were about four feet above my head.I made no special selection, but stopped right in the middle, just where I imagined that the dam head would be deepest, and softly dropped in my line after setting down my basket and leaning my back against the stone building.As I did so I wished that there had been a place to sit down, but there was of course only just room to stand, and there I was with the water gliding on and over the great wheel a few yards to my left; to my right the windows, out of which poured the black smoke of the forges, and from which came theclink chinkof hammer upon anvil, while above me came throbbing and vibrating, screeching and churring, the many varied sounds made by the grinders as they pressed some piece of steel against the swiftly revolving stone, while, in spite of dripping drenching water, the least contact drew from the stone a shower of sparks.I fished on, after making a few alterations in the depth of my bait, finding the water far deeper than I expected. I renewed that bait, too, but no monstrous fish came to take it, to hook itself, and to make a rush and drag me off my ledge. The sounds buzzed and rattled overhead; there was the echoing plash of the water over the wheel, and the whispering echoes which did not sound at all terrible now, and above all from the windows overhead, in intervals of the grinding, I could hear the men talking very earnestly at times.I paid very little heed, for I was interested in my fishing and the water across which the spiders were skating. I wanted a big bite—that big bite—but still it did not come, and I began to wonder whether there were any fish of size in the place.“There’s every reason why there should be,” I thought. Deep clear water fed by the great dam up in the hills, and of course that dam was fed by the mountain streams. This place was all amongst buildings, and plenty of smuts fell on the surface; in fact the wind used to send a regular black scum floating along to the sides.Plop!My heart gave a throb of excitement, for there was a rise evidently made by a big fish over to my right close inshore.“Now if I had been there,” I thought, “I should have most likely been able to catch that fish and then—”Bah! Who wanted to catch a great water-rat that had plumped off the bank into the water? I could see the sleek-coated fellow paddling about close inshore. Then he dived down, and there were a lot of tiny bubbles to show his course before he went right in under the bank, which was full of holes.I could almost fancy I was in the country, for there were a few rushes and some sedgy growth close to where the rat had been busy. Farther off, too, there was the sound that I had heard down in a marshy part of Essex with my uncles, during one of our excursions. “Quack, quack, quack! Wuck, wuck, wuck!”—a duck and a drake just coming down to the water to drink and bathe and feed on the water-weed and snails.Yes; it quite put me in mind of the country to have wild ducks coming down to the pool, and—there were the two wild ducks! One, as the cry had told me, was a drake, and he had once been white, but old age and Arrowfield soot and the dirty little black yard where he generally lived had changed his tint most terribly, and though he plunged in, and bobbed and jerked the water all over his back, and rubbed the sides of his head and his beak all among his feathers, they were past cleaning.As to his wife, who expressed herself with a loud quack, instead of sayingwuck, wuckin more smothered tones, she was possibly quite as dirty as her lord, but being brown the dirt did not show. Her rags did, for a more disreputable bird I never saw, though she, too, washed and napped her wings, and dived and drenched herself before getting out on the bank to preen and beak over her feathers.Alas! As people say in books, it was not the country, but dingy, smoke-bewithered Arrowfield, and I wondered to myself why a couple of birds with wings should consent to stay amongst factories and works.I knew the top of my float by heart; so must that skating spider which had skimmed up to it, running over the top of the water as easily as if it were so much ice. I was growing drowsy and tired. Certainly I leaned my back up against the wall, but it was quite upright, and there was no recompense. Whatever is the use of watching a float that will not bob? It may be one of the best to be got in a tackle-shop, with a lovely subdivision of the paint—blue at the bottom and white at the top, or green and white, or blue and red, but if it obstinately persists in sitting jauntily cocked up on the top of the water immovable, fishing no longer becomes a sport.But I did not fish all that time for nothing.As I said, I was becoming drowsy with looking so long at the black cap at the top of my float. Perhaps it was the whirr and hum of the machinery, and the faint sound of plashing water; even the buzz and churr and shriek of the steel upon the fast spinning stones may have had something to do with it. At any rate I was feeling sleepy and stupid, when all at once I was wide-awake and listening excitedly, for the shrieking of blade held upon grindstone ceased, and I heard a voice that was perfectly familiar to me say:“Tell ’ee what. Do it at once if you like; but if I had my wayer I’d tie lump o’ iron fast on to that theer dorg’s collar and drop ’im in dam.”“What good ud that do?” said another voice.“Good! Why we’d be shut on him.”“Ay, but they’d get another.”“Well, they wouldn’t get another boy if we got shut o’ this one,” said the first voice.“But yow wouldn’t go so far as to—”The man stopped short, and seemed to give his stone a slap with the blade that he was grinding.“I d’know. He’s a bad un, and allus at the bottom of it if owt is found out.”“Ay, but yow mustn’t.”“Well, p’r’aps I wouldn’t then, but I’d do something as would mak him think it were time to go home to his mother.”My face grew red, then white, I’m sure, for one moment it seemed to burn, the next it felt wet and cold. I did not feel sleepy any longer, but in an intense state of excitement, for those words came from the window just above my head, so that I could hear them plainly.“It’s all nonsense,” I said to myself directly after. “They know I’m here, and it’s done to scare me.”Just then the churring and screeching of the grinding steel burst out louder than ever, and I determined to go away and treat all I had heard with silent contempt. Pulling up my line just as a fisher will, I threw in again for one final try, and hardly had the bait reached the bottom before the float bobbed.I could not believe it at first. It seemed that I must have jerked the line—but no, there it was again, another bob, and another, and then a series of little bobs, and the float moved slowly off over the surface, carrying with it a dozen or so of blacks.I was about to strike, but I thought I would give the fish a little more time and make sure of him, and, forgetting all about the voices overhead, I was watching the float slowly gliding away, bobbing no longer, but with the steady motion that follows if a good fish has taken the bait.And what a delight that was! What a reward to my patience! That it was a big one I had no doubt. If it had been a little fish it would have jigged and bobbed the float about in the most absurd way, just as if the little fish were thoughtless, and in a hurry to be off to play on the surface, whereas a big fish made it a regular business, and was calm and deliberate in every way.“Now for it,” I thought, and raising the point of the rod slowly I was just going to strike when the grinding above my head ceased, and one of the voices I had before heard said:“Well, we two have got to go up to thePointed Starto-night to get our orders, and then we shall know what’s what.”I forgot all about the fish and listened intently.“Nay, they can’t hear,” said the voice again, as if in answer to a warning; “wheels makes too much noise. I don’t care if they did. They’ve had warnings enew. What did they want to coom here for?”“Ay,” said another, “trade’s beginning to feel it a’ready. If we let ’em go on our wives and bairns ’ll be starving next winter.”“That’s a true word, lad; that’s a true word. When d’yow think it’ll be?”“Ah, that’s kept quiet. We shall know soon enew.”“Ay, when it’s done.”“Think this ’ll sattle ’em?”“Sattle! Ay, that it will, and pretty well time. They’ll go back to Lonnon wi’ their tails twix’ their legs like the curs they are. Say, think they’ve got pistols?”“Dunno. Sure to hev, ah sud say.”“Oh!”“Well, s’pose they hev? You aren’t the man to be scarred of a pop-gun, are yo’?”“I d’know. Mebbe I should be if I hev the wuck to do. I’m scarred o’ no man.”“But you’re scarred of a pistol, eh lad? Well, I wunner at yo’.”“Well, see what a pistol is.”“Ay, I know what a pistol is, lad. Man’s got a pistol, and yo’ hit ’im a tap on the knuckles, and he lets it fall. Then he stoops to pick it up, and knobstick comes down on his head. Nowt like a knobstick, lad, whether it be a man or a bit o’ wood. Wants no loading, and is allus safe.”“Well, all I’ve got to say is, if I have the wuck to do I shall—”Churr, churry, screech, and grind. The noise drowned the words I was eager to hear, and I stood bathed with perspiration, and hot and cold in turn.That some abominable plot was in hatching I was sure, and in another minute I might have heard something that would have enabled us to be upon our guard; but the opportunity had passed, for the men were working harder than ever.I was evidently in very bad odour with them, and I thought bitterly of the old proverb about listeners never hearing any good of themselves.What should I do—stop and try to hear more?Jig, jig, tug, tugat the top of my rod, and I looked down to see that the float was out of sight and the rod nearly touching the water.My fisherman’s instinct made me strike at once, and in spite of the agitation produced by the words I had heard I was ready for the exciting struggle I expected to follow. I had certainly hooked a fish which struggled and tugged to get away; but it was not the great carp or tench I expected to capture, only a miserable little eel which I drew through the water as I walked slowly along the ledge towards the end of the works farthest from the wheel, where I climbed on the wall, and, still dragging my prize, I went right on to the far end, where the water came in from the stream. There I crossed the wooden plank that did duty for a bridge, and glanced furtively back at the windows of the works looking out upon the dam.As far as I could make out I had not been seen, and I had obtained some very valuable information that might be useful for our protection.When I had reached the spot where I had begun fishing I drew in my capture; but it was not a long eel, but a mass of twined-up, snake-like fish which had wreathed itself into a knot with my line.To get it free seemed to be impossible, so I cut off the piece of line just above the knot and let it fall into the water to extricate itself, while I went back to the office to have a few words with my uncles about what I had heard.“I think we are in duty bound to send you home, Cob,” said Uncle Jack, and the others murmured their acquiescence.“Send me home!” I cried. “What! Just when all the fun is going to begin!”“Fun!” said Uncle Dick, “Fun that the frogs suffered when the boys stoned them, eh?”“Oh, but you know what I mean, uncle. I don’t want to go.”“But we have run you into terrible risks already,” cried Uncle Bob, “and if you were hurt I should feel as if I could never face your father and mother again.”“Oh, but I sha’n’t be hurt,” I cried. “There, I’m ready for anything, and shall always try to get on the safe side.”“As you always do,” said Uncle Jack grimly. “No, my boy, you must not stay. It is evident from what you overheard that the men have some design against us on hand. Above all, they have taken a great dislike to you, and in their blind belief that you are one of the causes of their trouble they evidently feel spiteful and will not shrink from doing you harm. And that’s rather a long-winded speech,” he added, smiling.“Can’t we make them see that we are working for them instead of against them?” said Uncle Dick.“No,” said Uncle Bob. “No one can teach prejudiced workmen. The light comes to them some day, but it takes a long time to get through their dense brains. I think Cob must go.”“Oh! Uncle Bob,” I exclaimed.“I can’t help it,” my lad. “There seems to be no help for it. I shall regret it horribly, for your uncles are very poor company.”“Thankye,” said Uncle Dick.“Nice remark from the most stupid of three brothers,” grumbled Uncle Jack.“But you ought not to be exposed to these risks,” continued Uncle Bob, “and now that by your own showing there is something worse on the way.”“Oh, it can’t be worse than it has been; and besides, the men said I was always the first to find anything out. You see I have this time—again.”“Yes, with a vengeance,” said Uncle Jack.“And I’m sure you can’t spare me.”“No, we can ill spare you, Cob,” said Uncle Dick, “but we should not be doing our duty if we kept you here.”“Now, uncle,” I cried, “I believe if I went home—though, of course, they would be very glad to see me—my father would say I ought to be ashamed of myself for leaving you three in the lurch.”“Look here! Look here! Look here!” cried Uncle Bob. “We can’t sit here and be dictated to by this boy. He has run risks enough, and he had better go back to them at once.”“Oh, you see if I would have said a word if I had known that you would have served me like this!” I cried angrily. “Anyone would think I was a schoolgirl.”“Instead of a man of sixteen,” said Uncle Bob.“Never mind,” I cried, “you were sixteen once, Uncle Bob.”“Quite right, my boy, so I was, and a conceited young rascal I was, almost as cocky as you are.”“Thank you, uncle.”“Only I had not been so spoiled by three easy-going, good-natured uncles, who have made you think that you are quite a man.”“Thank you, uncle,” I said again, meaning to be very sarcastic.“Instead of a soft stripling full of sap.”“And not fit to stand against the blows of oak cudgels and the injured Arrowfield workmen,” said Uncle Dick.“Oh, all right! Banter away,” I said. “I don’t mind. I shall grow older and stronger and more manly, I hope.”“Exactly,” said Uncle Jack; “and that’s what we are aiming at for you, my lad. We don’t want to see you scorched by an explosion, or hurt by blows, or made nervous by some horrible shock.”“I don’t want to be hurt, of course,” I said, “and I’m not at all brave. I was terribly frightened when I found the powder canister, and when I fell in the wheel-pit. I believe I was alarmed when I heard the men talking about what they were going to do; but I should be ashamed of myself, after going through so much, if I ran away, as they said you three would do.”“How was that?” cried Uncle Bob.“With your tails between your legs, regularly frightened away like curs.”“They may carry us to the hospital without a leg to stand upon, or take us somewhere else without heads to think, but they will not see us running away in such a fashion as that,” quoth Uncle Dick.“Boy,” said Uncle Jack, in his sternest way, “I would give anything to keep you with us, but I feel as if it has been a lapse of duty towards you to let you run these risks.”“But suppose I had been made a midshipman, uncle,” I argued, “I should have always been running the risks of the sea, and the foreign climate where I was sent, and of being killed or wounded by the enemy.”“If there was war,” suggested Uncle Bob.“Yes, uncle, if there was war.”“Cob, my lad,” said Uncle Dick, “that’s a strong argument, but it does not convince us. Your Uncle Jack speaks my feelings exactly. I would give anything to keep you with us, for your young elastic nature seems to send off or radiate something brightening on to ours; and, now that you are going away, I tell you frankly that your courage has often encouraged us.”“Has it, uncle?” I cried.“Often, my lad.”“Ay that it has,” said Uncle Jack. “I’ve often felt down-hearted and ready to throw up our adventure; but I’ve seen you so fresh and eager, and so ready to fight it out, that I’ve said to myself—If a boy like that is ready to go on it would be a shame for a man to shrink.”“Yes,” said Uncle Bob, “I confess to the same feeling.”“Well, that is shabby,” I cried.“What is, boy?” said Uncle Jack.“To send me off like this. Why, you’ll all break down without me.”“No, no; that does not follow,” said Uncle Bob.“Ah, won’t it! You’ll see,” I said.“Look here, Cob, be reasonable,” exclaimed Uncle Jack, walking up and down the room in a very excited way. “You see, ever since you were born we’ve made a sort of playmate of you, and since you grew older, and have been down here with us, you know we have not treated you as if you were a boy.”“Well, no, uncle, I suppose you have not.”“We have talked with you, consulted with you, and generally behaved towards you as if you were a young man.”“And now all at once you turn round and punish me by treating me as if I were a little boy.”“No, no, my lad; be reasonable. We have been consulting together.”“Without me.”“Yes, without you; because we felt that we were not doing you justice—that we were not behaving as good brothers to your mother, in letting you go on sharing these risks.”“But there may be no more, uncle.”“But there will be a great many more, my boy,” said Uncle Jack solemnly; “and what would our feelings be if some serious accident were to happen to you?”“Just the same, Uncle Jack,” I cried, “as mine would be, and my father’s and mother’s, if some accident were to happen to you.”Uncle Jack wrinkled up his broad forehead, stared hard at me, and then, in a half-angry, half amused way, he went to the table, took up an imaginary piece of soap and began to rub it in his palms.“I wash my hands of this fellow, boys,” he said. “Dick, you are the oldest; take him in hand, dress him down, give him sixpence to buy hardbake and lollipops, and send him about his business.”“Make it half-a-crown, uncle,” I cried, with my cheeks burning with anger; “and then you might buy me a toy-horse too—one with red wafers all over it, and a rabbit-skin tail.”“My dear Cob,” said Uncle Jack, “why will you be so wilfully blind to what is good for you?”My cheeks grew hotter, and if I had been alone I should have burst into a passion of tears, but I could not do such a thing then, when I wanted to prove to these three that I was fit to be trusted and too old to be sent home.“We do not come to this conclusion without having carefully thought it out, boy,” cried Uncle Bob.“Very well, then!” I cried, almost beside myself with passion.“Confess now,” said Uncle Bob; “haven’t you often felt very much alarmed at having to keep watch of a night in that lonely factory?”“Of course I have.”“And wished yourself at home?” said Uncle Dick.“Scores of times, uncle.”“Well, then, now we wish you to go, feeling that it is best for you, and you turn restive as that jackass we hired for you to ride down in Essex.”“Haven’t you three fellows been teaching me ever since I was a little tot, to try and be a man?”“Yes,” said Uncle Dick.“When I’ve tumbled down and knocked the skin off my knees haven’t you said ‘don’t cry: be a man!’”“Oh yes! Guilty!” said Uncle Dick.“If I fell out of the swing didn’t you hold your cool hand to the great lump on my head and tell me that I must try to bear it without howling: like a man?”“Yes, boy, yes.”“And when I broke my arm, after getting up the rock after the gulls’ eggs, didn’t you tell me about the Spartan boys?”“I did, Cob, I did.”“Yes, of course you did,” I cried indignantly. “You were all three alike: always teaching me to bear pain and be courageous, and master my natural cowardice and be a man. Now didn’t you?”“Ay, ay, ay! Captain Cob,” they chorused.“And here,” I cried passionately, “after fighting all these years and making myself miserable so as to do exactly what you all taught me, now that there is a chance of showing that I know my lesson and have done well, you all treat me like a mollycoddle, and say to me by your looks: ‘you’re a poor cowardly little cub; go home to your mother and be nursed.’”“Have you done with the soap?” said Uncle Dick, turning to Uncle Jack, as I stood there, feeling angry, passionate, excited, and carried out of myself.“Eh?” said Uncle Jack staring.“I say, have you done with the metaphorical soap? I want to wash my hands of him too.”“It’s too bad, uncle,” I cried.“Here, Bob,” said Uncle Dick in his grim way, “you take him in hand.”“No, thank you,” said Uncle Bob. “I’ll trouble you for the soap when you’ve done.”“And now,” I cried, speaking to them as I had never done before, “you make worse of it by laughing at me.”“No, no,” cried Uncle Dick; “we were not laughing at you, but we do now;” and starting with a tremendous “Ha-ha-ha!” the others joined in, and I stalked out of the parlour and went up to my room, where I set to work, and in about ten minutes had all my belongings carefully packed in my little carpet-bag—the new one that had been bought for me—and the little brass padlock on and locked.Just then the parlour door opened as I was looking out of my bed-room window at the smoke and glow over the town, and thinking that after all I liked the noise and dirt and busy toil always going on, knowing, as I did, how much it had to do with the greatness of our land.“Cob!” came up Uncle Dick’s big voice.“Yes, uncle,” I said quietly.“Tea’s ready.”“I don’t want any tea,” I said.“Yes, you do, lad. Fried ham and eggs.”“Come,” I said to myself, “I’ll let them see that I can behave like a man. Perhaps I shall have to go home by the last train to-night or the first in the morning. Poor old Piter,” I thought, “I should like to have taken you!”So I went down quite coolly and walked into the parlour, where my uncles were waiting for me before seating themselves at the table.That touched me; it was so full of consideration and respect for the boy they were going to send away.Plump, comfortable Mrs Stephenson was just ready to take off the bright tin dish-cover, and as she did so there was a perfect pile of fried ham and eggs, looking brown and white and pink and orange, and emitting a most appetising odour.“Is Mr Jacob a bit sadly, gentlemen?” said Mrs Stephenson, looking at me with interest.“Oh no,” I said quickly; and a bit touched too by Mrs Stephenson’s respectful way and theMr“Only tired. I shall be all right when I’ve had my tea.”“That’s bonnie,” she cried nodding. “I’d better butter a couple more cakes, hadn’t I, gentlemen?”“That you had,” said Uncle Bob. “Let’s eat well, or we shall never be able to fight it out with your fellow-townsmen.”“Ah, deary me, gentlemen,” she cried; “it’s sore work, that it is! I’m sure if they only knew what I do they’d behave better to you. Them trades is doing more harm than good.”She bustled out of the room, and as soon as the door was closed Uncle Dick turned to me.“Shake hands, Cob, my boy,” he said.I held mine out frankly, for I had had my say, and I was determined to show them that I could act like a man.“Now with me,” said Uncle Jack in his hard stern way.“And with me,” said Uncle Bob.I shook hands all round; but in spite of every effort my lip would quiver, and I had to bite it hard to keep down the emotion I felt.“Shall I speak?” said Uncle Jack.Uncle Dick nodded.“Why not wait till after tea?” said Uncle Bob.“No, I shall tell him now,” said Uncle Jack grimly. “I’m hungry, and we may as well spoil his tea and get his share, for he will not be able to eat after what I’ve said. Cob, my lad, we’ve been talking this over again very seriously.”“All right, uncle!” I said quietly. “I’m quite ready to go. I’ve packed up, but I’d rather go to-morrow morning. I want to go and shake hands with Pannell and bid Piter ‘good-bye.’”“You have packed up?” he said rather sternly.“Yes, uncle.”“Did you do that in a fit of passion or sulks?”“No,” I said sharply; “but because I wanted to show you to the very last that I had not forgotten what you taught me about self-denial and all that.”“God bless you, my lad!” he cried, hurting me horribly as he shook hands exceedingly hard. “I’m glad to hear you say that, for we’ve been saying that if we want to win in this fight we can’t afford to part with one quarter of the Company. Cob, my lad, we want you to stay.”“Uncle!” I cried.“Yes, my lad, you are older in some things than your years, and though I’d do anything rather than run risks for you, I do feel that with right on our side, please God, we shall win yet, and that it would be cowardly for us even to let you turn tail.”I don’t know what I should have said and done then, as Uncle Jack exclaimed:“Have I said right, Dick, Bob?”“Yes, quite,” said Uncle Dick warmly; “and for my part—”“Hush! Sit down,” cried Uncle Bob, hastily setting the example so as to end the scene. “Yes, two eggs, please. Quick, here’s Mrs Stephenson coming with the cakes.”

“I should say you will very likely have some sport,” said Uncle Dick. “Try by all means.”

“I hardly like to, uncle,” I said.

“Nonsense, my lad! All work and no play makes Jack—I mean Jacob—a dull boy.”

“But it will seem as if I am neglecting my work.”

“By no means. Besides, we shall not be busy for a day or two. Have a few hours’ fishing, and I daresay one of us will come and see how you are getting on.”

The opportunity was too tempting to be lost, so I got a cheap rod and a dear line—a thoroughly good one, asked a gardener just outside to dig up some small red worms for me, and, furnishing myself with some paste and boiled rice, I one morning took my place up at the head of the dam where the stream came in, chose a place where the current whirled round in a deep hole and began fitting my tackle together prior to throwing in.

I had been longing for this trial, for I felt sure that there must be some big fish in the dam. It was quite amongst the houses and factories, but all the same it was deep, there was a constant run of fresh water through it, and I had more than once seen pieces of bread sucked down in a curiously quiet way, as if taken by a great slow moving fish, a carp or tench, an old inhabitant of the place.

Certainly it was not the sort of spot I should have selected for a day’s fishing had I been offered my choice, but it was the best I could obtain then, and I was going to make the most of it.

I laughed to myself as I thought of the eels, and the great haul I had made down in the wheel-pit, and then I shuddered as I thought of the horrors I had suffered down there, and wondered whether our troubles with the men were pretty well over.

I hoped so, for from what I heard the business was succeeding beyond the hopes of the most sanguine of my uncles, and if we were left alone success on the whole was assured.

Of course it was this brilliant prospect that induced them to stay on and dare the perils that lurked around, though, during the past few weeks, everything had been so quiet that once more we were indulging in the hope that the war was at an end.

In spite of Dr Johnson’s harsh saying about a fisherman, I know of no more satisfactory amusement than is to be found in company with a rod and line. The sport may be bad, but there is the country, the bright sky, the waving trees, the dancing waters, and that delicious feeling of expectation of the finest bite and the biggest fish that never comes but always may.

I was in this state of expectancy that day. The sport was not good certainly, for the fish I caught were small, but I argued that where there were small fish there must be large, and sooner or later some of the monsters of the dam would see and take my bait.

I fished till dinner-time, varying my position, and when the bell rang some of the men came and sat on the edge and watched me, chatting civilly enough as they smoked their pipes.

As luck had it I caught a couple of good-sized silvery roach, and Stevens gave his leg a regular slap as he exclaimed:

“Well if they’d towd me there was fish like that i’ th’ dam I wouldn’t hev believed it.”

The bell rang for work to be resumed, and the men slowly moved along the dam edge, Stevens being left, and he stopped to fill and light his pipe—so it seemed to me; but as he stooped over it, puffing away large clouds of smoke, I heard him say:

“Don’t look. Soon as men’s gone in, yow go and stand on ledge close under grinding-shop windows, and see what you catch.”

“It’s such an awkward place to get to,” I said. “I suppose it’s deep, but—”

“You do what I tell’ee, and don’t talk,” growled Stevens, and he strolled off with his hands in his pockets after his mates.

“I sha’n’t go,” I said. “It’s a very awkward place to get to; the ledge is not above nine inches wide, and if I got hold of a big fish, how am I to land him!”

The very idea of getting hold of a fish that would be too hard to land was too much for me, and I should have gone to the ledge if it had only been four and a half inches wide. So, waiting to have a few more throws, which were without result, I picked up my basket, walked right round the end of the dam, and then along the top of a narrow wall till I reached the end of the works at the far side, and from there lowered myself gently down on the ledge, along which Pannell had brought me when he rescued me from the wheel-pit, right at the other end, and towards which I was slowly making my way.

It was slow travelling, and my feet were not above a couple of inches above the water, while the windows of the grinding-shop were about four feet above my head.

I made no special selection, but stopped right in the middle, just where I imagined that the dam head would be deepest, and softly dropped in my line after setting down my basket and leaning my back against the stone building.

As I did so I wished that there had been a place to sit down, but there was of course only just room to stand, and there I was with the water gliding on and over the great wheel a few yards to my left; to my right the windows, out of which poured the black smoke of the forges, and from which came theclink chinkof hammer upon anvil, while above me came throbbing and vibrating, screeching and churring, the many varied sounds made by the grinders as they pressed some piece of steel against the swiftly revolving stone, while, in spite of dripping drenching water, the least contact drew from the stone a shower of sparks.

I fished on, after making a few alterations in the depth of my bait, finding the water far deeper than I expected. I renewed that bait, too, but no monstrous fish came to take it, to hook itself, and to make a rush and drag me off my ledge. The sounds buzzed and rattled overhead; there was the echoing plash of the water over the wheel, and the whispering echoes which did not sound at all terrible now, and above all from the windows overhead, in intervals of the grinding, I could hear the men talking very earnestly at times.

I paid very little heed, for I was interested in my fishing and the water across which the spiders were skating. I wanted a big bite—that big bite—but still it did not come, and I began to wonder whether there were any fish of size in the place.

“There’s every reason why there should be,” I thought. Deep clear water fed by the great dam up in the hills, and of course that dam was fed by the mountain streams. This place was all amongst buildings, and plenty of smuts fell on the surface; in fact the wind used to send a regular black scum floating along to the sides.

Plop!

My heart gave a throb of excitement, for there was a rise evidently made by a big fish over to my right close inshore.

“Now if I had been there,” I thought, “I should have most likely been able to catch that fish and then—”

Bah! Who wanted to catch a great water-rat that had plumped off the bank into the water? I could see the sleek-coated fellow paddling about close inshore. Then he dived down, and there were a lot of tiny bubbles to show his course before he went right in under the bank, which was full of holes.

I could almost fancy I was in the country, for there were a few rushes and some sedgy growth close to where the rat had been busy. Farther off, too, there was the sound that I had heard down in a marshy part of Essex with my uncles, during one of our excursions. “Quack, quack, quack! Wuck, wuck, wuck!”—a duck and a drake just coming down to the water to drink and bathe and feed on the water-weed and snails.

Yes; it quite put me in mind of the country to have wild ducks coming down to the pool, and—there were the two wild ducks! One, as the cry had told me, was a drake, and he had once been white, but old age and Arrowfield soot and the dirty little black yard where he generally lived had changed his tint most terribly, and though he plunged in, and bobbed and jerked the water all over his back, and rubbed the sides of his head and his beak all among his feathers, they were past cleaning.

As to his wife, who expressed herself with a loud quack, instead of sayingwuck, wuckin more smothered tones, she was possibly quite as dirty as her lord, but being brown the dirt did not show. Her rags did, for a more disreputable bird I never saw, though she, too, washed and napped her wings, and dived and drenched herself before getting out on the bank to preen and beak over her feathers.

Alas! As people say in books, it was not the country, but dingy, smoke-bewithered Arrowfield, and I wondered to myself why a couple of birds with wings should consent to stay amongst factories and works.

I knew the top of my float by heart; so must that skating spider which had skimmed up to it, running over the top of the water as easily as if it were so much ice. I was growing drowsy and tired. Certainly I leaned my back up against the wall, but it was quite upright, and there was no recompense. Whatever is the use of watching a float that will not bob? It may be one of the best to be got in a tackle-shop, with a lovely subdivision of the paint—blue at the bottom and white at the top, or green and white, or blue and red, but if it obstinately persists in sitting jauntily cocked up on the top of the water immovable, fishing no longer becomes a sport.

But I did not fish all that time for nothing.

As I said, I was becoming drowsy with looking so long at the black cap at the top of my float. Perhaps it was the whirr and hum of the machinery, and the faint sound of plashing water; even the buzz and churr and shriek of the steel upon the fast spinning stones may have had something to do with it. At any rate I was feeling sleepy and stupid, when all at once I was wide-awake and listening excitedly, for the shrieking of blade held upon grindstone ceased, and I heard a voice that was perfectly familiar to me say:

“Tell ’ee what. Do it at once if you like; but if I had my wayer I’d tie lump o’ iron fast on to that theer dorg’s collar and drop ’im in dam.”

“What good ud that do?” said another voice.

“Good! Why we’d be shut on him.”

“Ay, but they’d get another.”

“Well, they wouldn’t get another boy if we got shut o’ this one,” said the first voice.

“But yow wouldn’t go so far as to—”

The man stopped short, and seemed to give his stone a slap with the blade that he was grinding.

“I d’know. He’s a bad un, and allus at the bottom of it if owt is found out.”

“Ay, but yow mustn’t.”

“Well, p’r’aps I wouldn’t then, but I’d do something as would mak him think it were time to go home to his mother.”

My face grew red, then white, I’m sure, for one moment it seemed to burn, the next it felt wet and cold. I did not feel sleepy any longer, but in an intense state of excitement, for those words came from the window just above my head, so that I could hear them plainly.

“It’s all nonsense,” I said to myself directly after. “They know I’m here, and it’s done to scare me.”

Just then the churring and screeching of the grinding steel burst out louder than ever, and I determined to go away and treat all I had heard with silent contempt. Pulling up my line just as a fisher will, I threw in again for one final try, and hardly had the bait reached the bottom before the float bobbed.

I could not believe it at first. It seemed that I must have jerked the line—but no, there it was again, another bob, and another, and then a series of little bobs, and the float moved slowly off over the surface, carrying with it a dozen or so of blacks.

I was about to strike, but I thought I would give the fish a little more time and make sure of him, and, forgetting all about the voices overhead, I was watching the float slowly gliding away, bobbing no longer, but with the steady motion that follows if a good fish has taken the bait.

And what a delight that was! What a reward to my patience! That it was a big one I had no doubt. If it had been a little fish it would have jigged and bobbed the float about in the most absurd way, just as if the little fish were thoughtless, and in a hurry to be off to play on the surface, whereas a big fish made it a regular business, and was calm and deliberate in every way.

“Now for it,” I thought, and raising the point of the rod slowly I was just going to strike when the grinding above my head ceased, and one of the voices I had before heard said:

“Well, we two have got to go up to thePointed Starto-night to get our orders, and then we shall know what’s what.”

I forgot all about the fish and listened intently.

“Nay, they can’t hear,” said the voice again, as if in answer to a warning; “wheels makes too much noise. I don’t care if they did. They’ve had warnings enew. What did they want to coom here for?”

“Ay,” said another, “trade’s beginning to feel it a’ready. If we let ’em go on our wives and bairns ’ll be starving next winter.”

“That’s a true word, lad; that’s a true word. When d’yow think it’ll be?”

“Ah, that’s kept quiet. We shall know soon enew.”

“Ay, when it’s done.”

“Think this ’ll sattle ’em?”

“Sattle! Ay, that it will, and pretty well time. They’ll go back to Lonnon wi’ their tails twix’ their legs like the curs they are. Say, think they’ve got pistols?”

“Dunno. Sure to hev, ah sud say.”

“Oh!”

“Well, s’pose they hev? You aren’t the man to be scarred of a pop-gun, are yo’?”

“I d’know. Mebbe I should be if I hev the wuck to do. I’m scarred o’ no man.”

“But you’re scarred of a pistol, eh lad? Well, I wunner at yo’.”

“Well, see what a pistol is.”

“Ay, I know what a pistol is, lad. Man’s got a pistol, and yo’ hit ’im a tap on the knuckles, and he lets it fall. Then he stoops to pick it up, and knobstick comes down on his head. Nowt like a knobstick, lad, whether it be a man or a bit o’ wood. Wants no loading, and is allus safe.”

“Well, all I’ve got to say is, if I have the wuck to do I shall—”

Churr, churry, screech, and grind. The noise drowned the words I was eager to hear, and I stood bathed with perspiration, and hot and cold in turn.

That some abominable plot was in hatching I was sure, and in another minute I might have heard something that would have enabled us to be upon our guard; but the opportunity had passed, for the men were working harder than ever.

I was evidently in very bad odour with them, and I thought bitterly of the old proverb about listeners never hearing any good of themselves.

What should I do—stop and try to hear more?

Jig, jig, tug, tugat the top of my rod, and I looked down to see that the float was out of sight and the rod nearly touching the water.

My fisherman’s instinct made me strike at once, and in spite of the agitation produced by the words I had heard I was ready for the exciting struggle I expected to follow. I had certainly hooked a fish which struggled and tugged to get away; but it was not the great carp or tench I expected to capture, only a miserable little eel which I drew through the water as I walked slowly along the ledge towards the end of the works farthest from the wheel, where I climbed on the wall, and, still dragging my prize, I went right on to the far end, where the water came in from the stream. There I crossed the wooden plank that did duty for a bridge, and glanced furtively back at the windows of the works looking out upon the dam.

As far as I could make out I had not been seen, and I had obtained some very valuable information that might be useful for our protection.

When I had reached the spot where I had begun fishing I drew in my capture; but it was not a long eel, but a mass of twined-up, snake-like fish which had wreathed itself into a knot with my line.

To get it free seemed to be impossible, so I cut off the piece of line just above the knot and let it fall into the water to extricate itself, while I went back to the office to have a few words with my uncles about what I had heard.

“I think we are in duty bound to send you home, Cob,” said Uncle Jack, and the others murmured their acquiescence.

“Send me home!” I cried. “What! Just when all the fun is going to begin!”

“Fun!” said Uncle Dick, “Fun that the frogs suffered when the boys stoned them, eh?”

“Oh, but you know what I mean, uncle. I don’t want to go.”

“But we have run you into terrible risks already,” cried Uncle Bob, “and if you were hurt I should feel as if I could never face your father and mother again.”

“Oh, but I sha’n’t be hurt,” I cried. “There, I’m ready for anything, and shall always try to get on the safe side.”

“As you always do,” said Uncle Jack grimly. “No, my boy, you must not stay. It is evident from what you overheard that the men have some design against us on hand. Above all, they have taken a great dislike to you, and in their blind belief that you are one of the causes of their trouble they evidently feel spiteful and will not shrink from doing you harm. And that’s rather a long-winded speech,” he added, smiling.

“Can’t we make them see that we are working for them instead of against them?” said Uncle Dick.

“No,” said Uncle Bob. “No one can teach prejudiced workmen. The light comes to them some day, but it takes a long time to get through their dense brains. I think Cob must go.”

“Oh! Uncle Bob,” I exclaimed.

“I can’t help it,” my lad. “There seems to be no help for it. I shall regret it horribly, for your uncles are very poor company.”

“Thankye,” said Uncle Dick.

“Nice remark from the most stupid of three brothers,” grumbled Uncle Jack.

“But you ought not to be exposed to these risks,” continued Uncle Bob, “and now that by your own showing there is something worse on the way.”

“Oh, it can’t be worse than it has been; and besides, the men said I was always the first to find anything out. You see I have this time—again.”

“Yes, with a vengeance,” said Uncle Jack.

“And I’m sure you can’t spare me.”

“No, we can ill spare you, Cob,” said Uncle Dick, “but we should not be doing our duty if we kept you here.”

“Now, uncle,” I cried, “I believe if I went home—though, of course, they would be very glad to see me—my father would say I ought to be ashamed of myself for leaving you three in the lurch.”

“Look here! Look here! Look here!” cried Uncle Bob. “We can’t sit here and be dictated to by this boy. He has run risks enough, and he had better go back to them at once.”

“Oh, you see if I would have said a word if I had known that you would have served me like this!” I cried angrily. “Anyone would think I was a schoolgirl.”

“Instead of a man of sixteen,” said Uncle Bob.

“Never mind,” I cried, “you were sixteen once, Uncle Bob.”

“Quite right, my boy, so I was, and a conceited young rascal I was, almost as cocky as you are.”

“Thank you, uncle.”

“Only I had not been so spoiled by three easy-going, good-natured uncles, who have made you think that you are quite a man.”

“Thank you, uncle,” I said again, meaning to be very sarcastic.

“Instead of a soft stripling full of sap.”

“And not fit to stand against the blows of oak cudgels and the injured Arrowfield workmen,” said Uncle Dick.

“Oh, all right! Banter away,” I said. “I don’t mind. I shall grow older and stronger and more manly, I hope.”

“Exactly,” said Uncle Jack; “and that’s what we are aiming at for you, my lad. We don’t want to see you scorched by an explosion, or hurt by blows, or made nervous by some horrible shock.”

“I don’t want to be hurt, of course,” I said, “and I’m not at all brave. I was terribly frightened when I found the powder canister, and when I fell in the wheel-pit. I believe I was alarmed when I heard the men talking about what they were going to do; but I should be ashamed of myself, after going through so much, if I ran away, as they said you three would do.”

“How was that?” cried Uncle Bob.

“With your tails between your legs, regularly frightened away like curs.”

“They may carry us to the hospital without a leg to stand upon, or take us somewhere else without heads to think, but they will not see us running away in such a fashion as that,” quoth Uncle Dick.

“Boy,” said Uncle Jack, in his sternest way, “I would give anything to keep you with us, but I feel as if it has been a lapse of duty towards you to let you run these risks.”

“But suppose I had been made a midshipman, uncle,” I argued, “I should have always been running the risks of the sea, and the foreign climate where I was sent, and of being killed or wounded by the enemy.”

“If there was war,” suggested Uncle Bob.

“Yes, uncle, if there was war.”

“Cob, my lad,” said Uncle Dick, “that’s a strong argument, but it does not convince us. Your Uncle Jack speaks my feelings exactly. I would give anything to keep you with us, for your young elastic nature seems to send off or radiate something brightening on to ours; and, now that you are going away, I tell you frankly that your courage has often encouraged us.”

“Has it, uncle?” I cried.

“Often, my lad.”

“Ay that it has,” said Uncle Jack. “I’ve often felt down-hearted and ready to throw up our adventure; but I’ve seen you so fresh and eager, and so ready to fight it out, that I’ve said to myself—If a boy like that is ready to go on it would be a shame for a man to shrink.”

“Yes,” said Uncle Bob, “I confess to the same feeling.”

“Well, that is shabby,” I cried.

“What is, boy?” said Uncle Jack.

“To send me off like this. Why, you’ll all break down without me.”

“No, no; that does not follow,” said Uncle Bob.

“Ah, won’t it! You’ll see,” I said.

“Look here, Cob, be reasonable,” exclaimed Uncle Jack, walking up and down the room in a very excited way. “You see, ever since you were born we’ve made a sort of playmate of you, and since you grew older, and have been down here with us, you know we have not treated you as if you were a boy.”

“Well, no, uncle, I suppose you have not.”

“We have talked with you, consulted with you, and generally behaved towards you as if you were a young man.”

“And now all at once you turn round and punish me by treating me as if I were a little boy.”

“No, no, my lad; be reasonable. We have been consulting together.”

“Without me.”

“Yes, without you; because we felt that we were not doing you justice—that we were not behaving as good brothers to your mother, in letting you go on sharing these risks.”

“But there may be no more, uncle.”

“But there will be a great many more, my boy,” said Uncle Jack solemnly; “and what would our feelings be if some serious accident were to happen to you?”

“Just the same, Uncle Jack,” I cried, “as mine would be, and my father’s and mother’s, if some accident were to happen to you.”

Uncle Jack wrinkled up his broad forehead, stared hard at me, and then, in a half-angry, half amused way, he went to the table, took up an imaginary piece of soap and began to rub it in his palms.

“I wash my hands of this fellow, boys,” he said. “Dick, you are the oldest; take him in hand, dress him down, give him sixpence to buy hardbake and lollipops, and send him about his business.”

“Make it half-a-crown, uncle,” I cried, with my cheeks burning with anger; “and then you might buy me a toy-horse too—one with red wafers all over it, and a rabbit-skin tail.”

“My dear Cob,” said Uncle Jack, “why will you be so wilfully blind to what is good for you?”

My cheeks grew hotter, and if I had been alone I should have burst into a passion of tears, but I could not do such a thing then, when I wanted to prove to these three that I was fit to be trusted and too old to be sent home.

“We do not come to this conclusion without having carefully thought it out, boy,” cried Uncle Bob.

“Very well, then!” I cried, almost beside myself with passion.

“Confess now,” said Uncle Bob; “haven’t you often felt very much alarmed at having to keep watch of a night in that lonely factory?”

“Of course I have.”

“And wished yourself at home?” said Uncle Dick.

“Scores of times, uncle.”

“Well, then, now we wish you to go, feeling that it is best for you, and you turn restive as that jackass we hired for you to ride down in Essex.”

“Haven’t you three fellows been teaching me ever since I was a little tot, to try and be a man?”

“Yes,” said Uncle Dick.

“When I’ve tumbled down and knocked the skin off my knees haven’t you said ‘don’t cry: be a man!’”

“Oh yes! Guilty!” said Uncle Dick.

“If I fell out of the swing didn’t you hold your cool hand to the great lump on my head and tell me that I must try to bear it without howling: like a man?”

“Yes, boy, yes.”

“And when I broke my arm, after getting up the rock after the gulls’ eggs, didn’t you tell me about the Spartan boys?”

“I did, Cob, I did.”

“Yes, of course you did,” I cried indignantly. “You were all three alike: always teaching me to bear pain and be courageous, and master my natural cowardice and be a man. Now didn’t you?”

“Ay, ay, ay! Captain Cob,” they chorused.

“And here,” I cried passionately, “after fighting all these years and making myself miserable so as to do exactly what you all taught me, now that there is a chance of showing that I know my lesson and have done well, you all treat me like a mollycoddle, and say to me by your looks: ‘you’re a poor cowardly little cub; go home to your mother and be nursed.’”

“Have you done with the soap?” said Uncle Dick, turning to Uncle Jack, as I stood there, feeling angry, passionate, excited, and carried out of myself.

“Eh?” said Uncle Jack staring.

“I say, have you done with the metaphorical soap? I want to wash my hands of him too.”

“It’s too bad, uncle,” I cried.

“Here, Bob,” said Uncle Dick in his grim way, “you take him in hand.”

“No, thank you,” said Uncle Bob. “I’ll trouble you for the soap when you’ve done.”

“And now,” I cried, speaking to them as I had never done before, “you make worse of it by laughing at me.”

“No, no,” cried Uncle Dick; “we were not laughing at you, but we do now;” and starting with a tremendous “Ha-ha-ha!” the others joined in, and I stalked out of the parlour and went up to my room, where I set to work, and in about ten minutes had all my belongings carefully packed in my little carpet-bag—the new one that had been bought for me—and the little brass padlock on and locked.

Just then the parlour door opened as I was looking out of my bed-room window at the smoke and glow over the town, and thinking that after all I liked the noise and dirt and busy toil always going on, knowing, as I did, how much it had to do with the greatness of our land.

“Cob!” came up Uncle Dick’s big voice.

“Yes, uncle,” I said quietly.

“Tea’s ready.”

“I don’t want any tea,” I said.

“Yes, you do, lad. Fried ham and eggs.”

“Come,” I said to myself, “I’ll let them see that I can behave like a man. Perhaps I shall have to go home by the last train to-night or the first in the morning. Poor old Piter,” I thought, “I should like to have taken you!”

So I went down quite coolly and walked into the parlour, where my uncles were waiting for me before seating themselves at the table.

That touched me; it was so full of consideration and respect for the boy they were going to send away.

Plump, comfortable Mrs Stephenson was just ready to take off the bright tin dish-cover, and as she did so there was a perfect pile of fried ham and eggs, looking brown and white and pink and orange, and emitting a most appetising odour.

“Is Mr Jacob a bit sadly, gentlemen?” said Mrs Stephenson, looking at me with interest.

“Oh no,” I said quickly; and a bit touched too by Mrs Stephenson’s respectful way and theMr“Only tired. I shall be all right when I’ve had my tea.”

“That’s bonnie,” she cried nodding. “I’d better butter a couple more cakes, hadn’t I, gentlemen?”

“That you had,” said Uncle Bob. “Let’s eat well, or we shall never be able to fight it out with your fellow-townsmen.”

“Ah, deary me, gentlemen,” she cried; “it’s sore work, that it is! I’m sure if they only knew what I do they’d behave better to you. Them trades is doing more harm than good.”

She bustled out of the room, and as soon as the door was closed Uncle Dick turned to me.

“Shake hands, Cob, my boy,” he said.

I held mine out frankly, for I had had my say, and I was determined to show them that I could act like a man.

“Now with me,” said Uncle Jack in his hard stern way.

“And with me,” said Uncle Bob.

I shook hands all round; but in spite of every effort my lip would quiver, and I had to bite it hard to keep down the emotion I felt.

“Shall I speak?” said Uncle Jack.

Uncle Dick nodded.

“Why not wait till after tea?” said Uncle Bob.

“No, I shall tell him now,” said Uncle Jack grimly. “I’m hungry, and we may as well spoil his tea and get his share, for he will not be able to eat after what I’ve said. Cob, my lad, we’ve been talking this over again very seriously.”

“All right, uncle!” I said quietly. “I’m quite ready to go. I’ve packed up, but I’d rather go to-morrow morning. I want to go and shake hands with Pannell and bid Piter ‘good-bye.’”

“You have packed up?” he said rather sternly.

“Yes, uncle.”

“Did you do that in a fit of passion or sulks?”

“No,” I said sharply; “but because I wanted to show you to the very last that I had not forgotten what you taught me about self-denial and all that.”

“God bless you, my lad!” he cried, hurting me horribly as he shook hands exceedingly hard. “I’m glad to hear you say that, for we’ve been saying that if we want to win in this fight we can’t afford to part with one quarter of the Company. Cob, my lad, we want you to stay.”

“Uncle!” I cried.

“Yes, my lad, you are older in some things than your years, and though I’d do anything rather than run risks for you, I do feel that with right on our side, please God, we shall win yet, and that it would be cowardly for us even to let you turn tail.”

I don’t know what I should have said and done then, as Uncle Jack exclaimed:

“Have I said right, Dick, Bob?”

“Yes, quite,” said Uncle Dick warmly; “and for my part—”

“Hush! Sit down,” cried Uncle Bob, hastily setting the example so as to end the scene. “Yes, two eggs, please. Quick, here’s Mrs Stephenson coming with the cakes.”

Chapter Twenty Two.Stevens has a Word with me.Next morning I went down to the works, feeling as if I had grown in one night a year older, and after giving Piter the bones I always took him down, and receiving the ram-like butt he always favoured me with to show his gratitude, I was going round the place, when I heard a familiar clinking and saw a glow out of the little smithy that had for some time been cold.I ran in, and there, looking rather pale and with a bit or two of sticking-plaster about his temples, was Pannell hammering away as if he were trying to make up for lost time.“Why, Pannell, old man,” I cried, running in with outstretched hand, “back again at work! I am glad to see you.”He looked up at me with a scowl, and wiped his brow with the arm that was terminated by a fist and hammer—a way, I have observed, much affected by smiths.His was not a pleasant face, and it was made more repulsive by the scars and sticking-plaster. As our eyes met it almost seemed as if he were going to strike me with his hammer; but he threw it down, gave his great hand a rub back and front upon his apron, probably to make it a little blacker, and then gripped mine as badly as Uncle Jack had on the previous night. In fact, you see, I suffered for people liking me.“Are you glad, mun?” he said at last hoarsely; “are you glad? Well that’s cheering anyhow, and thank ye.”He nodded and went on with his work again while I went to mine about the books, but with a suspicious feeling of impending trouble on my mind, as I passed two of the men who saw me come out of the smithy, and who must have seen me shaking hands with Pannell.I don’t know why they should have minded, for I should have done the same with either of them had we been on as friendly terms.As I entered my little office my eyes lit on the common fishing-rod I had used, and that set me thinking about the conversation I had heard as I stood on the ledge.I recalled what had been said overnight in a long discussion with my uncles, and the advice they had given.“Don’t show suspicion,” Uncle Dick had said, “but meet every man with a frank fearless look in the eye, as if you asked no favour of him, were not afraid of him, and as if you wanted to meet him in a straightforward way.”I thought a good deal about it all, and how my uncles said they meant to be just and kind and stern at the same time; and it certainly did seem as if this was the most likely way to win the men’s respect.“For now that we have concluded to keep you with us, Cob, I must warn that we mean business, and that we have made up our minds that we shall win.”That morning went off quietly enough, and though we all kept a quiet searching look-out, there was nothing to excite suspicion. Then evening came, and the watching, in which again that night I had no share, but it was an understood thing that I was to be at the works at the same time as the men next day.It was a lovely autumn morning with the wind from the country side, and as I hurried up and off to the works there was a feeling in the air that seemed to tempt me away to the hills and vales, and made me long for a change.“I’ll see if one of them won’t go for a day,” I said to myself; and hopeful of getting the holiday, and perhaps a run up to the great dam, I reached the works before the men.“Well done, industrious!” cried Uncle Bob, who opened the gate to me. “You are first.”“That’s right,” I said. “No, it isn’t. Where’s Uncle Dick? Why, you look pale.”“Uncle Dick isn’t awake,” he said quickly. “Fact is, Cob, I’ve had a scare. As you say, I found that they’d been at Piter again. The poor dog has been drugged, and that must mean something wrong.”Sure enough, poor Piter lay fast asleep and breathing heavily; but after our last experience we did not feel so despondent about bringing him to again, so, leaving him in his kennel where he had crept, we roused Uncle Dick and told him.“We can’t look round now,” he said. “The men are coming in to their work, but we shall soon hear if there is anything wrong. The bands again, I expect.”Just then we heard the noise made by the drawing of the sluice, the wheel went plashing round, the shaft rumbled, connections were being made, and in a very few minutes the first grindstone was sending forth its loud churring noise.Then there was more and more, and at last the works were in full swing.“There’s nothing wrong, then, with the bands,” said Uncle Dick; and then we waited, wondering what trick had been played, till about an hour had passed, during which the same remedies as were tried before were put into force with poor old Piter, and he recovered sufficiently to wag his tail.Just about that time Uncle Jack arrived, and was put in possession of our fresh trouble.“And you can find nothing wrong?” he said.“Nothing.”“Have you looked under the desks, and in the cupboards?”“We’ve quietly searched everywhere,” replied Uncle Bob earnestly.“Then we must go on as usual,” said Uncle Jack. “There, you two go home: Cob and I will chance the risks.”“It may have been an attempt to get rid of the dog,” I said, “and nothing more.”“That’s what I’ve been thinking,” said Uncle Jack; and soon after we were left alone.Towards mid-day I went down to have a chat with Pannell, and to ask him how he had got on during his long illness.“Tidy,” he said sourly. “There was the club helped me, but the mesters did most.”“What! My uncles?”“Ay, didn’t you know?” he cried, busying himself about lighting a smaller forge at the back of the first.I shook my head.“Paid me pound a-week all the time I was badly, my lad.”“And very kind of them too,” I said warmly.“Ay, ’twas. Felt at times, lad, as if I warn’t worth the money, that I did.”Just then Stevens made his appearance, crossing from the grinders’ shop to one of the smithies at the end; and as he went along at some distance I saw him look curiously over at where I was standing talking to Pannell.“Theer it is again,” said the latter. “You mean well, lad, and it’s very kind on you; but I shall hev it ’fore long on account o’ talking to thee.”“Oh, surely not!” I cried angrily. “The men will never be such cowards as to attack you for that.”“Men weant, but trade will,” said Pannell. “Mates can’t do as they like about it. Look ye yonder; what did I say?”He nodded in the direction of Stevens, who had returned directly, stopped opposite the smithy, but at some distance, and as soon as I looked up he began to signal to me to go to him.I never liked the man, for he always seemed to dislike me, and I gave him the credit of being one of the active parties in the outrages that had been committed upon us. But I remembered what our plans were to be—frank, straightforward, and fearless—and I walked right up to Stevens, whose brow was lowering and full of menace.“Here, I want a word with you,” he said fiercely.“All right, Stevens!” I said. “What is it?”“Come over here,” he replied, “and I’ll tell ye.”He led the way along the yard to the other side of the great coal heap, which lay there massive and square, through its sides being carefully built up with big blocks of coal.We were quite out of sight there, and, as I thought, how easy it would be for him to knock me down with one of the lumps.I was perfectly cool though, till he suddenly seized me by the jacket.I struck up at his hand, but he held on tightly, and there was a curious smile on his face as he said:“Nay, you don’t, lad; I’m stronger than thou.”“What do you want?” I cried, making a virtue of necessity and standing firm.“What do I want, eh?” he said slowly. “Oh, just a word or two wi’ thee, my lad. There, you needn’t call thee uncle.”“I was not going to call him,” I retorted. “Why should I?”“Because you’re scarred about what I’m going to do to thee.”“No, I’m not,” I replied boldly; “because you daren’t do anything unless it’s in the dark, when you can attack a man behind his back.”He winced at this and scowled, but turned it off with a laugh.“’Tack a what?” he said.“A boy, then,” I cried. “I know I’m a boy; but I meant people generally.”“Nivver you mind that,” he said. “You don’t understand trade. But joost you look there. Yow’ve been saying I did some’at to the dog.”“That I have not,” I cried.“Ay, but you did say it,” he repeated fiercely.“I did not say so,” I cried almost as angrily; “but if I had said it, I don’t suppose I should have been far wrong.”“Nay, lad, I did nowt to the dog. I did nowt—I—”He let his hand fall, and a feeling of relief from some expectation came over his face. He had been talking to me, but it was in a curious way, and all the time he talked he seemed to be looking over my shoulder more than in my face.But now he drew a long breath and seemed satisfied with the explanation; and just then I uttered a cry of horror, for there was a loud report, and the yard seemed to be filled with flying cinders and smoke.Stevens gave me a grim look and laid his hand on my shoulder.“Lucky yow weern’t theer,” he said. “Might have been hurt. Come and see.”We joined the men who were hurrying in the direction of the smoke that obscured one end of the yard.“What is it, Uncle Jack?” I cried, as I ran to his side.“I don’t know yet,” he said.“It was somewhere by the smithies.”“Yes; that’s plain enough,” said my uncle, and we pressed on in front of the men, to come upon Pannell, tending down and rubbing his eyes.“Pannell!” I cried; “you are not hurt?”“Nay, not much,” he said sourly. “Got the cinder and stuff in my eyes, but they missed me this time.”“What! Was it not an accident?”“Oh, ay!” he replied, “reg’lar accident. Powder got into my little forge, and when I started her wi’ some hot coal from t’other one she blew up.”“But you are not hurt?”“Nay, lad, I weer stooping down, and were half behind the forge, so I didn’t ketch it that time.”The smoke was by this time pretty well cleared away, and we walked into the smithy to see what mischief had befallen us.Fortunately no harm had been done to the structure of the building, and there being no glass in the windows there was of course none to blow out. The coal ashes and cinders had been scattered far and wide, and the iron funnel-shaped chimney knocked out of place, while some of the smiths’ tools, and the rods of steel upon which Pannell had been working, were thrown upon the floor.The walls, forge, and pieces of iron about told tales for themselves without the odour of the explosive, for everything had been covered with a film of a greyish-white, such as gunpowder gives to iron or brickwork when it is fired.“Where was the powder?” cried Uncle Jack, after satisfying himself that Pannell had not the slightest burn even upon his beard.“In little forge all ready for me when I fired up,” growled Pannell sourly, as he scowled round at the little crowd of men; “but they missed me that time.”Uncle Jack had a good look round the place, and the workmen stared at us as if in full expectation of being taken to task as the cause of the explosion.I watched their faces cautiously in search of a look of regret, but the only peculiar expression I could see was on the countenance of Stevens, who stood softly rolling up his shirt-sleeves closer and closer to his shoulders, and there was such a curious smile in his eyes that he inspired me with a thought.“Oh, if I have been deceived in him!”That was my thought. For I seemed to see at a glance that he had known the explosion would take place, and that the talk about the dog was an excuse to get me away and save me from the consequences.Just then Uncle Jack turned round to me and laid his hand on my shoulder.“Look here,” he said quietly, as if he were showing me a curiosity, but loud enough for all the men to hear—“down in the south of England, my boy, when a workman is disliked it generally comes to a settlement with fists, and there is a fair, honest, stand-up fight. Down here in Arrowfield, Jacob, when another workman does something to offend his fellows—”“Traäde,” shouted a voice.“To offend his fellow-workmen,” repeated Uncle Jack.“Traäde,” shouted the voice again, and there was a murmur of assent.“Well, have it your own way,” said Uncle Jack. “To offend the trade, they try to blind him for life by filling his forge with powder, so that it may explode in his face. Jacob, my lad, next time I go anywhere, and hear people talk about what brave strong manly fellows the Englishmen are, I shall recommend them to come down and stay in Arrowfield for a month and see what is done.”There was a low murmur among the men; but we did not stop to listen, and they all returned to their work except Pannell, who went down to the dam and bathed his eyes, after which he went as coolly as could be back to his smithy, took a shovel and borrowed some glowing fire from the next forge, lit up his own, and was soon after hammering his funnel chimney back in its place, and working up rods of steel as if nothing whatever had been amiss.About the middle of the afternoon, though, he came up through the workshop straight to the office, with his hammer in his hand, and gave a loud thump at the door.I opened it and admitted him; for I was in the big office with my uncles, who were talking about this last trouble.“Well, my man, what is it?” said Uncle Jack.Pannell began to lift up his hammer-head slowly and let it fall back again into his left hand, staring straight before him with his dark eyes, which were surrounded with the black marks of the gunpowder which clung still to the skin.“What do you want, Pannell?” I said, giving him a touch on the arm; but the hammer rose and fell still by the contraction of his right hand, and went on tap—tap—falling into his left.“Why don’t you speak?” I said again, quite impatiently.“I know,” he growled. “I want to speak.”“We are listening,” said Uncle Dick. “What have you to say?”“Look here,” cried Pannell, giving his hammer a flourish round his head as if he were about to attack us. “I’m a man—I am.”“And a good big one, Pannell,” said Uncle Bob smiling.“Wish I were twyste as big, mester! Theer!” cried Pannell.“I wish you were if it would be any comfort to you,” said Uncle Bob to himself.“I’ve been a-thinking o’ this out while I’ve been hammering yonder, and I want to speak.”“Yes,” said Uncle Jack. “Go on.”“Look ye here, then,” cried Pannell, flourishing his hammer round as if he were a modern edition or an angry Thor; “does anyone say I telled on ’em? Did I tell on ’em, mesters? Answer me that.”“What! About the outrages?” said Uncle Dick firmly.“Outrages, mester!”“Well, the attempts to blow us up.”“Ay!—the trade business. Did I ivver come and say word to anny of you?”“Never.”“Or to yow, youngster?”“Never, Pannell. You always went against us,” I said, “when a word from you would—”“Theer, that’ll do. Tell me this—Did I ivver tell on anny on ’em?”“No; you have always been true to your party, Pannell—if that is what you mean.”“And that is what I mean,” said the great fellow, throwing his head about and jerking out his words, each with a menacing flourish of the hammer or a mock blow, as if they were steel words that he wanted to strike into shape.“Nobody accused you of tale-bearing to us,” said Uncle Dick.“Didn’t they, mester?” he roared. “What’s this, then, and this, and this?”He touched the scars upon his head and brow, and the sticking-plaster left on.“Don’t you call that saying I telled on ’em, wi’out the poother in my forge this morning?”“A cowardly brutal thing to have done, my man.”“Ay, so ’twas. I’d done nowt but be civil to young mester here. Say,” he cried fiercely, “yow telled ’em I forged that trap!” and he turned on me.“Oh, Pannell!” I cried, flushing indignantly.That was all I said, but it was enough.“Beg pardon, young gentleman!—yow didn’t, I can see that. Nay, it was the altogetherishness o’ the whole thing. They set me down—me, a mate in the union—as hevvin’ telled on ’em and gone agen ’em, and being friends wi’ the mesters; and yow see what they’ve done.”“Indeed we do, Pannell—”“Howd hard, mester,” said the big smith, flourishing about his hammer. “I hevn’t had my spell yet. I want to speak.”Uncle Dick nodded, as much as to say, “Go on.”“Look here, then, mesters—I’ve thowt this out. It’s cowards’ business, ivvery bit on it, ’cept Matt Stivvins this morning coming and fetching young mester out of the way.”“Yes,” I said, “he did.”“And they’ll knobstick ’im for it if they know—see if they don’t!”“Then they mustn’t know,” I cried eagerly. “I don’t like Stevens, but he did save me this morning.”“Ay, he did, ’cause he said once yow weer a trump, my lad; but he didn’t give me a word. I sha’n’t tell on him, but I sha’n’t hev nought more to do wi’ anny on ’em. I’ve been union man all these years and paid, and here’s what I’ve got for it. I says to mysen, I says: If this here’s what comes o’ sticking to union through all their games I’ve done wi’ ’em, and I’m a master’s man—that’s all.”He turned short round to go, but Uncle Dick stopped him.“I don’t quite understand what you mean, Pannell.”“What I mean! Why, what I said—that’s what I mean.”“That you have done with the trades-union, Pannell,” I cried, “and mean to be on our side?”“That’s so, mester. Now I mun go or my fire’ll be out.”He strode out of the place and banged the door after him; and as he went along the shop I could see him in imagination staring defiantly from side to side, in answer to the savage murmur that greeted him from the men whom he had made up his mind to defy.“What do you think of that?” said Uncle Dick, as soon as we heard the farther door close with a crash.“It’s the beginning of the end,” said Uncle Jack with an eager look in his eyes. “Keep firm, boys, and we shall have them all honestly on our side, and we can laugh at all trades-unions in Arrowfield that fight with cowardly weapons. The men do not do what their own feelings prompt, but obey the law of a secret society which forces them to do these cruel wrongs.”It must have been intentional on his part, for as I went down into the furnace house about half an hour after, at my usual time, to take down an account of work done, I met Stevens coming towards me.We were in the big empty building, the furnace being cold, and no work going on that day, and he slouched towards me as if he were going by, but I stopped him and held out my hand.“Thank you, Stevens,” I said. “I didn’t understand it then, but you saved me from something terrible to-day.”He gave a quick glance or two about, and then regularly snatched my hand, gave it a squeeze, and threw it away.“All right, my lad!” he said in a hoarse whisper. “You’re on’y one o’ the mesters, but I couldn’t abear to see thee in for it too.”He went on his away and I went mine, feeling that Uncle Jack was right, and that though it might be a long journey first, it was the beginning of the end.

Next morning I went down to the works, feeling as if I had grown in one night a year older, and after giving Piter the bones I always took him down, and receiving the ram-like butt he always favoured me with to show his gratitude, I was going round the place, when I heard a familiar clinking and saw a glow out of the little smithy that had for some time been cold.

I ran in, and there, looking rather pale and with a bit or two of sticking-plaster about his temples, was Pannell hammering away as if he were trying to make up for lost time.

“Why, Pannell, old man,” I cried, running in with outstretched hand, “back again at work! I am glad to see you.”

He looked up at me with a scowl, and wiped his brow with the arm that was terminated by a fist and hammer—a way, I have observed, much affected by smiths.

His was not a pleasant face, and it was made more repulsive by the scars and sticking-plaster. As our eyes met it almost seemed as if he were going to strike me with his hammer; but he threw it down, gave his great hand a rub back and front upon his apron, probably to make it a little blacker, and then gripped mine as badly as Uncle Jack had on the previous night. In fact, you see, I suffered for people liking me.

“Are you glad, mun?” he said at last hoarsely; “are you glad? Well that’s cheering anyhow, and thank ye.”

He nodded and went on with his work again while I went to mine about the books, but with a suspicious feeling of impending trouble on my mind, as I passed two of the men who saw me come out of the smithy, and who must have seen me shaking hands with Pannell.

I don’t know why they should have minded, for I should have done the same with either of them had we been on as friendly terms.

As I entered my little office my eyes lit on the common fishing-rod I had used, and that set me thinking about the conversation I had heard as I stood on the ledge.

I recalled what had been said overnight in a long discussion with my uncles, and the advice they had given.

“Don’t show suspicion,” Uncle Dick had said, “but meet every man with a frank fearless look in the eye, as if you asked no favour of him, were not afraid of him, and as if you wanted to meet him in a straightforward way.”

I thought a good deal about it all, and how my uncles said they meant to be just and kind and stern at the same time; and it certainly did seem as if this was the most likely way to win the men’s respect.

“For now that we have concluded to keep you with us, Cob, I must warn that we mean business, and that we have made up our minds that we shall win.”

That morning went off quietly enough, and though we all kept a quiet searching look-out, there was nothing to excite suspicion. Then evening came, and the watching, in which again that night I had no share, but it was an understood thing that I was to be at the works at the same time as the men next day.

It was a lovely autumn morning with the wind from the country side, and as I hurried up and off to the works there was a feeling in the air that seemed to tempt me away to the hills and vales, and made me long for a change.

“I’ll see if one of them won’t go for a day,” I said to myself; and hopeful of getting the holiday, and perhaps a run up to the great dam, I reached the works before the men.

“Well done, industrious!” cried Uncle Bob, who opened the gate to me. “You are first.”

“That’s right,” I said. “No, it isn’t. Where’s Uncle Dick? Why, you look pale.”

“Uncle Dick isn’t awake,” he said quickly. “Fact is, Cob, I’ve had a scare. As you say, I found that they’d been at Piter again. The poor dog has been drugged, and that must mean something wrong.”

Sure enough, poor Piter lay fast asleep and breathing heavily; but after our last experience we did not feel so despondent about bringing him to again, so, leaving him in his kennel where he had crept, we roused Uncle Dick and told him.

“We can’t look round now,” he said. “The men are coming in to their work, but we shall soon hear if there is anything wrong. The bands again, I expect.”

Just then we heard the noise made by the drawing of the sluice, the wheel went plashing round, the shaft rumbled, connections were being made, and in a very few minutes the first grindstone was sending forth its loud churring noise.

Then there was more and more, and at last the works were in full swing.

“There’s nothing wrong, then, with the bands,” said Uncle Dick; and then we waited, wondering what trick had been played, till about an hour had passed, during which the same remedies as were tried before were put into force with poor old Piter, and he recovered sufficiently to wag his tail.

Just about that time Uncle Jack arrived, and was put in possession of our fresh trouble.

“And you can find nothing wrong?” he said.

“Nothing.”

“Have you looked under the desks, and in the cupboards?”

“We’ve quietly searched everywhere,” replied Uncle Bob earnestly.

“Then we must go on as usual,” said Uncle Jack. “There, you two go home: Cob and I will chance the risks.”

“It may have been an attempt to get rid of the dog,” I said, “and nothing more.”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking,” said Uncle Jack; and soon after we were left alone.

Towards mid-day I went down to have a chat with Pannell, and to ask him how he had got on during his long illness.

“Tidy,” he said sourly. “There was the club helped me, but the mesters did most.”

“What! My uncles?”

“Ay, didn’t you know?” he cried, busying himself about lighting a smaller forge at the back of the first.

I shook my head.

“Paid me pound a-week all the time I was badly, my lad.”

“And very kind of them too,” I said warmly.

“Ay, ’twas. Felt at times, lad, as if I warn’t worth the money, that I did.”

Just then Stevens made his appearance, crossing from the grinders’ shop to one of the smithies at the end; and as he went along at some distance I saw him look curiously over at where I was standing talking to Pannell.

“Theer it is again,” said the latter. “You mean well, lad, and it’s very kind on you; but I shall hev it ’fore long on account o’ talking to thee.”

“Oh, surely not!” I cried angrily. “The men will never be such cowards as to attack you for that.”

“Men weant, but trade will,” said Pannell. “Mates can’t do as they like about it. Look ye yonder; what did I say?”

He nodded in the direction of Stevens, who had returned directly, stopped opposite the smithy, but at some distance, and as soon as I looked up he began to signal to me to go to him.

I never liked the man, for he always seemed to dislike me, and I gave him the credit of being one of the active parties in the outrages that had been committed upon us. But I remembered what our plans were to be—frank, straightforward, and fearless—and I walked right up to Stevens, whose brow was lowering and full of menace.

“Here, I want a word with you,” he said fiercely.

“All right, Stevens!” I said. “What is it?”

“Come over here,” he replied, “and I’ll tell ye.”

He led the way along the yard to the other side of the great coal heap, which lay there massive and square, through its sides being carefully built up with big blocks of coal.

We were quite out of sight there, and, as I thought, how easy it would be for him to knock me down with one of the lumps.

I was perfectly cool though, till he suddenly seized me by the jacket.

I struck up at his hand, but he held on tightly, and there was a curious smile on his face as he said:

“Nay, you don’t, lad; I’m stronger than thou.”

“What do you want?” I cried, making a virtue of necessity and standing firm.

“What do I want, eh?” he said slowly. “Oh, just a word or two wi’ thee, my lad. There, you needn’t call thee uncle.”

“I was not going to call him,” I retorted. “Why should I?”

“Because you’re scarred about what I’m going to do to thee.”

“No, I’m not,” I replied boldly; “because you daren’t do anything unless it’s in the dark, when you can attack a man behind his back.”

He winced at this and scowled, but turned it off with a laugh.

“’Tack a what?” he said.

“A boy, then,” I cried. “I know I’m a boy; but I meant people generally.”

“Nivver you mind that,” he said. “You don’t understand trade. But joost you look there. Yow’ve been saying I did some’at to the dog.”

“That I have not,” I cried.

“Ay, but you did say it,” he repeated fiercely.

“I did not say so,” I cried almost as angrily; “but if I had said it, I don’t suppose I should have been far wrong.”

“Nay, lad, I did nowt to the dog. I did nowt—I—”

He let his hand fall, and a feeling of relief from some expectation came over his face. He had been talking to me, but it was in a curious way, and all the time he talked he seemed to be looking over my shoulder more than in my face.

But now he drew a long breath and seemed satisfied with the explanation; and just then I uttered a cry of horror, for there was a loud report, and the yard seemed to be filled with flying cinders and smoke.

Stevens gave me a grim look and laid his hand on my shoulder.

“Lucky yow weern’t theer,” he said. “Might have been hurt. Come and see.”

We joined the men who were hurrying in the direction of the smoke that obscured one end of the yard.

“What is it, Uncle Jack?” I cried, as I ran to his side.

“I don’t know yet,” he said.

“It was somewhere by the smithies.”

“Yes; that’s plain enough,” said my uncle, and we pressed on in front of the men, to come upon Pannell, tending down and rubbing his eyes.

“Pannell!” I cried; “you are not hurt?”

“Nay, not much,” he said sourly. “Got the cinder and stuff in my eyes, but they missed me this time.”

“What! Was it not an accident?”

“Oh, ay!” he replied, “reg’lar accident. Powder got into my little forge, and when I started her wi’ some hot coal from t’other one she blew up.”

“But you are not hurt?”

“Nay, lad, I weer stooping down, and were half behind the forge, so I didn’t ketch it that time.”

The smoke was by this time pretty well cleared away, and we walked into the smithy to see what mischief had befallen us.

Fortunately no harm had been done to the structure of the building, and there being no glass in the windows there was of course none to blow out. The coal ashes and cinders had been scattered far and wide, and the iron funnel-shaped chimney knocked out of place, while some of the smiths’ tools, and the rods of steel upon which Pannell had been working, were thrown upon the floor.

The walls, forge, and pieces of iron about told tales for themselves without the odour of the explosive, for everything had been covered with a film of a greyish-white, such as gunpowder gives to iron or brickwork when it is fired.

“Where was the powder?” cried Uncle Jack, after satisfying himself that Pannell had not the slightest burn even upon his beard.

“In little forge all ready for me when I fired up,” growled Pannell sourly, as he scowled round at the little crowd of men; “but they missed me that time.”

Uncle Jack had a good look round the place, and the workmen stared at us as if in full expectation of being taken to task as the cause of the explosion.

I watched their faces cautiously in search of a look of regret, but the only peculiar expression I could see was on the countenance of Stevens, who stood softly rolling up his shirt-sleeves closer and closer to his shoulders, and there was such a curious smile in his eyes that he inspired me with a thought.

“Oh, if I have been deceived in him!”

That was my thought. For I seemed to see at a glance that he had known the explosion would take place, and that the talk about the dog was an excuse to get me away and save me from the consequences.

Just then Uncle Jack turned round to me and laid his hand on my shoulder.

“Look here,” he said quietly, as if he were showing me a curiosity, but loud enough for all the men to hear—“down in the south of England, my boy, when a workman is disliked it generally comes to a settlement with fists, and there is a fair, honest, stand-up fight. Down here in Arrowfield, Jacob, when another workman does something to offend his fellows—”

“Traäde,” shouted a voice.

“To offend his fellow-workmen,” repeated Uncle Jack.

“Traäde,” shouted the voice again, and there was a murmur of assent.

“Well, have it your own way,” said Uncle Jack. “To offend the trade, they try to blind him for life by filling his forge with powder, so that it may explode in his face. Jacob, my lad, next time I go anywhere, and hear people talk about what brave strong manly fellows the Englishmen are, I shall recommend them to come down and stay in Arrowfield for a month and see what is done.”

There was a low murmur among the men; but we did not stop to listen, and they all returned to their work except Pannell, who went down to the dam and bathed his eyes, after which he went as coolly as could be back to his smithy, took a shovel and borrowed some glowing fire from the next forge, lit up his own, and was soon after hammering his funnel chimney back in its place, and working up rods of steel as if nothing whatever had been amiss.

About the middle of the afternoon, though, he came up through the workshop straight to the office, with his hammer in his hand, and gave a loud thump at the door.

I opened it and admitted him; for I was in the big office with my uncles, who were talking about this last trouble.

“Well, my man, what is it?” said Uncle Jack.

Pannell began to lift up his hammer-head slowly and let it fall back again into his left hand, staring straight before him with his dark eyes, which were surrounded with the black marks of the gunpowder which clung still to the skin.

“What do you want, Pannell?” I said, giving him a touch on the arm; but the hammer rose and fell still by the contraction of his right hand, and went on tap—tap—falling into his left.

“Why don’t you speak?” I said again, quite impatiently.

“I know,” he growled. “I want to speak.”

“We are listening,” said Uncle Dick. “What have you to say?”

“Look here,” cried Pannell, giving his hammer a flourish round his head as if he were about to attack us. “I’m a man—I am.”

“And a good big one, Pannell,” said Uncle Bob smiling.

“Wish I were twyste as big, mester! Theer!” cried Pannell.

“I wish you were if it would be any comfort to you,” said Uncle Bob to himself.

“I’ve been a-thinking o’ this out while I’ve been hammering yonder, and I want to speak.”

“Yes,” said Uncle Jack. “Go on.”

“Look ye here, then,” cried Pannell, flourishing his hammer round as if he were a modern edition or an angry Thor; “does anyone say I telled on ’em? Did I tell on ’em, mesters? Answer me that.”

“What! About the outrages?” said Uncle Dick firmly.

“Outrages, mester!”

“Well, the attempts to blow us up.”

“Ay!—the trade business. Did I ivver come and say word to anny of you?”

“Never.”

“Or to yow, youngster?”

“Never, Pannell. You always went against us,” I said, “when a word from you would—”

“Theer, that’ll do. Tell me this—Did I ivver tell on anny on ’em?”

“No; you have always been true to your party, Pannell—if that is what you mean.”

“And that is what I mean,” said the great fellow, throwing his head about and jerking out his words, each with a menacing flourish of the hammer or a mock blow, as if they were steel words that he wanted to strike into shape.

“Nobody accused you of tale-bearing to us,” said Uncle Dick.

“Didn’t they, mester?” he roared. “What’s this, then, and this, and this?”

He touched the scars upon his head and brow, and the sticking-plaster left on.

“Don’t you call that saying I telled on ’em, wi’out the poother in my forge this morning?”

“A cowardly brutal thing to have done, my man.”

“Ay, so ’twas. I’d done nowt but be civil to young mester here. Say,” he cried fiercely, “yow telled ’em I forged that trap!” and he turned on me.

“Oh, Pannell!” I cried, flushing indignantly.

That was all I said, but it was enough.

“Beg pardon, young gentleman!—yow didn’t, I can see that. Nay, it was the altogetherishness o’ the whole thing. They set me down—me, a mate in the union—as hevvin’ telled on ’em and gone agen ’em, and being friends wi’ the mesters; and yow see what they’ve done.”

“Indeed we do, Pannell—”

“Howd hard, mester,” said the big smith, flourishing about his hammer. “I hevn’t had my spell yet. I want to speak.”

Uncle Dick nodded, as much as to say, “Go on.”

“Look here, then, mesters—I’ve thowt this out. It’s cowards’ business, ivvery bit on it, ’cept Matt Stivvins this morning coming and fetching young mester out of the way.”

“Yes,” I said, “he did.”

“And they’ll knobstick ’im for it if they know—see if they don’t!”

“Then they mustn’t know,” I cried eagerly. “I don’t like Stevens, but he did save me this morning.”

“Ay, he did, ’cause he said once yow weer a trump, my lad; but he didn’t give me a word. I sha’n’t tell on him, but I sha’n’t hev nought more to do wi’ anny on ’em. I’ve been union man all these years and paid, and here’s what I’ve got for it. I says to mysen, I says: If this here’s what comes o’ sticking to union through all their games I’ve done wi’ ’em, and I’m a master’s man—that’s all.”

He turned short round to go, but Uncle Dick stopped him.

“I don’t quite understand what you mean, Pannell.”

“What I mean! Why, what I said—that’s what I mean.”

“That you have done with the trades-union, Pannell,” I cried, “and mean to be on our side?”

“That’s so, mester. Now I mun go or my fire’ll be out.”

He strode out of the place and banged the door after him; and as he went along the shop I could see him in imagination staring defiantly from side to side, in answer to the savage murmur that greeted him from the men whom he had made up his mind to defy.

“What do you think of that?” said Uncle Dick, as soon as we heard the farther door close with a crash.

“It’s the beginning of the end,” said Uncle Jack with an eager look in his eyes. “Keep firm, boys, and we shall have them all honestly on our side, and we can laugh at all trades-unions in Arrowfield that fight with cowardly weapons. The men do not do what their own feelings prompt, but obey the law of a secret society which forces them to do these cruel wrongs.”

It must have been intentional on his part, for as I went down into the furnace house about half an hour after, at my usual time, to take down an account of work done, I met Stevens coming towards me.

We were in the big empty building, the furnace being cold, and no work going on that day, and he slouched towards me as if he were going by, but I stopped him and held out my hand.

“Thank you, Stevens,” I said. “I didn’t understand it then, but you saved me from something terrible to-day.”

He gave a quick glance or two about, and then regularly snatched my hand, gave it a squeeze, and threw it away.

“All right, my lad!” he said in a hoarse whisper. “You’re on’y one o’ the mesters, but I couldn’t abear to see thee in for it too.”

He went on his away and I went mine, feeling that Uncle Jack was right, and that though it might be a long journey first, it was the beginning of the end.

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