"There, moother said he'd be over proud to tak it," said the younger lad resentfully to his brother.

"No, I am not too proud," I said; "give it to me. What is it?"

"Best knife they maks at our wucks," said the boy eagerly. "It's rare stoof. I say, we're going to learn to swim like thou."

They both nodded and went away, leaving me thinking that I was after this to be friends with the Arrowfield boys as well as the men.

They need not have put it in the newspaper, but there it was, a long account headed "Gallant rescue by a boy." It was dressed up in a way that made my cheeks tingle, and a few days later the tears came into my eyes as I read a letter from my mother telling me she had read in the newspaper what I had done, and--

There, I will not set that down. It was what my mother said, and every British boy knows what his mother would say of an accident like that.

It was wonderful how the works progressed after this, and how differently the men met us. It was not only our own, but the men at all the works about us. Instead of a scowl or a stare there was a nod, and a gruff "good morning." In fact, we seemed to have lived down the prejudice against the "chaps fro' Lunnon, and their contrapshions;" but my uncles knew only too well that they had not mastered the invisible enemy called the trade.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

A TERRIBLE RISK.

"What are you staring at, Cob?"

It was Uncle Jack who spoke, and Uncle d.i.c.k had just come up with him, to find me in the yard, looking up at the building.

It was dinner-hour, and all the men had gone but Pannell, who was sitting on a piece of iron out in the yard calmly cutting his bread and meat into squares and then masticating them as if it were so much tilt-hammer work that he had to do by the piece.

"I was thinking, Uncle, suppose they were to set fire to us some night, what should we do?"

"Hah! Yes: not a bad thought," said Uncle d.i.c.k sharply. "Pannell!"

"Hillo!" said that gentleman, rising slowly.

"Finish eating your bread and meat as you go, will you, and buy us twenty-four buckets."

"Fower-and-twenty boockets," said Pannell, speaking with his mouth full.

"What do yow want wi fower-and-twenty boockets?"

"I'll show you this evening," replied my uncle; and, handing the man a couple of sovereigns, Pannell went off, and both Uncle Jack and I laughed at the quick way in which Uncle d.i.c.k had determined to be provided for an emergency.

The buckets came, and were run by their handles upon a pole which was supported upon two great hooks in one of the outhouses against the wall of the yard, and some of the men noticed them, but the greater part seemed to pay not the slightest heed to this addition to our defences.

But at leaving time, after a few words from Uncle d.i.c.k to Uncle Jack, the latter stood in the yard as the men came out, and said sharply:

"Four-and-twenty men for a window wash. Who'll help?"

A few months before, such a demand would have been met with a scowl; but quite a little crowd of the men now stopped, and Pannell said with a grin:

"Wonder whether there'll be a boocket o' beer efter?"

"Why, of course there will, my lad," cried Uncle Jack, who ranged the men in order.

"Why, 'tis like being drilled for milishy, mester," said one man, and there was a roar of laughter as the buckets were pa.s.sed out of the shed, and the men were placed in two rows, with Uncle Jack at one end, Uncle d.i.c.k at the other; the two ends resting, as a soldier would say, on the dam, and on the works.

It was wonderful how a little management and discipline made easy such a business as this, and I could not help smiling as I saw how my idea had been acted upon.

There were a few sharp words of command given, and then Uncle Jack dipped his bucket into the dam from the stone edge where we had bathed poor Piter, filled it, pa.s.sed it on to Number 1 of the first row, and took a bucket from the last man of the second row, to fill. Meanwhile the first bucket was being pa.s.sed on from hand to hand through a dozen pairs when it reached Uncle d.i.c.k, who seized it, hurled it up against the grimy windows of the works, and then pa.s.sed it to the first man of the second row.

In a minute or two the men were working like a great machine, the pails being dipped and running, or rather being swung, from hand to hand till they reached Uncle d.i.c.k, who dashed the water over the windows, and here and there, while the empty buckets ran back to Uncle Jack.

The men thoroughly enjoyed it, and Pannell shouted that this would be the way to put out a fire. But my uncles did not take up the idea, working steadily on, and shifting the line till the whole of the glazed windows had been sluiced, and a lot of the grit and rubbish washed away from the sills and places, after which the buckets were again slung in a row and the men had their beer, said "Good-night!" quite cheerily, and went away.

"There," said Uncle d.i.c.k, "I call that business. How well the lads worked!"

"Yes," said Uncle Jack with a sigh of content as he wiped his streaming brow; "we could not have got on with them like that three months ago."

"No," said Uncle Bob, who had been looking on with me, and keeping dry; "the medicine is working faster and faster; they are beginning to find us out."

"Yes," said Uncle d.i.c.k. "I think we may say it is peace now."

"Don't be in too great a hurry, my boys," said Uncle Jack. "There is a good deal more to do yet."

It is one of the terrible misfortunes of a town like Arrowfield that accidents among the work-people are so common. There was an excellent hospital there, and it was too often called into use by some horror or another.

It would be a terrible tale to tell of the mishaps that we heard of from week to week: men burned by hot twining rods; by the falling of ma.s.ses of iron or steel that were being forged; by blows of hammers; and above all in the casting-shops, when glowing fluid metal was poured into some mould which had not been examined to see whether it was free from water.

Do you know what happens then? Some perhaps do not. The fluid metal runs into the mould, and in an instant the water is turned into steam, by whose mighty power the metal is sent flying like a shower, the mould rent to pieces, and all who are within range are horribly burned.

That steam is a wonderful slave, but what a master! It is kept bound in strong fetters by those who force its obedience; but woe to those who give it the opportunity to escape by some neglect of the proper precautions.

One accident occurred at Arrowfield during the winter which seemed to give the final touch to my uncles' increasing popularity with the work-people, and we should have had peace, if it had not been for the act of a few malicious wretches that took place a month or too later.

It was one evening when we had left the works early with the intention of having a good long fireside evening, and perhaps a walk out in the frosty winter night after supper, that as we were going down one of the busy lanes with its works on either side, we were suddenly arrested by a deafening report followed by the noise of falling beams and brickwork.

As far as we could judge it was not many hundred yards away, and it seemed to be succeeded by a terrible silence.

Then there was the rushing of feet, the shouting of men, and a peculiar odour smote upon our nostrils.

"Gunpowder!" I exclaimed as I thought of our escapes.

"No," said Uncle d.i.c.k. "Steam."

"Yes," said Uncle Jack. "Some great boiler has burst. Heaven help the poor men!"

Following the stream of people we were not long in reaching the gateway of one of the greatest works in Arrowfield. Everything was in such a state of confusion that our entrance was not opposed; and in a few minutes we saw by the light of flaring gas-jets, and of a fire that had begun to blaze, one of the most terrible scenes of disaster I had ever witnessed.

The explosion had taken place in the huge boiler-house of the great iron-works, a wall had been hurled down, part of the iron-beamed roof was hanging, one great barrel-shaped boiler had been blown yards away as if it had been a straw, and its fellow, about twenty feet long, was ripped open and torn at the rivets, just as if the huge plates of iron of which it was composed were so many postage-stamps torn off and roughly crumpled in the hand.

There was a great crowd collecting, and voices shouted warning to beware of the falling roof and walls that were in a crumbling condition. But these shouts were very little heeded in the presence of the cries and moans that could be heard amongst the piled-up brickwork. Injured men were there, and my uncles were among the first to rush in and begin bearing them out--poor creatures horribly scalded and crushed.