Part 17 (2/2)

”Why, uncle,” I said wonderingly; ”we sha'n't want that to-night.”

”I shall,” he said. ”Good-night!”

”No, no,” I cried. ”We arranged to go to bed.”

”You arranged to go to bed, Cob, but I did not. You don't suppose I could behave so unfairly to my brothers as to neglect the task they placed in my hands.”

He did not say any more. It was quite sufficient. I felt the rebuff, and was thoroughly awake now and ashamed of what I had proposed.

Without a word I took the lantern and held out my hand.

”Good-night, Uncle Jack!” I said.

He had seemed cold and stern just before. Now he was his quiet old self again, and he took my hand, nodded, and said:

”Two o'clock, Cob. Good-night!”

I saw him go along the great workshop, enter the office and close the door, and then I started on my rounds.

It was anything but a cheerful task, that keeping watch over the works during the night, and I liked the first watch from ten to two less than the second watch from two to six, for in the latter you had the day breaking about four o'clock, and then it was light until six.

For, however much one might tell oneself that there was no danger--no likelihood of anything happening, the darkness in places, the faint glow from partly extinct fires, and the curious shadows cast on the whitewashed walls were all disposed to be startling; and, well as I knew the place, I often found myself shrinking as I came suddenly upon some piece of machinery that a.s.sumed in the darkness the aspect of some horrible monster about to seize me as I went my rounds.

Upon the other hand, there was a pleasant feeling of importance in going about that great dark place of a night, with a lantern at my belt, a stout stick in my hand, and a bull-dog at my heels, and this sensation helped to make the work more bearable.

On this particular night I had paced silently all about the place several times, thinking a good deal about my little encounter with Uncle Jack, and about the last letters I had had from my father. Then, as all seemed perfectly right, I had seated myself by the big furnace, which emitted a dull red glow, not sufficient to light the place, but enough to make it pleasantly warm, and to show that if a blast were directed in the coals, a fierce fire would soon be kindled.

I did not feel at all sleepy now; in fact, in spite of the warmth this furnace-house would not have been a pleasant place to sleep in, for the windows on either side were open, having no gla.s.s, only iron bars, and those on one side looked over the dam, while the others were in the wall that ab.u.t.ted on the lane leading down to the little river.

Piter had been with me all through my walk round, but, seeing me settle down, he had leaped on to the hot ashes and proceeded to curl himself up in a nice warm place, where the probabilities were that he would soon begin to cook.

Piter had been corrected for this half a dozen times over, but he had to be bullied again, and leaping off the hot ashes he had lowered his tail and trotted back to his kennel, where he curled himself up.

All was very still as I sat there, except that the boom and throb of the busy town where the furnaces and steam-engines were at work kept going and coming in waves of sound; and as I sat, I found myself thinking about the beauty of the steel that my uncles had set themselves to produce; and how, when a piece was snapped across, breaking like a bit of gla.s.s, the fracture looked all of a silvery bluish-grey.

Then I began thinking about our tall chimney, and what an unpleasant place mine would be to sit in if there were a furious storm, and the shaft were blown down; and then, with all the intention to be watchful, I began to grow drowsy, and jumping up, walked up and down the furnace-house and round the smouldering fire, whose chimney was a great inverted funnel depending from the open roof.

I grew tired of walking about and sat down again, to begin thinking once more.

How far is it from thinking to sleeping and dreaming? Who can answer that question?

To me it seemed that I was sitting thinking, and that as I thought there in the darkness, where I could see the fire throwing up its feeble glow on to the dim-looking open windows on either side, some great animal came softly in through the window on my left, and then disappeared for a few moments, to appear again on my right where the wall overlooked the lane.

That window seemed to be darkened for a minute or two, and then became light again, while once more that on my left grew dark, and I saw the figure glide out.

I seemed, as I say, to have been thinking, and as I thought it all appeared to be a dream, for it would have been impossible for any one to have crept in at one window, pa.s.sing the furnace and back again without disturbing me.

Yes; I told myself it was all fancy, and as I thought I told myself that I started awake, and looked sharply at first one window, and then at the other, half expecting to see someone there.

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