Part 11 (2/2)
”Ay, but such a one as you never saw. I shall make it myself. It shall be only four inches long, but as broad as my hand, and enough detonating powder in it to blow the shutter fifty feet into the air: and if there should be one of Jobson's lads behind the shutter at the time, why he'll learn flying, and naught to pay for wings.”
”Why, sir, you are planning the man's death!”
”And what is HE planning? Light your forge, and leave the job to me. I'm Hillsborough too, and they've put my blood up at last.”
While Henry lighted his forge, Mr. Cheetham whipped out a rule, and measured the window exactly. This done, he went down the stairs, and crossed the yard to go to his office.
But, before he could enter it, a horrible thing occurred in the room he had just left; so horrible, it made him, brave as he was, turn and scream like a woman.
Some miscreant, by a simple but ingenious means, which afterward transpired, had mixed a quant.i.ty of gunpowder with the smithy-slack or fine cinders of Henry's forge. The moment the forge was hot, the powder ignited with a tremendous thud, a huge ma.s.s of flame rushed out, driving the coals with it, like shot from a gun; Henry, scorched, blackened, and blinded, was swept, as by a flaming wind, against the opposite wall; then, yelling, and stark mad with fright (for nothing drives men out of their wits like an explosion in a narrow s.p.a.ce), he sprang at the window, head foremost, and with such velocity that the sawed iron snapped like a stick of barley-sugar, and out he went head foremost; and this it was made Cheetham scream, to see him head downward, and the paving-stones below.
But the aperture was narrow: his body flew through, but his tight arm went round the unbroken upright, and caught it in the bend of the elbow.
Then Cheetham roared, ”Hold on, Little! Hold on, I tell you!”
The scared brain of a man accustomed to obey received the command almost without the mind; and the grinders and forgers, running wildly into the yard, saw the obnoxious workman, black as a cinder from head to foot, bleeding at the face from broken gla.s.s, hanging up there by one hand, moaning with terror, and looking down with dilating eye, while thick white smoke rushed curling out, as if his body was burning. Death by suffocation was at his back, and broken bones awaited him below.
CHAPTER VI.
At sight of this human cinder, hanging by one hand between two deaths, every sentiment but humanity vanished from the ruggedest bosom, and the skilled workmen set themselves to save their unpopular comrade with admirable quickness and judgment: two new wheel-bands, that had just come into the works, were caught up in a moment, and four workmen ran with them and got below the suspended figure: they then turned back to back, and, getting the bands over their shoulders, pulled hard against each other. This was necessary to straighten the bands: they weighed half a hundred weight each. Others stood at the center of the bands, and directed Little where to drop, and stood ready to catch him should he bound off them.
But now matters took an unexpected turn. Little, to all appearance, was blind and deaf. He hung there, moaning, and glaring, and his one sinewy arm supported his muscular but light frame almost incredibly. He was out of his senses, or nearly.
”Let thyself come, lad,” cried a workman, ”we are all right to catch thee.”
He made no answer, but hung there glaring and moaning.
”The man will drop noane, till he swouns,” said another, watching him keenly.
”Then get you closer to the wall, men,” cried Cheetham, in great anxiety. ”He'll come like a stone, when he does come.” This injunction was given none too soon; the men had hardly s.h.i.+fted their positions, when Little's hand opened, and he came down like lead, with his hands all abroad, and his body straight; but his knees were slightly bent, and he caught the bands just below the knee, and bounded off them into the air, like a cricket-ball. But many hands grabbed at him, and the grinder Reynolds caught him by the shoulder, and they rolled on the ground together, very little the worse for that tumble. ”Well done! well done!”
cried Cheetham. ”Let him lie, lads, he is best there for a while; and run for a doctor, one of you.”
”Ay, run for Jack Doubleface,” cried several voices at once.
”Now, make a circle, and give him air, men.” Then they all stood in a circle, and eyed the blackened and quivering figure with pity and sympathy, while the canopy of white smoke bellied overhead. Nor were those humane sentiments silent; and the rough seemed to be even more overcome than the others: no brains were required to pity this poor fellow now; and so strong an appeal to their hearts, through their senses, roused their good impulses and rare sensibilities. Oh, it was strange to hear good and kindly sentiments come out in the Dash dialect.
”It's a ---- shame!”
”There lies a good workman done for by some ---- thief, that wasn't fit to blow his bellows, ---- him!”
”Say he WAS a c.o.c.kney, he was always ---- civil.”
”And life's as sweet to him as to any man in Hillsborough.”
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