directly.
But it was no peaceful rest such as generally came to his pillow, for he lay tossing in dreams of Eve Pelly turning to him constantly for help from some great trouble that was ever pursuing her – a danger that he could not avert. Then Richard Glaire had him by the throat, charging him with robbing him of his love; and then he was engaged in a mad struggle with the young man, holding him over a gulf to hurl him in, incited thereto by the young workman.
Then once more Eve Pelly’s appealing face was before him, praying him to spare dear Richard, the man she loved, and then —
“Thank God, it’s morning!” he exclaimed, waking with a start, to consult his watch, and finding it was half-past six.
Volume One – Chapter Ten.
Sim Slee Busy
Banks, the foreman, stayed late at the foundry on the night of the disturbance. His master remained in the counting-house smoking cigars till he was very white and ill, feelings which he attributed to the assault made upon him that day – a very sudden one by the way, and one which had arisen, as has been intimated, on account of a rather unfair reduction that had been made in the rate of pay.
But this was not all, for the fact was, that after being left to go on in its quiet, old-fashioned way for years, probably from its insignificance, Dumford had suddenly been leavened by Sim Slee with a peculiar version of his own of the trades-union doctrines of some of the larger towns – doctrines which he had altered to suit his own ends.
Hence arose a society which was the pride of Sim Slee, and known amongst the workmen as the Brotherhood. Meetings were held regularly, speeches made, and Simeon Slee, who heretofore had confined himself to idleness, drink, and local preaching, till expelled as a disgrace to the plan, became a shining light in the brotherhood, on account of what the more quiet workmen called his power of putting things, though the greater part held aloof, from the contempt in which this leader was held.
In previous days, with one or two exceptions, the word of the master of the works had been law, and wages were raised or lowered as trade flourished or fell, with nothing more than a few murmurs; but now times were altered, men had begun to think for themselves, and the behaviour of Richard Glaire had grown so arbitrary and unjust that the consequence was the riot we have seen.
Richard Glaire was about as unsuitable a person as it is possible to imagine to have such a responsibility as the management of a couple of hundred men; but he did not believe this, and he sat, after the departure of his mother, nursing his wrongs, and making plans for the punishment of his workmen.
At one time he was for having the assistance of the military, but as he cooled down he was obliged to acknowledge that his request would be ridiculed.
Then he determined on getting summonses against about twenty of the ringleaders, whom he meant to discharge.
Once he called Banks, and asked him what it would be best to do.
“Put the wage right again,” said the foreman.
Whereupon Richard Glaire turned upon him in a burst of childish passion, and declared that he was in league with the scoundrels who had assaulted him.
“There, I shall go till you’ve had time to cool down,” said Banks, grimly. “Your metal’s hot, Master Richard, and it wean’t be raight again till you’ve had a night’s rest.”
Richard made no reply, but sat biting his lips and making plans till dusk, when he cautiously stole out of the building by a side door, of which he alone had the key.
Banks stayed on for another couple of hours, plodding about the building, examining doors, the extinct forges and furnaces, looking at the bands of the huge lathes, and displaying a curious kind of energy, as by means of a small bull’s-eye lantern he peered in and out of all sorts of out-of-the-way places.
“There’s no knowing what games Master Sim might try on,” he remarked to himself; “blowings up and cutting bands, and putting powther in the furnace holes; he’s shack enew for ought, and I dessay some on ’em will be stupid enough to side wi’ him. What’s that?”
He stopped and listened, for it seemed to him that he had heard a noise below him in the ground floor.
The sound was not repeated, so he went on cautiously through the great black workshop, with its weird assemblage of shafts, cranks, and bands, looking, in the fitful gleams cast by the lantern, like a torture-chamber in the fabled Pandemonium.
A stranger would have tripped and fallen a dozen times over the metal-cumbered floor; but every inch and every piece of machinery was so familiar to the foreman that he could have gone about the place blindfold, even as he did once or twice in the dark when he closed his bull’s-eye lantern, thinking he heard a noise.
All seemed right in this workshop, so he descended to the foundry, going over it and amongst the furnaces, now growing cold.
Then he threaded his way amongst the sunken moulds for castings; looked up at the cranes, paused before the massive crucibles used for melting bell-metal or ingots for the great steel bells, and ended by stopping again to listen.
“I’ll sweer I heerd a noise,” he muttered, taking a short constable’s staff from his pocket, and twisting its stout leather thong round his wrist. “It will be strange and awkward for somebody if I find him playing any of his tricks here.”
He went cautiously on tip-toe in the direction from which the noise had seemed to come, going up a short ladder to a raised portion of the foundry, which formed an open floor where lighter work was done.
He advanced very cautiously in the dark, holding his staff ready to deliver a blow, or guard his head, and the next minute there was the sound of some tool being moved on a bench, and then something alighted at his feet, setting up a soft purring and beginning to rub up against his legs.
“Why, Tommy,” he said, “you scar’d me, my boy. It was you, was it? After rats, eh, Tommy? Poor old puss, then.”
He turned on his lantern, took a good look round, and then, apparently satisfied, he pulled out an old-fashioned silver watch and consulted its face.
“Eight o’clock, eh? Why, they’ll think at home that I’m lost.”
As he spoke he made his light play round for a few minutes, and then, apparently satisfied, he put it out, placed the lamp on a shelf, and went out and across the yard to the kind of lodge, where a man was waiting to take the duty of the watchman for the night.
“All raight, Mester Banks?”
“All right, Rolf,” was the reply. “I’ve been all round.”
Directly after the old foreman was on his way homeward, but he had hardly taken a dozen strides down the lane under the wall, before the head of Simeon Slee was cautiously raised above the edge of one of the great crucibles, or melting-pots, and then for a time he remained motionless.
“You’re a clever one, Joe Banks, you are,” he said at last, as he raised himself up and sat on the edge of the great pot. “You can find out everything, yow can; you can trample on the raights of the British wucking-man, and get the independent spirits discharged, eh? But you’re one of the ungodly bitter ones, and you must be smitten wherever you can. Let’s see how the wuck ’ll go on to-morrow.”
The speaker threw his legs over the side, and then paused to dust his trousers and his coat before proceeding further.
