Patience Wins | Page 9

if yo' stay."
"I want to go round the place. I am one of the proprietors who have taken it."
"Eh, you be--be you? Here, lads, this is one o' chaps as is turning us out. We've got the wheels ti' Saturday, and we wean't hev no one here."
"No, no," rose in chorus. "Open gate, lads, and hev 'em out."
"Keep back!" said Uncle Dick, stepping forward; "keep back, unless you want to be hurt. No one is going to interfere with your rights, which end on Saturday night."
"Eh! But if it hedn't been for yow we could ha kep' on."
"Well, you'll have to get some other place," said Uncle Dick; "we want this."
He turned his back on them and spoke to his brothers, who both, knowing their great strength, which they cultivated by muscular exercise, had stood quite calm and patient, but watchful, and ready to go to their brother's aid in an instant should he need assistance.
"Come on and look round," said Uncle Dick coolly; and he did not even glance at the squinting man, who had tried to get up, but sank down again and sat grinning with pain and holding his injured leg.
The calm indifference with which my three uncles towered above the undersized, pallid-looking fellows, and walked by them to the entrance to the stone building had more effect than a score of blows, and the men stopped clustered round their companion, and talked to him in a low voice. But I was not six feet two like Uncle Bob, nor six feet one like Uncle Jack, nor six feet three like Uncle Dick. I was only an ordinary lad of sixteen, and much easier prey for their hate, and this they saw and showed.
For as I followed last, and was about to enter the door, a shower of stones and pieces of iron came whizzing about me, and falling with a rattle and clangour upon the cobble stones with which the place was paved.
Unfortunately, one piece, stone or iron, struck me on the shoulder, a heavy blow that made me feel sick, and I needed all the fortitude I could call up to hide my pain, for I was afraid to say or do anything that would cause fresh trouble.
So I followed my uncles into the spacious ground-floor of the works, all wet and dripping with the water from the grindstones which had just been left by the men, and were still whizzing round waiting to be used.
"Plenty of room here," said Uncle Dick, "and plenty of power, you see," he continued, pointing to the shaft and wheels above our heads. "Ugly-looking place this," he went on, pointing to a trap-door at the end, which he lifted; and I looked down with a shudder to see a great shaft turning slowly round; and there was a slimy set of rotten wooden steps going right down into the blackness, where the water was falling with a curiously hollow echoing sound.
As I turned from looking down I saw that the men had followed us, and the fellow with the squint seemed to have one of his unpleasant eyes fixed upon me, and he gave me a peculiar look and grin that I had good reason to remember.
"This is the way to the big wheel," said Uncle Dick, throwing open a door at the end. "They go out here to oil and repair it when it's out of gear. Nasty spot too, but there's a wonderful supply of cheap power."
With the men growling and muttering behind us we looked through into a great half-lit stone chamber that inclosed the great wheel on one side, leaving a portion visible as we had seen it from the outside; and here again I shuddered and felt uncomfortable, it seemed such a horrible place to fall into and from which there would be no escape, unless one could swim in the surging water below, and then clamber into the wheel, and climb through it like a squirrel.
The walls were dripping and green, and they echoed and seemed to whisper back to the great wheel as it turned and splashed and swung down its long arms, each doubling itself on the wall by making a moving shadow.
The place had such a fascination for me that I stood with one hand upon the door and a foot inside looking down at the faintly seen black water, listening to the echoes, and then watching the wheel as it turned, one pale spot on the rim catching my eye especially. As I watched it I saw it go down into the darkness with a tremendous sweep, with a great deal of splashing and falling of water; then after being out of sight for a few moments it came into view again, was whirled round, and dashed down.
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