The Three Black Pennys | Page 6

The barrel of his gun was wet, and instinctively he wiped off
the lock. Two men passing brushed heavily against him and stopped.
"Who is it," one demanded, "John Rajennas? By God, it's a long way
back to old Shadrach with splintering shoes." A face drew near Howat,
and then retreated. "Oh, Mr. Penny! I didn't know you were up on the
hunt." It was, he recognized, one of the coaling men who worked for
Dan Hesa. The other discovered Fanny Gilkan. "And Fanny, too," the
voice grew inimical. The men drew away, and a sharp whispering
fluctuated out of the darkness.
"Come," Howat Penny said sharply; "we must get back or stay out here
for the rest of the night. I don't mind admitting I'd like to be where I
could sleep." She moved forward, now tacitly taking a place behind
him, and he led the return, tramping doggedly in the shortest direction
possible.
The hollows and stream beds were filled with the ghostly mist, and
bitterly chill; the night paled slightly, diluted with grey; there was a

distant clamour of crows. They entered the Furnace tract by a path at
the base of the rise from where they had started. On the left, at a
crossing of roads, one leading to Myrtle Forge, the other a track for the
charcoal sleds, a blacksmith's open shed held a faint smoulder on the
hearth. The blast from Shadrach Furnace rose perpendicular in the still
air.
Fanny Gilkan slipped away with a murmur. Howat abandoned all
thought of returning to Myrtle Forge that night. But it was, he corrected
the conclusion, morning. The light was palpable; he could see
individual trees, the bulk of the cast-house, built directly against the
Furnace; in the illusive radiance the coal house on the hill seemed
poised on top of the other structures. A lantern made a reddish blur in
the cast-house; it was warm in there when a blast was in progress, and
he determined to sleep at once.
Thomas Gilkan, with a fitful light, was testing the sealing clay on the
face of the Furnace hearth; two men were rolling out the sand for the
cast over the floor of the single, high interior, and another was
hammering on a wood form used for stamping the pig moulds. The
interior was soothing; the lights, blurred voices, the hammering,
seemed to retreat, to mingle with the subdued, smooth clatter of the
turning wheel without, the rhythmic collapse of the bellows. Howat
Penny was losing consciousness when an apparently endless, stuttering
blast arose close by. He cursed splenetically. It was the horn, calling the
Furnace hands for the day; and he knew that it would continue for five
minutes.
Others had entered; a little group gathered about Thomas Gilkan's
waning lantern. Far above them a window glimmered against the sooty
wall. Howat saw that Dan Hesa was talking to Gilkan, driving in his
words by a fist smiting a broad, hard palm. The group shifted, and the
countenance of the man who had recognized Howat Penny in the
woods swam into the pale radiance. His lassitude swiftly deserted him,
receding before the instant resentment always lying at the back of his
sullen intolerance--they were discussing him, mouthing some foul
imputation about the past night. Hesa left the cast-house abruptly,
followed by the charcoal burner; and Howat rose, the length of his rifle
thrust forward under his arm, and walked deliberately forward.
The daylight was increasing rapidly; and, as he approached, Thomas

Gilkan extinguished the flame of the lantern. He was a small man, with
a face parched by the heat of the furnace, and a narrowed, reddened
vision without eyebrows or lashes. He was, Howat had heard, an
unexcelled founder, a position of the greatest importance to the quality
of metal run. There was a perceptible consciousness of this in the
manner in which Gilkan moved forward to meet Gilbert Penny's son.
"I don't want to give offence," the founderman said, "but, Mr. Penny,
sir--" he stopped, commenced again without the involuntary mark of
respect. "Mr. Penny, stay away from my house. There is more that I
could say but I won't. That is all--keep out of my place. No names,
please."
Howat Penny's resentment swelled in a fiery anger at the stupidity that
had driven Thomas Gilkan into making his request. A sense of
humiliation contributed to an actual fury, the bitterer for the reason that
he could make no satisfactory reply. Gilkan was a freedman; while he
was occupying a dwelling at Shadrach Furnace it was his to conduct as
he liked. Howat's face darkened--the meagre fool! He would see that
there was another head founder here within a week.
But there were many positions in the Province for a man of Gilkan's
ability, there