第42章 CHAPTER IX.(4)

The rest that Henry spoke to accepted their fate doggedly. They were ready to complain, but not to move a finger in self-defense.

Their fathers had been ground out young, and why not they?

Indifferent to life, health, and happiness, they could nevertheless be inflamed about sixpence a week. In other words, the money-price of their labor was every thing to them, the blood-price nothing.

Henry found this out, and it gave him a glimpse into the mind of Amboyne.

He felt quite confused, and began to waver between hate, contempt, and pity. Was it really these poor doomed wretches who had robbed him of his livelihood? Could men so miscalculate the size of things, as to strike because an inoffensive individual was making complete caring-tools all by himself, and yet not strike, nor even stipulate for fans, to carry disease and death away from their own vitals? Why it seemed wasting hate, to bestow it on these blind idiots.

He went on to the wet-grinders, and he found their trade much healthier than dry-grinding: yet there were drawbacks. They suffered from the grit whenever a new stone was hung and raced.

They were also subject to a canker of the hands, and to colds, coughs, and inflammations, from perspiration checked by cold draughts and drenched floors. These floors were often of mud, and so the wet stagnated and chilled their feet, while their bodies were very hot. Excellent recipe for filling graves.

Here Bayne retired to his books, and Henry proceeded to the saw-grinders, and entered their rooms with no little interest, for they were an envied trade. They had been for many years governed by Grotait, than whom no man in England saw clearer; though such men as Amboyne saw further. Grotait, by a system of Machiavellian policy, ingeniously devised and carried out, nobly, basely, craftily, forcibly, benevolently, ruthlessly, whichever way best suited the particular occasion, had built a model Union; and still, with unremitting zeal and vigilance, contrived to keep numbers down and prices up--which is the great Union problem.

The work was hard, but it was done in a position favorable to the lungs, and the men were healthy, brawny fellows; one or two were of remarkable stature.

Up to this moment Silly Billy had fully justified that title. He had stuck to Henry's side like a dog, but with no more interest in the inquiry than a calf, indeed, his wandering eye and vacant face had indicated that his scanty wits were wool-gathering miles from the place that contained his body.

But, as soon as he entered the saw-grinders' room, his features lighted up, and his eye kindled. He now took up a commanding position in the center, and appeared to be listening keenly. And he had not listened many seconds before he cried out, "There's the bad music! there! there!" And he pointed to a grindstone that was turning and doing its work exactly like the others. "Oh, the bad music!" cried Billy. "It is out of tune. It says, 'Murder! murder!

Out of tune!'"

Henry thought it his duty to inspect the grindstone so vigorously denounced, and, naturally enough, went in front of the grinder. But Billy pulled him violently to the side. "You musn't stand there," said he. "That is the way they fly when they break, and kill the poor father, and then the mother lets down her hair, and the boy goes crazed."

By this time the men were attracted by the Anomaly's gestures and exclamations, and several left their work, and came round him.

"What is amiss, Billy? a flawed stone, eh? which is it?"

"Here! here!" said the boy. "This is the wheel of death. Kill it, break it, smash it, before it kills another father."

Henry spoke to the grinder, and asked him if there was anything amiss with the stone.

The man seemed singularly uneasy at being spoken to: however he made answer sullenly that he had seen better ones, and worse ones, and all.

Henry was, however, aware, that the breaking of a large grindstone, while revolving by steam power, was a serious, and often a fatal thing; he therefore made a private mark upon the wall opposite the grindstone, and took his excited companion to Bayne. "This poor lad says he has found a defective grindstone. It is impossible for me to test it while it is running. Will you let us into the works when the saw-grinders have left?"

Bayne hem'd and haw'd a little, but consented. He would remain behind half an-hour to oblige Little.

Henry gave the Anomaly his dinner, and then inspected the file-cutters in two great works. Here he found suicide reduced to a system. Whereof anon.

Returning, to keep his appointment with Bayne he met a well-dressed man, who stopped Billy, and accosted him kindly.

Henry strolled on.

He heard their voices behind him all the way, and the man stopped at Cheetham's gate, which rather surprised him. "Has Billy told you what we are at?" said he.

"Yes. But the very look of him was enough. I know Billy and his ways, better than you do."

"Very likely. What, are you coming in with us?"

"If you have no objection."

The door was opened by Bayne in person. He started at the sight of the companion his friend had picked up, and asked him, with marked civility, if there was anything amiss. "Not that I know of," was the reply. "I merely thought that my experience might be of some little service to you in an inquiry of this kind."

"Not a doubt of it, sir," said Bayne, and led the way with his lantern, for it was past sunset. On the road, the visitor asked if anybody had marked the accused stone. Henry said he should know it again. "That is right," said the other.

On entering the room, this personage took Billy by the arm, and held him. "Let us have no false alarms," he said, and blindfolded the boy with his handkerchief in a moment.

And now an examination commenced, which the time and the place rendered curious and striking.