Chapter Twelve.
Pannell’s Secret.
Every day the works grew more busy, and prosperity seemed to be coming upon us like sunshine. The men worked steadily and well, and the old opposition had apparently died out; but all the same the watching was kept up as regularly as if it was during war time, though, saving an occasional burst of barking from Piter, who used to have these fits apparently without cause, there was nothing to alarm the watchers.
It was my turn at home, and I was up early the next morning, wondering how Uncle Jack and Uncle Bob had got on during the night, when I came down and found Mrs Stephenson and Martha the maid enjoying themselves.
Their way of enjoying themselves was peculiar, but that it afforded them pleasure there could be no doubt. It might have been considered a religious ceremony, but though there was a kind of worship or adoration about it, there was nothing religious in the matter at all.
What they did was this:—To mix up a certain quantity of black-lead in a little pie-dish, and then kneel down before a stove, and work and slave at it till there was a tremendous gloss all over the iron.
In effecting this Mrs Stephenson used to get a little smudgy, but Martha seemed to have an itching nose which always itched most on these occasions, and as you watched her you saw her give six scrubs at the grate with the front of the brush, and then one rub with the back on her face or nose.
This act must have been pleasant, for as she bent down and scrubbed she frowned, as she sat up and rubbed her nose with the back of the brush she smiled.
Now if Martha had confined her rubs to her nose it would not have much mattered, but in rubbing her nose she also rubbed her cheeks, her chin, her forehead, and the consequence was a great waste of black-lead, and her personal appearance was not improved.
I was standing watching the black-leading business, an affection from which most north-country people suffer very badly, when Uncle Jack came hurrying in, looking hot and excited. “Where’s Dick?” he cried.