There were hundreds of thoughts like this to take my attention as we raced on by the fast train till, to my surprise, I found that it was getting dark, and the day had passed.
“Here we are close to it,” said Uncle Jack; “look, my lad.”
I gazed out of the window on our right as the train glided on, to see the glare as of a city on fire: the glow of a dull red flickered and danced upon the dense clouds that overhung the place. Tall chimneys stood up like black stakes or posts set up in the reflection of open furnace doors. Here a keen bright light went straight up through the smoke with the edges exactly defined—here it was a sharp glare, there a dull red glow, and everywhere there seemed to be fire and reflection, and red or golden smoke mingled with a dull throbbing booming sound, which, faintly heard at first, grew louder and louder as the train slackened speed, and the pant and pulsation of the engine ceased.
“Isn’t something dreadful the matter?” I said, as I gazed excitedly from the window.
“Matter!” said Uncle Jack laughing.
“Yes, isn’t the place on fire? Look! Look! There there!”
I pointed to a fierce glare that seemed to reach up into the sky, cutting the dense cloud like millions of golden arrows shot from some mighty engine all at once.
“Yes, I see, old fellow,” said Uncle Jack. “They have just tapped a furnace, and the molten metal is running into the moulds, that’s all.”
“But the whole town looks as if it were in a blaze,” I said nervously.
“So did our works sometimes, didn’t they? Well, here we are in a town where there are hundreds upon hundreds of works ten times as big as ours. Nearly everybody is either forging, or casting, or grinding. The place is full of steam-engines, while the quantity of coal that is burnt here every day must be prodigious. Aha! Here’s Uncle Dick.”