I came to the right conclusion, I am sure, for I decided to go and face the danger, if there was any; for I said to myself, “Better to see it coming than to be taken unawares.”
Now, please, don’t think me conceited. In place of being conceited, I want to set down modestly and truthfully the adventures that befell me while my lot was cast among a number of misguided men who, bound together in what they considered a war against their masters, were forced by their leaders into the performance of deeds quite opposed to their ordinary nature. It was a mad and foolish combination as then conducted, and injured instead of benefiting their class.
Urged by my nervous dread of coming danger, I, as I have said, determined to see it if I could, and so be prepared; and in this spirit I put as bold a face on the matter as possible, and went down the long workshop where the men were grinding and working over the polishing-wheels, which flew round and put such a wonderful gloss upon a piece of metal.
Then I went down and into the furnace-house, where the fires were glowing, and through the chinks the blinding glare of the blast-fed flame seemed to flash and cut the gloom.
The men there gave me a civil nod, and so did the two smiths who were forging knives, while, when I went next into Pannell’s smithy, feeling all the more confident for having made up my mind to action, the big fellow stared at me.
“Yow here agen?” he said.
“Yes.”
“Well, don’t stay, lad; and if I was you I should keep out of wet grinders’ shop.”
“Why?” I said.
He banged a piece of steel upon his anvil, and the only answers I could get from him were raps of the hammer upon the metal; so I soon left him, feeling highly indignant with his treatment, and walked straight to his window, stepped up on the bench, and looked down, wondering whether it would be any good to fish from there.