“We do not want to be aggressors, Cob,” said my Uncle Dick.
“But we want to defend ourselves, uncle.”
“To be sure we do, my lad,” he said; “and we’ll be ready as we can when we are attacked; but I don’t see the necessity for training ourselves to fight.”
So I did not meet and thrash my enemy, but went steadily on with my duties at the works.
In fact I was very little the worse for my adventure, thanks to Mrs Gentles, to whom I returned the cap she had lent me and thanked her warmly for her goodness.
She seemed very pleased to see me, and told me that her “mester” was quite well, only his leg was a little stiff, and that he was at work now with her boys.
The matters seemed now to have taken a sudden turn, as Mr Tomplin said they would: the men were evidently getting over their dislike to us and the new steel, making it up and grinding it in an ill-used, half contemptuous sort of way, and at last the necessity for watching by night seemed so slight that we gave it up.
But it was felt that it would not be wise to give up the air of keeping the place looked after by night, so old Dunning the gate-keeper was consulted, and he knew of the very man—one who had been a night watchman all his life and was now out of work through the failure of the firm by whom he had been employed.
In due time the man came—a tall, very stout fellow, of about sixty, with a fierce look and a presence that was enough to keep away mischief by the fact of its being known that he was there.
He came twice, and was engaged to be on duty every night at nine; and in the conversation that ensued in the office he took rather a gruff, independent tone, which was mingled with contempt as he was told of the attempts that had been made.