That steam is a wonderful slave, but what a master! It is kept bound in strong fetters by those who force its obedience; but woe to those who give it the opportunity to escape by some neglect of the proper precautions.
One accident occurred at Arrowfield during the winter which seemed to give the final touch to my uncles’ increasing popularity with the work-people, and we should have had peace, if it had not been for the act of a few malicious wretches that took place a month or too later.
It was one evening when we had left the works early with the intention of having a good long fireside evening, and perhaps a walk out in the frosty winter night after supper, that as we were going down one of the busy lanes with its works on either side, we were suddenly arrested by a deafening report followed by the noise of falling beams and brickwork.
As far as we could judge it was not many hundred yards away, and it seemed to be succeeded by a terrible silence.
Then there was the rushing of feet, the shouting of men, and a peculiar odour smote upon our nostrils.
“Gunpowder!” I exclaimed as I thought of our escapes.
“No,” said Uncle Dick. “Steam.”
“Yes,” said Uncle Jack. “Some great boiler has burst. Heaven help the poor men!”
Following the stream of people we were not long in reaching the gateway of one of the greatest works in Arrowfield. Everything was in such a state of confusion that our entrance was not opposed; and in a few minutes we saw by the light of flaring gas-jets, and of a fire that had begun to blaze, one of the most terrible scenes of disaster I had ever witnessed.
The explosion had taken place in the huge boiler-house of the great iron-works, a wall had been hurled down, part of the iron-beamed roof was hanging, one great barrel-shaped boiler had been blown yards away as if it had been a straw, and its fellow, about twenty feet long, was ripped open and torn at the rivets, just as if the huge plates of iron of which it was composed were so many postage-stamps torn off and roughly crumpled in the hand.