Patience Wins: War in the Works

by George Manville Fenn

My heart was beating fast, but the act was so friendly that I patted the great head; and the end of it was, that I sat down on the door-step, and when Uncle Bob came out again Piter and I had fraternised, and he had been showing me as hard as he could that he was my born slave, that he was ready for a bit of fun at any time, and also to defend me against any enemy who should attack.

Piter’s ways were simple. To show the first he licked my hand. For the second, he turned over on his back, patted at me with his paws, and mumbled my legs, took a hold of my trousers and dragged at them, and butted at me with his bullet head. For the last, he suddenly sprang to his feet as a step was heard, crouched by me ready for a spring, and made some thunder inside him somewhere.

This done, he tried to show me what fun it was to tie himself up in a knot with the leathern thong, and strangle himself till his eyes stood out of his head.

“Why, you have made friends,” said Uncle Bob, coming out. “Good dog, then.”

“May I go?” I said eagerly.

“Yes. They’ve given in. I had a hard fight, sir, so you must do me credit.”

Half an hour after, we four were on our way to our own works, just as if we were stealing through the dark to commit a burglary, and I noticed that though there were no swords and guns, each of my uncles carried a very stout heavy stick, that seemed to me like a yard of bad headache, cut very thick.

The streets looked very miserable as we advanced, leaving behind us the noise and roar and glow of the panting machinery which every now and then whistled and screamed as if rejoicing over the metal it was cutting and forming and working into endless shapes. There behind us was the red cloud against which the light from a thousand furnaces was glowing, while every now and then came a deafening roar as if some explosion had taken place.

I glanced down at Piter expecting to see him startled, but he was Arrowfield born, and paid not the slightest heed to noise, passing through a bright flash of light that shot from an open door as if it were the usual thing, and he did not even twitch his tail as we walked on by a wall that seemed to quiver and shake as some great piece of machinery worked away, throbbing and thudding inside.

“Here we are at last,” said Uncle Dick, as we reached the corner of our place, where a lamp shed a ghastly kind of glow upon the dark triangular shaped dam.