“There,” said Uncle Jack at last, as he turned the well-oiled key and made the bolt of the lock play in and out of its socket, “now I think we can call the place our own.”
“I say, Uncle Bob,” I whispered—I don’t know why, unless it was the darkness that made me speak low—“I should like to see those fellows’ faces when they come to the gate to-morrow morning.”
“Especially Old Squintum’s,” said Uncle Bob laughing. “Pleasant countenance that man has, Cob. If ever he is modelled I should like to have a copy. Now, boys, what next?”
“Next!” said Uncle Dick; “we’ll just have a look round this place and see what there is belonging to the men, and we’ll put all together so as to be able to give it up when they come.”
“The small grindstones are theirs, are they not?” said Uncle Bob.
“No; the agent says that everything belongs to the works and will be found in the inventory. All we have to turn out will be the blades they are grinding.”
Uncle Dick went forward from grindstone to grindstone, but only in one place was anything waiting to be ground, and that was a bundle of black-looking, newly-forged scythe blades, neatly tied up with bands of wire.
He went on from end to end, making the light play on grindstone, trough, and the rusty sand that lay about; but nothing else was to be seen, and after reaching the door leading into the great chamber where the water-wheel revolved, he turned back the light, looking like some dancing will-o’-the-wisp as he directed it here and there, greatly to the puzzlement of Piter, to whom it was something new.
He tugged at the stout leathern thong once or twice, but I held on and he ceased, contenting himself with a low uneasy whine now and then, and looking up to me with his great protruding eyes, as if for an explanation.
“Now let’s have a look round upwards,” said Uncle Dick. “I’m glad the men have left so few of their traps here. Cob, my lad, you need not hold that dog. Take the swivel off his collar and let him go. He can’t get away.”