Thus meditating, she was conducted into the smiths’ department.
Here about 140 forges and 400 men were at work. Any one of these forges would have been a respectable “smiddy” in a country village. They stood as close to each other as the space would allow,—so close that their showers of sparks intermingled, and kept the whole shed more or less in the condition of a chronic eruption of fireworks. To Bob’s young mind it conveyed the idea of a perpetual keeping of the Queen’s birthday. To his mother it was suggestive of singed garments and sudden loss of sight. The poor woman was much distressed in this department at first, but when she found, after five minutes or so, that her garments were unscathed, and her sight still unimpaired, she became reconciled to it.
In this place of busy vulcans—each of whom was the beau-idéal of “the village blacksmith,” all the smaller work of the railway was done. As a specimen of this smaller work, Will Garvie drew Mrs Marrot’s attention to the fact that two vulcans were engaged in twisting red-hot iron bolts an inch and a half thick into the form of hooks with as much apparent ease as if they had been hair-pins. These, he said, were hooks for couplings, the hooks by which railway carriages were attached together, and on the strength and unyielding rigidity of which the lives of hundreds of travellers might depend.
The bending of them was accomplished by means of a powerful lever. It would be an endless business to detail all that was done in this workshop. Every piece of comparatively small iron-work used in the construction of railway engines, carriages, vans, and trucks, from a door-hinge to a coupling-chain, was forged in that smithy. Passing onward, they came to a workshop where iron castings of all kinds were being made; cylinders, fire-boxes, etcetera,—and a savage-looking place it was, with numerous holes and pits of various shapes and depths in the black earthy floor, which were the moulds ready, or in preparation, for the reception of the molten metal. Still farther on they passed through a workroom where every species of brass-work was being made. And here Bob Marrot was amazed to find that the workmen turned brass on turning-lathes with as much facility as if it had been wood. Some of the pieces of brazen mechanism were very beautiful and delicate—especially one piece, a stop-cock for letting water into a boiler, the various and complex parts of which, when contrasted with the huge workmanship of the other departments, resembled fine watch-work.
As they passed on, Bob observed a particularly small boy, in whom he involuntarily took a great and sudden interest—he looked so small, so thin, so intelligent, and, withal, so busy.
“Ah, you may well look at him,” said Will Garvie, observing Bob’s gaze. “That boy is one of the best workers of his age in the shop.”
“What is ’e doin’?” inquired Bob.
“He’s preparin’ nuts for screws,” replied Will, “and gets one penny for every hundred. Most boys can do from twelve to fourteen hundred a day, so, you see, they can earn from six to seven shillin’s a week; but that little feller—they call him Tomtit Dorkin—earns a good deal more, I believe, and he has much need to, for he has got an old granny to support. That’s the work that you are soon to be set to, lad.”
“Is it?” said Bob, quite pleased at the notion of being engaged in the same employment with Tomtit; “I’m glad to ’ear it. You see, mother, when you gits to be old an’ ’elpless, you’ll not need to mind, ’cause I’ll support you.”
The next place they visited was the great point of attraction to Bob. It was the forge where the heavy work was done, and where the celebrated hammer and terrific pair of scissors performed their stupendous work.