At the time the visitors entered this department the various hammers chanced to be at rest, nevertheless even Mrs Marrot’s comparatively ignorant mind was impressed by the colossal size and solidity of the iron engines that surrounded her. The roof of the shed in which they stood had been made unusually high in order to contain them.
“Well, I s’pose the big ’ammer that Bob says is as ’eavy as five carts of coals must be ’ereabouts?” observed Mrs Marrot looking round.
“Yes, there it is,” said Will, pointing in front of him.
“W’ere? I don’t see no ’ammer.”
“Why there, that big thing just before you,” he said, pointing to a machine of iron, shaped something like the letter V turned upside down, with its two limbs on the earth, its stem lost in the obscurity of the root and having a sort of tongue between the two limbs, which tongue was a great square block of solid iron, apparently about five feet high and about three feet broad and deep. This tongue, Will Garvie assured his companion, was the hammer.
“No, no, Willum,” said Mrs Marrot, with a smile, “you mustn’t expect me for to believe that. I may believe that the moon is made of green cheese, but I won’t believe that that’s a ’ammer.”
“No: but is it, Bill?” asked Bob, whose eyes gleamed with suppressed excitement.
“Indeed it is; you shall see presently.”
Several stalwart workmen, with bare brawny arms, who were lounging before the closed mouth of a furnace, regarded the visitors with some amusement. One of these came forward and said—
“You’d better stand a little way back, ma’am.”