Facing Death Part 11

"You may risk your life, Harry."

"All right, Jack, I'll risk it willing for you. You risked yours for me at the old shaft."

"Dost know what's going to be done to-night Harry?"

"I've heard summat about it."

"It must be stopped, Harry, if it costs you and me our lives. What's that when the whole district depends upon it? If they wreck the engines and flood the mines there will be no work for months; and what's to become of the women and children then? I'm going to Mr. Merton to tell him, and to get him to write a letter to Sir John Butler--Brook's place would be watched--he's the nearest magistrate, and the most active about here, and won't let the gra.s.s grow under his feet by all accounts. The letter must tell him of the attack that is to be made to-night, and ask him to send for the soldiers, if no police can be had. I want you to take the letter, Harry. Go out the other side of the village and make a long sweep round. Don't get into the road till you get a full mile out of the place. Then go as hard as you can till you get to Butler's.

Insist on seeing him yourself; say it's a question of life and death. If he's out, you must go on to Hooper--he's the next magistrate. When you have delivered the letter, slip off home and go to bed, and never let out all your life that you took that letter."

"All right, Jack; but what be'est thou going to do?"

"I'm going another way, lad; I've got my work too. You'd best stop here, Harry; I will bring the letter to you. It may get out some day that Merton wrote it, and it's as well you shouldn't be seen near his place."

CHAPTER XI.

THE ATTACK ON THE ENGINE-HOUSE.

No sooner did Mr. Merton hear of the resolution of the miners to destroy the engines, than he sat down and wrote an urgent letter to Sir John Butler.

"Is there anything else, Jack?"

"I don't know, sir. If the masters could be warned of the attack they might get a few viewers and firemen and make a sort of defence; but if the men's blood's up it might go hard with them; and it would go hard with you if you were known to have taken the news of it."

"I will take the risk of that," Mr. Merton said. "Directly it is dark I will set out. What are you going to do, Jack?"

"I've got my work marked out," Jack said. "I'd rather not tell you till it's all over. Good-bye, sir; Harry is waiting for the letter."

Mr. Merton did not carry out his plans. As soon as it was dark he left the village, but a hundred yards out he came upon a party of men, evidently posted as sentries. These roughly told him that if he didn't want to be chucked into the ca.n.a.l he'd best go home to bed; and this, after trying another road with the same result, he did.

Jack walked with Harry as far as the railway-station, mentioning to several friends he met that he was off again. The lads crossed the line, went out of the opposite booking-office, and set off--for it was now past five, and already dark--at the top of their speed in different directions. Jack did not stop till he reached the engine-house of the Vaughan mine. The pumps were still clanking inside, and the water streaming down the shoot. Peeping carefully in, to see that his friend, John Ratcliffe, was alone, Jack entered.

"Well, John," he said, "the engine's still going."

"Ay, Jack; but if what's more nor one has told me to-day be true, it be for the last time."

"Look here, John; Mr. Brook has been a good master, will you do him a good turn?"

"Ay, lad, if I can; I've held on here, though they've threatened to chuck me down the shaft; but I'm a married man, and can't throw away my life."

"I don't ask you to, John. I want you to work hard here with me till six o'clock strikes, and then go home as usual."

"What dost want done, lad?"

"What steam is there in the boiler?"

"Only about fifteen pounds. I'm just knocking off, and have banked the fire up."

"All right, John. I want you to help me fix the fire hose, the short length, to that blow-off c.o.c.k at the bottom of the boiler. We can unscrew the pipe down to the drain, and can fasten the hose to it with a union, I expect. You've got some unions, haven't you?"

"Yes, lad; and what then?"

"That's my business, John. I'm going to hold this place till the soldiers come; and I think that with twenty pounds of steam in the boiler, and the hose, I can keep all the miners of Stokebridge out. At any rate, I'll try. Now, John, set to work. I want thee to go straight home, and then no one will suspect thee of having a hand in the matter.

I'll go out when thou dost, and thou canst swear, if thou art asked, that there was not a soul in the house when thou camest away."

"Thou wilt lose thy life, Jack."

"That be my business," Jack said. "I think not. Now set to work, John; give me a spanner, and let's get the pipe off the c.o.c.k at once."

John Ratcliffe set to work with a will, and in twenty minutes the unions were screwed on and the hose attached, a length of thirty feet, which was quite sufficient to reach to the window, some eight feet above the ground. Along by this window ran a platform. There was another, and a smaller window, on the other side.

While they were working, John Ratcliffe tried to dissuade Jack from carrying out his plan.

"It's no use, John. I mean to save the engines, and so the pit. They'll never get in; and no one knows I am here, and no one will suspect me.

None of 'em will know my voice, for they won't bring boys with them, and dad won't be here. There, it's striking six. Let me just drop a rope out of the window to climb in again with. Now we'll go out together; do thou lock the door, take the key, and go off home. Like enough they'll ask thee for the key, or they may bring their sledges to break it in. Anyhow it will make no difference, for there are a couple of bolts inside, and I shall make it fast with bars. There, that's right. Good-night, John.

Remember, whatever comes of it, thou knowest nought of it. Thou camest away and left the place empty, as usual, and no one there."

"Good-bye, lad, I'd stop with 'ee and share thy risk, but they'd know I was here, and my life wouldn't be worth the price of a pot o' beer.

Don't forget, lad, if thou lowerst the water, to damp down the fire, and open the valves."

Jack, left to himself, clambered up to the window and entered the engine-house again, threw some fresh coal on the fire, heaped a quant.i.ty of coal against the door, and jammed several long iron bars against it.

Then he lighted his pipe and sat listening, occasionally getting up to hold a lantern to the steam-gauge, as it crept gradually up.

"Twenty-five pounds," he said; "that will be enough to throw the water fifty or sixty yards on a level, and the door of the winding-engine's not more than thirty, so I can hold them both if they try to break in there."

He again banked up the fires, and sat thinking. Harry would be at the magistrate's by a quarter to six. By six o'clock Sir John could be on his way to Birmingham for troops; fifteen miles to drive--say an hour and a half. Another hour for the soldiers to start, and three hours to do the nineteen miles to the Vaughan, half-past eleven--perhaps half an hour earlier, perhaps half an hour later. There was no fear but there was plenty of water. The boiler was a large one, and was built partly into, partly out of the engine-house. That is to say, while the furnace-door, the gauges, and the safety-valve were inside, the main portion of the boiler was outside the walls. The blow-off c.o.c.k was two inches in diameter, and the nozzle of the hose an inch and a half. It would take some minutes then, even with the steam at a pressure of twenty-five pounds to the inch, to blow the water out, and a minute would, he was certain, do all that was needed.

Not even when, upon the first day of his life in the pit, Jack sat hour after hour alone in the darkness, did the time seem to go so slowly as it did that evening. Once or twice he thought he heard footsteps, and crept cautiously up to the window to listen; but each time, convinced of his error, he returned to his place on a bench near the furnace. He heard the hours strike, one after another, on the Stokebridge church clock--eight, nine, ten--and then he took his post by the window and listened. A quarter of an hour pa.s.sed, and then there was a faint, confused sound. Nearer it came, and nearer, until it swelled into the trampling of a crowd of many hundreds of men. They came along with laughter and rough jests, for they had no thought of opposition--no thought that anyone was near them. The crowd moved forward until they were within a few yards of the engine-house, and then one, who seemed to be in command, said, "Smash the door in with your sledges, lads."

Jack had, as they approached, gone down to the boiler, and had turned the blow-off c.o.c.k, and the boiling water swelled the strong leathern hose almost to bursting. Then he went back to the window, threw it open, and stood with the nozzle in his hand.

"Hold!" he shouted out in loud, clear tones. "Let no man move a step nearer for his life."

The mob stood silent, paralyzed with surprise. Jack had spoken without a tinge of the local accent, and as none of the boys were there, his voice was quite unrecognized. "Who be he?" "It's a stranger!" and other sentences, were muttered through the throng.

"Who be you?" the leader asked, recovering from his surprise.

"Never mind who I am," Jack said, standing well back from the window, lest the light from the lanterns which some of the men carried might fall on his face. "I am here in the name of the law. I warn you to desist from your evil design. Go to your homes; the soldiers are on their way, and may be here any minute. Moreover, I have means here of destroying any man who attempts to enter."

There was a movement in the crowd. "The soldiers be coming" ran from mouth to mouth, and the more timid began to move towards the outside of the crowd.

"Stand firm, lads, it be a lie," shouted the leader. "Thee baint to be frighted by one man, be'est 'ee? What! five hundred Staffords.h.i.+re miners afeard o' one? Why, ye'll be the laughing-stock of the country! Now, lads, break in the door; we'll soon see who be yon chap that talks so big."

There was a rush to the door, and a thundering clatter as the heavy blows of the sledge-hammers fell on the wood; while another party began an a.s.sault upon the door of the winding-engine house.