ame intolerable; I could not write; I could not get
calm by walking up and down; and every time there was a louder noise
than usual from the upper or lower workshop I started, and the
perspiration came out upon my face.

What a coward! You will say.

Perhaps so; but a boy cannot go through such adventures as fell to my
lot and not have some trace left behind.

I stood at last in the middle of the little office, and thought of what
would be the best thing to do.

Should I run away?

No; that would be too cowardly.

I came to the right conclusion, I am sure, for I decided to go and face
the danger, if there was any; for I said to myself, "Better to see it
coming than to be taken unawares."

Now, please, don't think me conceited. In place of being conceited, I
want to set down modestly and truthfully the adventures that befell me
while my lot was cast among a number of misguided men who, bound
together in what they considered a war against their masters, were
forced by their leaders into the performance of deeds quite opposed to
their ordinary nature. It was a mad and foolish combination as then
conducted, and injured instead of benefiting their class.

Urged by my nervous dread of coming danger, I, as I have said,
determined to see it if I could, and so be prepared; and in this spirit
I put as bold a face on the matter as possible, and went down the long
workshop where the men were grinding and working over the
polishing-wheels, which flew round and put such a wonderful gloss upon a
piece of metal.

Then I went down and into the furnace-house, where the fires were
glowing, and through the chinks the blinding glare of the blast-fed
flame seemed to flash and cut the gloom.

The men there gave me a civil nod, and so did the two smiths who were
forging knives, while, when I went next into Pannell's smithy, feeling
all the more confident for having made up my mind to action, the big
fellow stared at me.

"Yow here agen?" he said.

"Yes."

"Well, don't stay, lad; and if I was you I should keep out of wet
grinders' shop."

"Why?" I said.

He banged a piece of steel upon his anvil, and the only answers I could
get from him were raps of the hammer upon the metal; so I soon left him,
feeling highly indignant with his treatment, and walked straight to his
window, stepped up on the bench, and looked down, wondering whether it
would be any good to fish from there.

The water after some hours' working was muc