so that the old key-hole should do again, one of the new
patent locks he had brought with him in the brown-paper parcel I had
seen.

This took some little time, but it was effected at last, and Uncle Dick
said:

"That is something towards making the place our own. Their key will not
be worth much now."

Securing the gate by turning the key of the new lock, we went next to
the door leading into the works, which was also locked, but the key the
agent had supplied opened it directly, and this time Uncle Dick held box
and lantern while Uncle Jack took off the old and fitted on the second
new lock that we had brought.

It was a curious scene in the darkness of that great stone-floored
echoing place, where an observer who watched would have seen a round
glass eye shedding a bright light on a particular part of the big dirty
door, and in the golden ring the bull's-eye made, a pair of large white
hands busy at work fixing, turning a gimlet, putting in and fastening
screws, while only now and then could a face be seen in the ring of
light.

"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 revolv