se 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 quantity
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-doo