At sight of this human cinder, hanging by one hand between two deaths, every sentiment but humanity vanished from the ruggedest bosom, and the skilled workmen set themselves to save their unpopular comrade with admirable quickness and judgment: two new wheel-bands, that had just come into the works, were caught up in a moment, and four workmen ran with them and got below the suspended figure: they then turned back to back, and, getting the bands over their shoulders, pulled hard against each other. This was necessary to straighten the bands: they weighed half a hundred weight each.
Others stood at the center of the bands, and directed Little where to drop, and stood ready to catch him should he bound off them.
But now matters took an unexpected turn. Little, to all appearance, was blind and deaf. He hung there, moaning, and glaring, and his one sinewy arm supported his muscular but light frame almost incredibly. He was out of his senses, or nearly.
"Let thyself come, lad," cried a workman, "we are all right to catch thee."
He made no answer, but hung there glaring and moaning.
"The man will drop noane, till he swouns," said another, watching him keenly.
"Then get you closer to the wall, men," cried Cheetham, in great anxiety. "He'll come like a stone, when he does come." This injunction was given none too soon; the men had hardly shifted their positions, when Little's hand opened, and he came down like lead, with his hands all abroad, and his body straight; but his knees were slightly bent, and he caught the bands just below the knee, and bounded off them into the air, like a cricket-ball. But many hands grabbed at him, and the grinder Reynolds caught him by the shoulder, and they rolled on the ground together, very little the worse for that tumble. "Well done! well done!" cried Cheetham. "Let him lie, lads, he is best there for a while; and run for a doctor, one of you."
"Ay, run for Jack Doubleface," cried several voices at once.
"Now, make a circle, and give him air, men." Then they all stood in a circle, and eyed the blackened and quivering figure with pity and sympathy, while the canopy of white smoke bellied overhead. Nor were those humane sentiments silent; and the rough seemed to be even more overcome than the others: no brains were required to pity this poor fellow now; and so strong an appeal to their hearts, through their senses, roused their good impulses and rare sensibilities.
Oh, it was strange to hear good and kindly sentiments come out in the Dash dialect.
"It's a ---- shame!"
"There lies a good workman done for by some ---- thief, that wasn't fit to blow his bellows, ---- him!"
"Say he WAS a cockney, he was always ---- civil."
"And life's as sweet to him as to any man in Hillsborough."
"Hold your ---- tongue, he's coming to."
Henry did recover his wits enough to speak; and what do you think was his first word?
He clasped his hands together, and said,--"MY MOTHER! OH, DON'T LET HER KNOW!"
This ****** cry went through many a rough heart; a loud gulp or two were heard soon after, and more than one hard and coaly cheek was channeled by sudden tears. But now a burly figure came rolling in; they drew back and silenced each other.--"The Doctor!" This was the remarkable person they called Jack Doubleface. Nature had stuck a philosophic head, with finely-cut features, and a mouth brimful of finesse, on to a corpulent and ungraceful body, that yawed from side to side as he walked.
The man of art opened with two words. He looked up at the white cloud, which was now floating away; sniffed the air, and said, "Gunpowder!" Then he looked down at Little, and said, "Ah!" half dryly, half sadly. Indeed several sentences of meaning condensed themselves into that ****** interjection. At this moment, some men, whom curiosity had drawn to Henry's forge, came back to say the forge had been blown up, and "the bellows torn limb from jacket, and the room strewed with ashes."
The doctor laid a podgy hand on the prisoner's wrist: the touch was light, though the fingers were thick and heavy. The pulse, which had been very low, was now galloping and bounding frightfully.
"Fetch him a glass of brandy-and-water," said Dr. Amboyne. (There were still doctors in Hillsborough, though not in London, who would have had him bled on the spot.)
"Now, then, a surgeon! Which of you lads operates on the eye, in these works?"
A lanky file-cutter took a step forward. "I am the one that takes the motes out of their eyes."
"Then be good enough to show me his eye."
The file-cutter put out a hand with fingers prodigiously long and thin, and deftly parted both Little's eyelids with his finger and thumb, so as to show the whole eye.
"Hum!" said the doctor, and shook his head.
He then patted the sufferer all over, and the result of that examination was satisfactory. Then came the brandy-and-water; and while Henry's teeth were clattering at the glass and he was trying to sip the liquid, Dr. Amboyne suddenly lifted his head, and took a keen survey of the countenances round him. He saw the general expression of pity on the rugged faces. He also observed one rough fellow who wore a strange wild look: the man seemed puzzled, scared, confused like one half awakened from some hideous dream. This was the grinder who had come into the works in place of the hand Cheetham had discharged for refusing to grind cockney blades.
"Hum!" said Dr. Amboyne, and appeared to be going into a brown study.
But he shook that off, and said briskly, "Now, then, what was his crime? Did he owe some mutual aid society six-and-four-pence?"
"That's right," said Reynolds, sullenly, "throw every thing on the Union. If we knew who it was, he'd lie by the side of this one in less than a minute, and, happen, not get up again so soon." A growl of assent confirmed the speaker's words. Cheetham interposed and drew Amboyne aside, and began to tell him who the man was and what the dispute; but Amboyne cut the latter explanation short. "What," said he, "is this the carver whose work I saw up at Mr. Carden's?"
"This is the very man, no doubt."