Chapter Seven.
Little Gertie comes out in a New Light, and Bob Receives Good News
Poor little earnest curly-haired Gertie had been so thoroughly reared in the midst of crashing sounds and dire alarms without any mischance resulting, that she had come to feel at last as if the idea of danger or disaster were a mere fiction. It was therefore a new and terrible shock which she received, when she saw her father carried to his cottage by four railway porters and tenderly laid in his bed; and it went to her heart with an unaccountable thrill when she heard her father’s usually loud hearty voice say, in soft, womanly tones, “Thank ’ee, lads; thank ’ee. I’ll be all right soon, please God. Good-night and thank ’ee kindly.”
“Good-night—good-night, Jack,” they replied in various tones of cheeriness; for these hard-muscled men had soft hearts, and although they entertained fears for their friend, they were anxious, by the hearty tones of their voices, to keep up his spirits.
“You mustn’t take on like that, Missis,” whispered one of them as they were leaving the cottage door; “the doctor said for sartin that there warn’t no bones broken, and ’e didn’t think there was nothink internal.”
“It ain’t that I’m afear’d of,” whimpered poor Mrs Marrot, “but it does go to my ’art so, to ’ear my John speak in that voice. I never ’ear’d him do it except once before, when he was very low with fever, an’ thought himself a-dyin’.”
“But ’e ain’t agoin’ to die this time,” returned the kindly porter; “so cheer up, Missis. Good-night.”
Mrs Marrot returned to the room where her husband lay, evidently suffering severe pain, for he was very pale and his lips were compressed. He was anxious not to alarm Gertie and Loo who stood at the bedside. The former could not speak, and the blood had so completely fled from her face and her small tightly-clasped hands that she resembled a creature of wax.
“Can I do nothing to relieve the pain, dear father?” said Loo, as she wiped the perspiration from his brow.
“Nothin’, nothin’, dear lass,” said John, with some of his wonted heartiness, “except git me a cup o’ tea. Mayhap that’ll do me good; but the doctor’ll be here soon, and he’ll put me all to rights in no time.”
The idea of a cup of tea was a deep device on the part of John, who meant thereby to give Loo some active work to do and thus take her attention off himself.
“And don’t you be uneasy, Molly,” he added, turning to his wife, “it ain’t a bad hurt, I’m told, an’ it ain’t hard for a man to suffer a bit o’ pain now an’ agin when it’s the Lord’s will. Come, that’s the doctor’s knock. Don’t keep him waitin’. I knew he’d be here soon, ’cause Mr Able said he’d send him without delay.”
A prolonged and somewhat painful examination of John’s injuries ensued, during which time little Gertie, with clasped hands, parted lips, and eager eyes, watched the doctor’s countenance intently. After it was over, the doctor turned to Mrs Marrot, and said—
“I’m happy to tell you, that your husband’s injuries, although severe and painful, are not serious. No bones are broken, but he has been severely bruised, and will require careful nursing for some time—and,” he added, turning with a smile to the patient, “no more rushing about the country at sixty miles an hour for several weeks to come.”
Little Gertie began to breathe freely again. Her hands unclasped, and the colour came slowly back, as she crept quietly to the bedside, and, taking her father’s large horny hand, laid her cheek softly upon it.
“Are you easier now, daddy?” she asked.
“Ay, much easier, God bless you, Gertie. The doctor has made things much more comfortable. They’ve got a wonderful knack o’ puttin’ things right—these doctors have. W’y, it minds me o’ my ingine after a longish run; she looks dirty an’ all out o’ sorts; but w’en I gits her into the shed, and gives her an overhaul, you’d scarce know ’er again.”
At this moment baby Marrot who had been sleeping when his father was brought in, became suddenly conscious of internal vacuity, and forthwith set up a lusty howl, whereupon Mrs Marrot pounced upon and throttled him—to some extent.
“Don’t stop him, Molly, my dear; you—”
The remainder of the sentence was drowned by the night express which rushed past, joining baby Marrot in a yell, as the latter freed his throat from his mother’s grip.
“Don’t stop him, Molly,” repeated John; “you don’t suppose that after drivin’ a locomotive for eight years I’m agoin’ to be disturbed by the small pipe of our own youngster. Let him yell, Molly; it does him good, and it don’t do me no harm.”
It was now arranged that Gertie was to be head nurse on this trying occasion—not that the appointment was considered appropriate, but it was unavoidable, seeing that Gertie wanted it intensely, and her father was pleased to have it so.
Gertie had never before been called upon to do anything in the nursing way more serious than to look after baby when he had eaten too much or scalded himself—nevertheless, the way in which she went about her nursing would have done credit to an hospital training. She evidently possessed a natural aptitude for the work, and went about it with a sense of the importance of the trust that was quite charming. She was at that tender age when such work becomes barely possible, and the performance of it seems quite miraculous! Her father gazed at her in bewilderment while she went about gravely smoothing his pillow and tucking in corners of blankets, and bringing cups, and tumblers, and spoons, and handkerchiefs, and sundry other articles, to a chair at his bedside, so as to be within reach of his hand. Molly and Loo, besides being highly interested, were intensely amused. It is a matter of dispute even to this day whether baby did not perceive the marvellous aptitude of Gertie, for he continued for a prolonged period to gaze at her as if in solemn wonder. Mrs Marrot declared baby’s gaze to be one of admiration, but John held that it was owing to the state of exhaustion that resulted from an unusually long fit of yelling. While he stared thus, Gertie, having completed a number of little operations and put the finishing touches or pats to them, became suddenly aware that every one was laughing quietly.
“What is it?” she asked, relaxing the severity of her brow and brightening up.
They all laughed still more at this, and Gertie, looking round for an explanation, encountered baby’s glaring eyes, whereupon, supposing that she had found out the cause, she laughed too. But she quickly dismissed her levity and recurred to her work with renewed diligence.
It was well for the engine-driver that he had been trained in a rough school, for his powers of endurance were severely tested that night, by the attentions of his numerous friends who called to inquire for him, and in some cases insisted on seeing him.
Among others came one of the directors of the company, who, seeing how matters stood, with much consideration said that he would not sit down, but had merely looked in for a moment, to tell John Marrot that an appointment had been found for his son Robert in the “Works,” and that if he would send him over in the morning he would be introduced to the locomotive superintendent and initiated into the details of his new sphere of action.
This was very gratifying to the engine-driver of course, but much more so to Bob himself, whose highest earthly ambition was to become, as he styled it, an engineer. When that aspiring youth came home that night after cleaning his lamps, he wiped his oily hands on a bundle of waste, and sat down beside his sire to inquire considerately into his state of body, and to give him, as he expressed it, the noos of the line.
“You see, daddy,” he said, “the doctor tells me you’re to be kep’ quiet, an’ not allowed to talk, so in course you’ve got nothin’ to do but lie still an’ listen while I give ’ee the noos. So ’ere goes. An’ don’t you sit too near baby, mother, else you’ll wake ’im up, an’ we’ll have a yell as’ll put talkin’ out o’ the question. Well then—”
“Bob,” said Loo, interrupting her brother as she sat down opposite, and began to mend one of baby’s pinafores—which by the way was already so mended and patched as to have lost much of its original form and appearance—“Bob, Mr Able has been here, and—”
“Who’s Mr Able?” demanded Bob.
“One of the directors,—don’t you know?”
“How should I know?” retorted Bob; “you don’t suppose that the d’rectors is all my partikler friends, do you? There’s only two or three of ’em as has the honer of my acquaintance.”
“Well,” resumed Loo with a laugh, “you ought to consider Mr Able one of your particular friends at all events, for he has been here this evening making kind inquiries after father, and telling him that he has got you appointed to the works that you’ve been so long hankering—”
“What!” interrupted Bob in great excitement; “you don’t mean that, Loo?”
“Yes, I do.”
“To the great Clatterby Works, where the big hammer is?”
“Well, I suppose it is to these works,” said Loo.
“Ay, Bob, to the Clatterby Works, lad; so you’re a made man if you only behave yourself and do your dooty,” said John Marrot in reply to his son’s look of inquiry.
In the strength of his satisfaction the boy rose, and, taking Loo round the neck, kissed her pretty mouth heartily, after which he bestowed the same favour on his mother and little Gertie, and looked as if he meant to do it to baby too, but he thought better of it.
“Why, mother,” he said, resuming his seat at the bedside, “these are the works where they’ve got the big hammers—so big, mother; oh! you’ve no notion how big they are, and heavy. Why, one of ’em is full five tons in weight—think o’ that! equal to five carts of coals, mother, all rolled into one.”
“Nonsense!” said Mrs Marrot.
“But it’s true,” said Bob, earnestly.
“Nonsense!” repeated Mrs Marrot; “w’y, what would be the use of a hammer as no one could lift?”
“Steam lifts it, mother,” said Bob, “as easy—yes, as easy as you lift the rollin’ pin.”
The unbelieving woman still shook her head, smiled, and said, “Nonsense!”
“Moreover,” continued Bob, waxing enthusiastic on his favourite topic, “I’m told, for I haven’t seen ’em yet, that they’ve got a pair o’ scissors there as can cut cold iron as easy as you can cut paper—they could cut through,” said Bob, pausing and looking round, “they could cut through the poker and tongs and shovel, all at one go, as easy as if they was straws.”
“Gammon!” said Mrs Marrot.
“Isn’t it a fact, daddy?” cried Bob.
“Quite true, Molly, my dear. I must take you over to see the works some day and convince you,” said John with a faint smile. “But what’s the news you were goin’ to give us, Bob?” he added.
“The noos?—ah; that good noos drove it all out o’ my ’ead. Well, as I wos agoin’ to say, there’s a great to-do down at the shed, ’cause it’s said that an awful lot o’ thefts has bin goin’ on of late at Bingly station, and it’s bin reported that some of the drivers or firemen are consarned in it. An’ d’ee know, father,” continued Bob, suddenly becoming grave and very earnest, “I heard one o’ the men say that Will Garvie is suspected.”
There was a momentary deep silence, as if every one had received a shock; then Mrs Marrot exclaimed “What say ’ee, boy?”
At the same time her husband demanded sternly, “Who said that?”
“I don’t know, father. I was passing through the shed at the time and didn’t see who spoke, I only heerd ’im.”
“Father,” said Leo, over whose face a deep crimson flush had spread, “surely you don’t for a moment believe it?”
“Believe it,” replied John, “believe that my mate, Will Garvie, is a thief? I’d as soon believe that my Molly was a murderer!”
The energetic driver here struck his fist so violently on the bed as to cause his wounded side an acute twinge of pain. It had scarcely passed away when the door opened and Will Garvie himself entered.
“Well, Jack,” he said, going up to his friend’s couch and taking his hand, “how d’you feel now—better?”
The frank open countenance of the young man—albeit begrimed with smoke, and his clear laughing blue eyes, were such a flat contradiction to the charge which had been made against him that John looked up in his face and laughed.
“Well, you must be better, if that’s the way you answer me!”
“Oh, I’m all right,” said John, quietly; “leastwise I’m on the rails agin, an’ only shunted on to a sidin’ to be overhauled and repaired a bit. You’ve heard the noos, I fancy?”
“What of Bob’s appointment?” said Will, glancing at Loo; for he knew that anything that was for Bob’s advantage gave her intense delight, and he liked to watch her countenance in such circumstances—“of course I’ve heard of that. Moreover, I’ve bin to the locomotive superintendent and got leave to go over with him to-morrow and show him through the works, along with any of his family that might want to go. I made a special request for this, thinkin’ that mayhap—”
He looked pointedly at Loo, and Loo looked pointedly at the pinafore which suddenly claimed her undivided attention. Bob, before Will could finish his sentence, broke in with—
“Now, ain’t that a su’cumstance? w’y, we was just talkin’ of havin’ mother over to see the works, an’ lettin’ her be convinced by her own eyes that there is a hammer there of five ton weight, drove by steam, an’ a pair o’ scissors as can cut cold iron an inch thick. You’ll go mother, won’t you?”
“Well, I dessay it would be amoosin’; yes, I’ll go, Bob, if father’s better.”
Accordingly, much to Will Garvie’s disappointment it was arranged that Mrs Marrot was to accompany him and Bob to the great railway “Works” on the following day.
Chapter Eight.
Mrs Marrot and Bob Visit the Great Clatterby “Works.”
We cannot presume to say what sort of a smiddy Vulcan’s was, but we feel strongly inclined to think that if that gentleman were to visit the works of the Grand National Trunk Railway, which are about the finest of the kind in the kingdom, he would deem his own old shop a very insignificant affair!
The stupendous nature of the operations performed there; the colossal grandeur of the machinery employed; the appalling power of the forces called into action; the startling chiaro scuro of the furnaces; the Herculean activity of the 3500 “hands;” the dread pyrotechnic displays; the constant din and clangour—pshaw! the thing is beyond conception. “Why then,” you will say, “attempt description?” Because, reader, of two evils we always choose the less. Description is better than nothing. If you cannot go and see and hear for yourself, there is nothing left for you but to fall back on description.
But of all the sights to be seen there, the most interesting, perhaps, and the most amusing, was the visage of worthy Mrs Marrot as she followed Will Garvie and her son, and gazed in rapt amazement at the operations, and listened to the sounds, sometimes looking all round with a half-imbecile expression at the rattling machinery, at other times fixing her eyes intently down on one piece of mechanism in the vain hope of penetrating its secrets to the core. Bob was not much less amazed than his mother, but he had his sharp wits about him, and was keenly alive to the delight of witnessing his mother’s astonishment.
The works covered several acres of ground, and consisted of a group of huge buildings which were divided into different departments, and in these the railway company manufactured almost every article used on the line—from a locomotive engine to a screw-nail.
Here, as we have said, above 3500 men and boys were at work, and all sorts of trades were represented. There were draughtsmen to make designs, and, from these, detailed working drawings. Smiths to forge all the wrought-iron-work, with hammermen as assistants. Pattern-makers to make wooden patterns for castings. Moulders, including loam, dry-sand and green-sand moulders and brass-founders. Dressers to dress the rough edges off the castings when brought from the foundry. Turners in iron and brass. Planers and nibblers, and slotters and drillers. Joiners and sawyers, and coach-builders and painters. Fitters and erecters, to do the rougher and heavier part of fitting the engines together. Boiler-makers, including platers or fitters, caulkers and riveters. Finishers to do the finer part of fitting—details and polishing. In short almost every trade in the kingdom concentrated in one grand whole and working harmoniously, like a vast complex machine, towards one common end—the supply of railway rolling-stock, or “plant” to the line.
All these were busy as bees, for they were engaged on the equitable system of “piece-work,”—which means that each man or boy was paid for each piece of work done, instead of being paid by time, which of course induced each to work as hard as he could in order to make much as possible—a system which suited both masters and men. Of course there are some sorts of employment where it would be unjust to pay men by the amount of work done—as, for instance, in some parts of tin-mines, where a fathom of rock rich in tin is as difficult to excavate as a fathom of rock which is poor in tin—but in work such as we are describing the piece-work system suits best.
Like a wise general, Will Garvie began with the department in which the less astonishing operations were being performed. This was the timber and sawing department.
Here hard wood, in all sizes and forms, was being licked into shape by machinery in a way and with an amount of facility that was eminently calculated to astonish those whose ideas on such matters had been founded on the observation of the laborious work of human carpenters. The very first thing that struck Bob Marrot was that the tools were so heavy, thick, and strong that the biggest carpenter he had ever seen would not have been able to use them. Bob’s idea of a saw had hitherto been a long sheet of steel with small teeth, that could be easily bent like a hoop—an implement that went slowly through a plank, and that had often caused his arm to ache in being made to advance a few inches; but here he saw circular steel-discs with fangs more than an inch long, which became invisible when in a state of revolution.
“What is that?” said Mrs Marrot concentrating herself on one of these implements, after having indulged in a stare of bewildered curiosity round the long shed.
“That’s a circular saw,” replied Will Garvie; “one of the large ones,—about four feet in diameter.”
“A saw!” exclaimed Mrs Marrot, in surprise. “W’y, Will, it’s round. How can a round thing saw? An’ it han’t got no ’andle! How could any man lay ’old of it to saw?”
“The carpenter here don’t require no handles,” replied Will. “He’s a queer fellow is the carpenter of this shop, as well as powerful. He works away from morning till night with the power of more than a hundred horses, an’ does exactly what he’s bid without ever making any mistakes or axin’ any questions. He’s a steam-carpenter, Missis, but indeed he’s a jack-of-all-trades, and carries ’em on all at the same time. See, they’re goin’ to set him to work now—watch and you shall see.”
As he spoke, two men approached the circular saw bearing a thick log of oak. One of them fitted it in position, on rollers, with its edge towards the saw; then he seized a handle, by means of which he connected the steam-carpenter with the saw, which instantly revolved so fast that the teeth became invisible; at the same time the plank advanced rapidly and met the saw. Instantly there was a loud hissing yet ringing sound, accompanied by a shower of sawdust, and, long before Mrs Marrot had recovered from her surprise, the log was cut into two thick substantial planks.
After two or three more had been cut up in this way in as many minutes, Will Garvie said—
“Now, let’s see what they do with these planks. Come here.”
He led them to a place close beside the saw, where there was a strong iron machine, to one part of which was attached a very large chisel—it might have been equal to two or three dozen of the largest ordinary chisels rolled into one. This machine was in motion, but apparently it had been made for a very useless purpose, for it was going vigorously up and down at the time cutting the atmosphere!
“It’s like a lot of people as I knows of,” observed Mrs Marrot, “very busy about nothin’.”
“It’ll have somethin’ to do soon, mother,” said Bob, who was already beginning to think himself very knowing.
Bob was right. One of the oak-planks had been measured and marked for mortice-holes in various ways according to pattern, and was now handed over to the guardian of the machine, who, having had it placed on rollers, pushed it under the chisel and touched a handle. Down came the implement, and cut into the solid wood as if it had been mere putty. A dozen cuts or so in one direction, then round it went—for this chisel could be turned with its face in either direction without stopping it for the purpose—another dozen cuts were made, and an oblong hole of three or four inches long by two broad and three deep was made in the plank in a few seconds.
Even Mrs Marrot had sufficient knowledge of the arts to perceive that this operation would have cost a human carpenter a very much greater amount of time and labour, and that therefore there must have been a considerable saving of expense. Had she been aware of the fact that hundreds of such planks were cut, marked, morticed, and turned out of hands every week all the year round, and every year continuously, she would have had a still more exalted conception of the saving of time, labour, and expense thus effected.
The guardian of the chisel having in a few minutes cut the requisite half dozen or so of holes, guided the plank on rollers towards a pile, where it was laid, to be afterwards carried off to the carriage-builders, who would fit it as one side of a carriage-frame to its appropriate fellow-planks, which had all been prepared in the same way.
Not far from this machine the visitors were shown another, in which several circular saws of smaller dimensions than the first were at work in concert, and laid at different angles to each other, so that when a plank was given into their clutches it received cuts and slices in certain parts during its passage through the machine, and came out much modified and improved in form—all that the attendants had to do merely being to fit the planks in their places and guide them safely through the ordeal. Elsewhere Mrs Marrot and Bob beheld a frame—full of gigantic saws cut a large log into half a dozen planks, all in one sweep, in a few minutes—work which would have drawn the sweat from the brows of two saw-pit men for several hours. One thing that attracted the attention of Bob very strongly was the simple process of hole-boring. Of course, in forming the massive frames of railway carriages, it becomes necessary to bore numerous holes for large nails or bolts. Often had Bob, at a neighbouring seaport, watched the heavy work and the slow progress of ship-carpenters as they pierced the planks of ships with augers; but here he beheld what he called, “augers and drills gone mad!”—augers small and great whirling furiously, or, as Bob put it, “like all possessed.” Some acting singly, others acting together in rows of five or six; and these excited things were perpetually whirling, whether at work or not, ready for service at a moment’s notice. While Bob was gazing at one huge drill—probably an inch and a half broad, if not more—a man came up to it with a plank, on the surface of which were several dots at various distances. He put the plank under the drill, brought it down on a dot, whizz went the drill, and straightway there was a huge round hole right through almost before Bob had time to wink,—and Bob was a practised hand at winking. Several holes were bored in this way, and then the plank was carried to another machine, where six lesser holes were drilled at one and the same time by six furious little augers; and thus the planks passed on from one machine to another until finished, undergoing, in the course of a few minutes, treatment that would have cost them hours of torture had they been manipulated by human hands, in addition to which the work was most beautifully, and perfectly, and regularly done.
Many other operations did the visitors behold in this department—all more or less interesting and, to them, surprising—so that Mrs Marrot was induced at last to exclaim—
“W’y, Willum, it seems to me that if you go on improvin’ things at this rate there won’t be no use in a short time for ’uman ’ands at all. We’ll just ’ave to sit still an’ let machinery do our work for us, an’ all the trades-people will be throwd out of employment.”
“How can you say that, Missis,” said Will Garvie, “you bein’ old enough to remember the time w’en there wasn’t five joiners’ shops in Clatterby, with p’rhaps fifty men and boys employed, and now there’s hundreds of joiners, and other shops of all kinds in the town, besides these here railway works which, as you know, keeps about 3500 hands goin’ all the year round?”
“That’s so, Willum,” assented Mrs Marrot in a meditative tone.
Thus meditating, she was conducted into the smiths’ department.
Here about 140 forges and 400 men were at work. Any one of these forges would have been a respectable “smiddy” in a country village. They stood as close to each other as the space would allow,—so close that their showers of sparks intermingled, and kept the whole shed more or less in the condition of a chronic eruption of fireworks. To Bob’s young mind it conveyed the idea of a perpetual keeping of the Queen’s birthday. To his mother it was suggestive of singed garments and sudden loss of sight. The poor woman was much distressed in this department at first, but when she found, after five minutes or so, that her garments were unscathed, and her sight still unimpaired, she became reconciled to it.
In this place of busy vulcans—each of whom was the beau-idéal of “the village blacksmith,” all the smaller work of the railway was done. As a specimen of this smaller work, Will Garvie drew Mrs Marrot’s attention to the fact that two vulcans were engaged in twisting red-hot iron bolts an inch and a half thick into the form of hooks with as much apparent ease as if they had been hair-pins. These, he said, were hooks for couplings, the hooks by which railway carriages were attached together, and on the strength and unyielding rigidity of which the lives of hundreds of travellers might depend.
The bending of them was accomplished by means of a powerful lever. It would be an endless business to detail all that was done in this workshop. Every piece of comparatively small iron-work used in the construction of railway engines, carriages, vans, and trucks, from a door-hinge to a coupling-chain, was forged in that smithy. Passing onward, they came to a workshop where iron castings of all kinds were being made; cylinders, fire-boxes, etcetera,—and a savage-looking place it was, with numerous holes and pits of various shapes and depths in the black earthy floor, which were the moulds ready, or in preparation, for the reception of the molten metal. Still farther on they passed through a workroom where every species of brass-work was being made. And here Bob Marrot was amazed to find that the workmen turned brass on turning-lathes with as much facility as if it had been wood. Some of the pieces of brazen mechanism were very beautiful and delicate—especially one piece, a stop-cock for letting water into a boiler, the various and complex parts of which, when contrasted with the huge workmanship of the other departments, resembled fine watch-work.
As they passed on, Bob observed a particularly small boy, in whom he involuntarily took a great and sudden interest—he looked so small, so thin, so intelligent, and, withal, so busy.
“Ah, you may well look at him,” said Will Garvie, observing Bob’s gaze. “That boy is one of the best workers of his age in the shop.”
“What is ’e doin’?” inquired Bob.
“He’s preparin’ nuts for screws,” replied Will, “and gets one penny for every hundred. Most boys can do from twelve to fourteen hundred a day, so, you see, they can earn from six to seven shillin’s a week; but that little feller—they call him Tomtit Dorkin—earns a good deal more, I believe, and he has much need to, for he has got an old granny to support. That’s the work that you are soon to be set to, lad.”
“Is it?” said Bob, quite pleased at the notion of being engaged in the same employment with Tomtit; “I’m glad to ’ear it. You see, mother, when you gits to be old an’ ’elpless, you’ll not need to mind, ’cause I’ll support you.”
The next place they visited was the great point of attraction to Bob. It was the forge where the heavy work was done, and where the celebrated hammer and terrific pair of scissors performed their stupendous work.
At the time the visitors entered this department the various hammers chanced to be at rest, nevertheless even Mrs Marrot’s comparatively ignorant mind was impressed by the colossal size and solidity of the iron engines that surrounded her. The roof of the shed in which they stood had been made unusually high in order to contain them.
“Well, I s’pose the big ’ammer that Bob says is as ’eavy as five carts of coals must be ’ereabouts?” observed Mrs Marrot looking round.
“Yes, there it is,” said Will, pointing in front of him.
“W’ere? I don’t see no ’ammer.”
“Why there, that big thing just before you,” he said, pointing to a machine of iron, shaped something like the letter V turned upside down, with its two limbs on the earth, its stem lost in the obscurity of the root and having a sort of tongue between the two limbs, which tongue was a great square block of solid iron, apparently about five feet high and about three feet broad and deep. This tongue, Will Garvie assured his companion, was the hammer.
“No, no, Willum,” said Mrs Marrot, with a smile, “you mustn’t expect me for to believe that. I may believe that the moon is made of green cheese, but I won’t believe that that’s a ’ammer.”