The disturbing tension of last night, Howat thought comfortably, had
vanished. Mariana was flippant, James Polder enveloped in indolent ease.
"The Forge," Howat Penny told them, "was below." A path descended across
a steep face of sparse grass; and, at the bottom, Polder's interest
revived. "It stood there," he indicated a fallen shed beyond a masoned
channel, choked with the broken stones of its walls and tangled
shrubbery. "You don't suppose a joke that size was the great Gilbert's
plant. Here's the drop for the water power; yes, and the iron pinions of
the overshot wheel." He climbed down a precarious wall, and stood
perhaps twelve feet below them. Securing a rough bolt, he brought it up
for their inspection. "Look at that forging," he cried; "after it has
lain around for a century and a half. Like silk. Charcoal iron, and it
was hammered, too. Metal isn't half worked any more. We could turn that
into steel at almost nothing a ton." He showed them in the mouldering
shed the foundation of the anvil, traced the probable shafting of the
trip hammer, marked the location of the hearths. "Three," he decided;
"and a cold trickle of air. A nigger pumping a bellows, probably. No,
they could get that from the wheel," he drew an explanatory diagram in
the blackened dust.
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