wood cylinder,
compressing air by piston into a chamber from which the blast was
regulated. A blacksmith's shed had been added in the course of time,
and a brick coke oven. He stopped at the Forge shed, filled with ruddy
light and shadow, the ringing of hammers, and silently watched the
malleable metal on the anvil. Flakes of glowing iron fell, changing from
ruby to blue and black.

The Penny iron! The Forge had been operated continuously since seventeen
twenty-seven, hammering out the foundation of his, Jasper's, position.
He had taken a not inconsiderable place in the succession of the men of
his family; in him the Pennys had reached their greatest importance,
wealth. But after him ... what? He was, now, the last Penny man. The
foothold Gilbert had cut out of the wild, which Howat and Casimir--an
outlandish name obviously traceable to his mother, the foreign
widow--had, in turn, increased for Daniel and Jasper, would be
dissipated. His great, great aunt, Caroline, marrying a solid Quaker,
had contributed, too, to the family stamina; while her granddaughter,
wedding a Jannan, had increased the social prestige and connections of
the family. The Jannans, bankers and lawyers, had already converted the
greater part of their iron inheritance into more speculative finance;
and the burden of the industry rested on Jasper Penny's shoulders.

At his death the name, the long and faithful labour, the tangible
monument of their endurance and rectitude, except for the tenuous,
momentary fact of Eunice, would be overthrown, forgot. He was conscious
of a strong inner protest against such oblivion. He had, of course,
often before lamented the fact that he had no son; but suddenly his loss
became a hundred times more poignant, regrettable. Jasper Penny caught
again the remembered, oppressive odour of foxglove, the aromatic reek of
brandy and oranges; one, in its implications, as sterile as the other.
He was possessed by an overwhelming sense of essential failure, a
recurrence of the dark mood that had enveloped him in leaving the
Jannans' ball.

Yet, he thought again, he was still in the midstride of his life, his
powers. His health was unimpaired; his presence bore none of the
slackening aspect of increasing years. These feelings occupied him,
speeding in a single cutter sleigh over the crisp snow of the road
leading from his home to Shadrach Furnace, where Graham Jannan and his
young wife had been newly installed in the foremens'