y shouted with
delight.

Blow after blow was given by this engine, and as each blow fell the
stalwart men heaved on the iron handles and turned the bar this way and
that way, until it was pounded nearly square. By this time Mrs Marrot
had recovered so far as to separate her fingers a little, and venture to
peep from behind that protecting screen. By degrees the unwieldy mass
of misshapen metal was pounded into a cylindrical form, and Will Garvie
informed his friends that this was the beginning of the driving-axle of
a locomotive. Pointing to several of those which had been already
forged, each having two enormous iron projections on it which were
afterwards to become the cranks, he said--

"You'll see how these are finished, in another department."

But Mrs Marrot and Bob paid no attention to him. They were fascinated
by the doings of the big hammer, and especially by the cool quiet way in
which the man with the lever caused it to obey his will. When he moved
the lever up or down a little, up or down went the hammer a little; when
he moved it a good deal the hammer moved a good deal; when he was
gentle, the hammer was gentle; when he gave a violent push, the hammer
came down with a crash that shook the whole place. He could cause it to
plunge like lightning to within a hair's-breadth of the anvil and check
it instantaneously so that it should not touch. He could make it pat
the red metal lovingly, or pound it with the violence of a fiend.
Indeed, so quick and sympathetic were all the movements of that
steam-hammer that it seemed as though it were gifted with intelligence,
and were nervously solicitous to act in prompt obedience to its master's
will. There were eleven steam-hammers of various sizes in this
building, with a staff of 175 men to attend to them, half of which staff
worked during the day, and half during the night--besides seven smaller
steam-hammers in the smiths' shops and other departments.

With difficulty Will Garvie tore his friends away from the big hammer;
but he could not again chain their attention to anything else, until he
came to the pair of scissors that cut iron. With this instrument Mrs
Marrot at first expressed herself disappointed. It was not like a pair
of scissors at all, she said, and in this she was correct, for the
square clumsy-looking blunt-like mass of iron, about five feet high and
broad, which composed a large portion of it, was indeed very unlike a
pair of scissors.