y the way, Cob," said Uncle Dick, "I thought we wouldn't write about
it at the time, and then it was forgotten; but just now, seeing you
again, all the old struggles came back. You remember the night of the
fire?"

"Is it likely I could forget it?" I said.

"No, not very. But you remember going down to the works and finding no
watchman--no dog."

"What! Did you find out what became of poor old Jupiter?"

"Yes, poor fellow! The scoundrels drowned him."

"Oh!"

"Yes. We had to drain the dam and have the mud cleaned out three--four
years ago, and we found his chain twisted round a great piece of iron
and the collar still round some bones."

"The cowardly ruffians!" I exclaimed.

"Yes," said Uncle Jack; "but that breed of workman seems to be dying out
now."

"And all those troubles," said Uncle Bob, "are over."

That afternoon I went down to the works, which seemed to have grown
smaller in my absence; but they were in full activity; and turning off
to the new range of smithies I entered one where a great bald-headed man
with a grisly beard was hammering away at a piece of steel.

He did not look up as I entered, but growled out:

"I shall want noo model for them blades, Mester John, and sooner the
better."

"Why, Pannell, old fellow!" I said.

He raised his head and stared at me.

"Why, what hev yow been doing to theeself, Mester John?" he said. "Thou
looks--thou looks--"

He stopped short, and the thought suddenly came to me that last time he
saw me I was a big boy, and that in eight years I had grown into a
broad-shouldered man, six feet one high, and had a face bronzed by the
Indian sun, and a great thick beard.

"Why, Pannell, don't you know me?"

He threw down the piece of steel he had been hammering, struck the anvil
a clanging blow with all his might, shouted "I'm blest!" and ran out of
the smithy shouting:

"Hey! Hi, lads! Stivins--Gentles! The hull lot on yo'! Turn out
here! Hey! Hi! Here's Mester Jacob come back."

The men who had known me came running out, and those who had not known
me came to see what it all meant, and it meant really that the rough
honest fellows were heartily glad to see me.

But first they grouped about me and stared; then their lips spread, and
they laughed at me, staring the while as if I had been some great wild
beast or a curiosity.

"On'y to think o' this being him!" cried Pannell; and he stamped about,
slapping first one knee and then the o