HE furnace door slammed down, and Rawnsley, wiping the sweat from his face, waited for a few moments until his dazzled eyes got accustomed to the gloom. A bitter wind swept the big, open-sided building and blew little clouds of iron scale about. After the intense white glare of the furnace, the flickering gas-jets shone a misty orange colour, and the rod that ran through the roll-train glimmered dull red. Blurred figures moved about the mill, and the iron floor throbbed with the rumble of heavy machinery.
The din was rhythmic, and Rawnsley knew the different notes—the crunch the roughing-rolls made as they squeezed the white-hot billet into a lengthening bar, the clang of the steel on the floor-plates, and the hum of the finishing-rolls that threw out shining coils of slender rod. Ned Jardine was driving the mill hard; she was running well, earning good money for the men, and Ned, who was paid on the weight of the rods he rolled, ought to be satisfied. For all that, Rawnsley wondered. The new mill was an experiment, and its success would mean a revision of tonnage prices. Ned did not like new methods, and had some grounds for not liking Sam Creighton, who had patented the appliances now being tested.
Somebody shouted, the throb of the engine slackened, and the rattle of the roll-train died away. Ned had stopped for supper, and Rawnsley damped his furnace, because steel will spoil if kept at white heat long. A Bessemer converter in the neighbouring-steelworks hurled up a column of leaping flame, and while intense light and shadow played about the building, a girl carrying a basket crossed the floor. Rawnsley watched her with half-ironical approval. Her hat and dress were neat and she wore gloves. Jenny was a lady; one would not think she was a daughter of his. At first she had grumbled about bringing his supper to the mill, but Rawnsley liked his meals hot, and was firm. Now Jenny no longer grumbled. She was going to marry Sam Creighton, the roll-turner, and Sam would make her a good husband, although he was not Rawnsley's sort.
When she joined him, Rawnsley took the basket in his big black hand. He was a strongly-made fellow, and his naked arms were corded with muscle, although his short, wet hair was grey.
"You've been to turning-shop with a pasty for Sam, I reckon," he remarked. "Sammy owt to be in good fettle; mill's running weel."
"He's quiet, and looks tired," said Jenny. "I think he's nervous. The trial week's not up."
"He's aw nerves. That's what comes o' teetotalising; Sammy wad be a better man if he drunk beer. But mill's doing good work. What's t' lad boddering aboot?"
Although Jenny's eyes sparkled, she hesitated for a moment. Then she said quietly: "It's Ned Jardine's shift to-night. He's no friend of Sam's."
Rawnsley pondered this. Jenny could have married Black Ned, but she was going to marry Sam, and Ned was a bad man to thwart. Rawnsley knew; they spent convivial Saturday nights together, and when Ned was half drunk he talked. Men had got hurt and steel was spoiled; even Savile, the works manager, let Ned have his way. He could do anything with a mill, but must do it as he liked.
"Dinna bodder, lass," Rawnsley said. "I'm here. Sammy's gan t' have his chance."
Jenny went away, and Rawnsley ate and mused. He drank, too, but from a can, and not from Jenny's thermos flask. Sometimes, by morning, he drained the flask, and, anyhow, her bringing it pleased the lass. She was a good lass, and had looked after him well since her mother died. Now she talked about his living with her and Sam, but Rawnsley wondered, with grim amusement, what Sam thought. Besides, he did not see himself sitting in a red velvet chair on Sundays, listening to Sam's harmonium.
When he had drunk half the liquor in the can, he began to think with an unusual lucidity. It looked as if the landlord of "The Steel workers' Arms" had been generous with the stronger component of the mixture. Rawnsley saw himself as something of a survival from ruder and lustier times, when men fought for their rights with fists and clogs instead of votes, and took their pleasures humanly. He and his kind were being slowly beaten in the struggle between the old school and the new, but the others could not yet do without his inherited strength and skill. Black Ned and Savile, like himself, had not much use for science, and worked by rule of thumb. But Rawnsley claimed their work was good.