The man of art opened with two words.  He looked up at the white cloud, which was now floating away; sniffed the air, and said, “Gunpowder!” Then he looked down at Little, and said, “Ah!” half dryly, half sadly.  Indeed several sentences of meaning condensed themselves into that simple interjection.  At this moment, some men, whom curiosity had drawn to Henry’s forge, came back to say the forge had been blown up, and “the bellows torn limb from jacket, and the room strewed with ashes.”

The doctor laid a podgy hand on the prisoner’s wrist:  the touch was light, though the fingers were thick and heavy.  The pulse, which had been very low, was now galloping and bounding frightfully.  “Fetch him a glass of brandy-and-water,” said Dr. Amboyne. (There were still doctors in Hillsborough, though not in London, who would have had him bled on the spot.)

“Now, then, a surgeon!  Which of you lads operates on the eye, in these works?”

A lanky file-cutter took a step forward.  “I am the one that takes the motes out of their eyes.”

“Then be good enough to show me his eye.”

The file-cutter put out a hand with fingers prodigiously long and thin, and deftly parted both Little’s eyelids with his finger and thumb, so as to show the whole eye.

“Hum!” said the doctor, and shook his head.

He then patted the sufferer all over, and the result of that examination was satisfactory.  Then came the brandy-and-water; and while Henry’s teeth were clattering at the glass and he was trying to sip the liquid, Dr. Amboyne suddenly lifted his head, and took a keen survey of the countenances round him.  He saw the general expression of pity on the rugged faces.  He also observed one rough fellow who wore a strange wild look:  the man seemed puzzled, scared, confused like one half awakened from some hideous dream.  This was the grinder who had come into the works in place of the hand Cheetham had discharged for refusing to grind cockney blades.

“Hum!” said Dr. Amboyne, and appeared to be going into a brown study.

But he shook that off, and said briskly, “Now, then, what was his crime?  Did he owe some mutual aid society six-and-four-pence?”

“That’s right,” said Reynolds, sullenly, “throw every thing on the Union.  If we knew who it was, he’d lie by the side of this one in less than a minute, and, happen, not get up again so soon.”  A growl of assent confirmed the speaker’s words.  Cheetham interposed and drew Amboyne aside, and began to tell him who the man was and what the dispute; but Amboyne cut the latter explanation short.  “What,” said he, “is this the carver whose work I saw up at Mr. Carden’s?”

“This is the very man, no doubt.”

“Why, he’s a sculptor:  Praxiteles in wood.  A fine choice they have made for their gunpowder, a workman that did honor to the town.”

A faint flush of gratified pride colored the ghastly cheek a moment.