THE NIGHT SHIFT — ARRIVAL IN THE SHED — “FOLLOWING THE TOOL” — THE FORGEMAN’S HASTE AND BUSTLE — LIGHT AND SHADE — SUPPER-TIME — CLATTER AND CLANG — MIDNIGHT — WEARINESS — THE RELEASE — HOME TO REST

Whatever the trials of the day shift at the forge may be, those of the night turn are sure to be far greater. For the daytime is the natural period of both physical and mental activity. The strong workman, after a good night’s rest and sleep, comes to the task fresh, keen, vigorous, and courageous. Though the day before him be painfully long — almost endless in his eyes — he feels fit to do battle with it, for he has a reserve of energy. In the early morning, before breakfast, he is not at his best. He has not yet “got into his stride,” he tells you. His full strength does not come upon him suddenly, it develops gradually. He can spend and spend and spend, but cannot exhaust. Nature’s great battery continues to yield fresh power until the turn of the afternoon. Then the rigid muscles relax, and the flesh shows loose and flabby. The eyes are dull, the features drawn; the whole body is tired and languid.

But this is with the day shift, working in the natural order of things. A great change is to be observed in the case of the night turn. There nature is inverted; the whole scheme is reversed. The workman, unless he is well seasoned to it, cannot summon up any energy at all, and he cannot conquer habit, not after months, or even years of the change. When, by the rule of nature, he should be at his strongest and the exigencies of the night shift require that he should sleep, that strength, bubbling up, keeps him awake, dead tired though he be, and when he requires to be active and vigorous just the reverse obtains. The energy has subsided, the sap has gone down from the tree. Nature has retired, and all the coaxing in the world will not induce her to come forth until such time as the day dawns and she steals back upon him of her own free will. That is what, most of all, distinguishes the night from the day shift, and makes it so wearisome for the pale-faced toilers.

There is a poignancy in preparing for the night shift, the feeling is really one of tragedy. This is where the unnaturalness begins. Everyone but you is going home to rest, to revel in the sweet society of wife and children, or parents, to enjoy the greatest pleasure of the workers’ day — the evening meal, the happy fireside, a few short hours of simple pleasure or recreation and, afterwards, the honey-dew of slumber. As you walk along the lane or street towards the factory you meet the toilers in single file, or two abreast, or marching like an army, in compact squads and groups, or straggling here and there. The boys and youths move smartly and quickly, laughing and talking; the men proceed more soberly, some upright with firm step and cheerful countenance, others bent and stooping, dragging their weary limbs along in silence like tired warriors retreating after the hard-fought battle.

There is also the inward sense and knowledge of evening, for, however much you may deceive your external self, you cannot deceive Nature. Forget yourself as much as you please, she always remembers the hour and the minute; she is far more painstaking and punctual than we are. The time of day fills you with a sweet sadness. The summer sun entering into the broad, gold-flooded west, the soft, autumn twilight, or the gathering shades of the winter evening, all tell the same story. It is drawing towards night; night that was made for man, when very nature reposes; night for pleasure and rest, for peace, joy, and compensations, while you — here are you off to sweat and slave for twelve dreary hours in a modern inferno, in the Cyclops’ den, with the everlasting wheels, the smoke and steam, the flaring furnace and piles of blazing hot metal all around you.

Within the entrance the place seems almost deserted. The huge sheds have poured out their swarms of workmen. The black-looking crowds have disappeared, and the great, iron-bound doors are closed up and locked. The watchmen, who have been patrolling the yard and supervising the exodus of the toilers, are returning to their quarters. Only the rooks are to be seen scavenging up the fragments of bread and waste victuals which the men have thrown out of their pockets for them.

Arrived at the shed you are greeted with the familiar and dreadful din of the boilers priming, the loud roar of the blast and the whirl of the wheels. The rush of hot air almost overpowers you. You feel nearly suffocated already, and half stagger through the smoke and steam to reach your fire and machine standing under the dark, sooty wall. As you thread your way in and out between the furnaces and among the piles of iron and steel you receive a severe dig in the ribs with the long handle of the man’s shovel who is cleaning out the cinders and clinker from beneath the furnaces, or the ash-wheeler, stripped to the waist and dripping with perspiration, runs against you roughly with his wheel-barrow and utters a loud “Hey-up!” or otherwise assails you with “Hout o’ the road, else I’ll knock tha down,” and hurries off up the stage to deposit his load and then comes down again to get in a stock of coal from the waggon for the furnaces. Here the smith is preparing his fire, while his mate breaks up the coke with the heavy mallet; the yellow flames and cinders are leaping up from the open forge by the steam saw. The oil furnaces are puffing away and spitting out their densest clouds of pitchy smoke, filling the shed, while the stamper fixes his dies and oils round, or half runs to the shears in the corner and demands his stock of iron bars to be brought forthwith. The old furnaceman, sweating from the operation of clinkering, shovels in the coal and disposes it with the ravel. The forging hammers glide up and down, clicking against the self-act, while the forger and his mates manipulate the crane and ingot, or charge in the blooms or piles. Everyone is in a desperate hurry, eager to start on with the work and get ahead of Nature, before she flags too much. It is useless to wait till midnight, or count upon efforts to be made in the hours of the morning.

All this is during your entry to the shed and often before the official hour for starting work. On coming to your post you, too, strip off hat, coat, and vest, and hang them up in the shadow of the forge, then bind the leathern apron about your waist, see to your own fire and tools — tongs, sets, flatters, and sledges — obtain water from the tap by the wall, shout “Hammer up!” to your mate, and prepare to thump away with the rest. The heat of the shed in the evening, from six o’clock till ten o’clock, is terrific in the summer months. For hours and hours the furnaces and boilers have been raging, fuming, and pouring out their interminable volumes of invisible vapour; the sun without, and the fires within have made it almost unbearable. The floor plates, the iron principals, the machine frames, the uprights of the hammers — everything is full of heat; the water in the feed-pipes is so hot as to startle you. As the hour draws on, towards nine or ten o’clock, this diminishes somewhat. The cool night air envelops the shed and enters in through the doors, restoring the normal temperature, though, if the night be muggy, there will be scarcely any diminution of the punishment till the early morning, when there is always a cooling down of the atmosphere.

Now the general toil commences in every corner of the smithy. The brawny forger pulls, tugs, or pushes the heavy porter; the stamper runs out with his white-hot bar, spluttering and hissing, and poises one foot on the treadle while he adjusts it over the die, then Pum-tchu, pom-tchu, ping-tchu, ping-tchu, goes the hammer, and over he turns it deftly, blows away the scale and excrescence with the compressed air, and pom-tchu, ping-tchu, again replies the hammer. Here he claps the forging in the trimmer, click goes the self-act, and down comes the tool. The finished article drops through on to the ground; the stamper thrusts the bar into the furnace, turns on more oil and off he goes again. The sparks swish and fly everywhere, travelling to the furthest wall; he wipes away the sweat with the blistered back of his hand, looking half-asleep, and rolls the quid of tobacco in his cheek.

Hard by the smith is busy with his forge and tools. His mate is ghastly pale and thin in the yellow firelight, though he himself looks fat and well. He sets the blast on gently till the iron is nearly fit, then applies the whole volume, to put on the finishing touch and make the iron soft and “mellow.” This lifts up the white cinders in clouds and blows them out of the front also, so that now and then they lodge on the blacksmith’s arms and in his hair, but he shakes them off and takes little notice of them. He jerks the jumper up and down once or twice, turns the heat round quickly, then shuts off the blast, and with a lion-like grip of the tongs, brings it to the anvil and lays on with his hand-hammer, while his mate plies the sledge. Presently he throws down his hammer, grips the “set tool” or “flatter,” and his mate continues to strike upon it till the work is completed. If the striker is not proficient and misses once or twice, he jerks out, in a friendly tone — “On the top, or go home,” or, “Go and get some chalk” — i.e., to whiten the tool — or, “Follow the tool, follow the tool, you okkerd fella.” Once, when a smith had a strange mate — a raw hand — with him, and bade him to “Follow the tool,” when he put that down the striker continued to go for it till it flew up and nearly knocked out the smith’s eye, but he excused himself on the ground that he thought he had to “follow the tool.”

Here is a skinny, half-naked fellow, striving with all his might to draw a heavy bogie piled up with new blooms, half a ton or more in weight. His head is thrown far forward, about a yard from the ground. His arms, thin and small, are strained like rods of iron behind his back; only his toes grip the ground. He shouts out to someone near for help.

“Hey! Gi’ us a shove a minute.”

“Gi’ thee tha itch! Ast the gaffer for a mate. I got mi own work to do,” the other replies, and keeps hammering away.

Next is a belated stamper in want of tools. “Hast got a per o’ tongs to len’ us a minute, ole pal?”

“Shove off wi’ thee and make a pair, or else buy some, like I got to. Nobody never lends I nothin’,” is the answer he receives.

This one wants a blow. “Come an’ gi’ I a blow yer.”

“Gi’ thee a blow on the head. I got no time to mess about wi’ thee.”

Another is concerned as to the hour — there are those whose thoughts are always of the clock, anxiously awaiting the next stop. “What time is it, mate?”

“Aw! time thee wast better,” or “Same as ’twas last night at this time. Thee hasn’t bin yer five minutes it.”

Perhaps the steam pressure is low. “Wha’s bin at wi’ the steam, matey? We chaps can’t hit a stroke.”

“Got twisted in the pipes, I ’spect. Go an’ put thi blower on, an’ fire up a bit, an’ run that slag out.”

This one cannot obtain his supply of bars from the shears. “Now Matty! Hasn’t got that iron cut? I can’t wait about for thee.”

“Dwunt thee be in sich a caddle. Thee ootn’t get it none the zooner. Other people got to live as well as thee, dost naa!”

“All right! I shall go and see he,” (the overseer).

“Thee cast go an’ do jest whatever thee bist a-mine to. ’Twunt make a ’appoth o’ difference.”

By and by the overseer comes up and shouts — “Hey! Can’t you let these chaps on, Matthews?”

“No, I caan’t! Tha’ll hef to woite a bit. Ther’s some as bin a-woitin’ all night, ver nigh. ’Tis no good to plag’ I, else ya wunt get nothin’ done at all.”

Here is the forger bellowing at his driver. “Go on! Go on! Hit him! Hit him! Hit him! Light, ther’! Light! ’Old on! ’Old on! Whoa, then! Castn’t stop when I tells tha? Dost want to spile the jilly thing? Gi’ us up they gauges. A’s too thick now. Up a bit, ther! Hit un agyen! Light now! Light! Light! That’ll do! Whoa! Take ’old o’ this bar, an’ gi’ us that cutter. Now, Strawberry! turn ’e over in the fire, an’ don’ stand ther’ a-gappatin’. ’Aaf thi ’ed ’ll drop off in a minute. Ther’s a lot to do yet, else ya won’ get no balance. Hout o’ the road, oot!”

“Haw-w-right. Kip yer wool on. ’Tis a long time to mornin’ it. Thee bist allus in a caddle,” the other answers.

“Shet thi ’ed, an’ mind thi own business, else I’ll fetch the gaffer to thee! Pull up ther’, an’ le’s ’ev un out on’t. We be all be’ind agyen! Everybody else ull a done afore we begins! Hang on to that chayn, Fodgy! Now then! All together! Ugh!”

So the ingot is brought out with shouts and cries, the rattling and jingling of chains and the loud roaring of steam in the roof outside. The blaze of the furnace and the spluttering, white-hot metal make it as light as day in the shed. The forger and his mates stagger under the weight of the ingot and porter-bar and incline their heads to escape the fierce heat. Their faces and necks are burnt red and purple — of the colour of blood-poisoning. Their shirt sleeves are hanging loose to protect their arms; they wear thin, round calico caps on their heads and leathern aprons about their waists. At the first blow or two the sparks shriek around, and especially if the ingot is of steel and happens to be well-heated. The smiths yell out at the top of their voice and rush to save their clothes hanging up beside the forge. The men’s faces look transfigured in the bright light. Their shadows, huge, weird, and fantastic, reach high up the wall, even to the roof. The smallest object is thrown into relief and the shafts of the sledges cast a shadow as sharp and clear as from the sun at mid-day. As the mighty steel monkey descends, half covering the white mass, the shadow falls on the roof, walls, and machinery around, and rises as the smooth, shapely piston glides upward into the cylinder; up and down, up and down it goes, like the rising and falling of a curtain. This continues till the heat of the forging diminishes and the rays of the metal are no longer capable of overpowering the light cast out from the fire-holes and the smoky, sleepy-looking gas-jets hanging in lines adown the smithy.

As the iron becomes cooler the hammer beats harder and harder. The oscillation is very great and the sound nearly approaches a ring. The steam roars overhead and leaks and hisses through the joints of the pipes and glands. The oil in the stamper’s dies explodes with a cannon-like report. The huge hydraulic engines tchu-tchu outside; the wheels whirr and hum away in the roof, and the smith’s tools clang out or ring sharply on the anvil. Without, through the open doors, the night shows inky black; the smoke and steam beat down and are blown in with the wind, or the fog is sucked in quickly by the currents. Now the rain beats hard on the roof and runs through in streams, while the wind clatters between the stacks and ventilators overhead with a noise like thunder; or, if it is mid-winter, the light, feathery snowflakes are wafted in from above and sway to and fro and round and round, uncertain where to lodge, until they are dissolved with the heat and finally descend in small drops like dew upon the faces and arms of the forgers.

At the end of every hour the watchman with his lamp passes through, like a policeman on his beat, and stands a moment before the furnace to warm himself or to watch the shaping of the ingot. The old furnaceman views him askance, or ventures to address him with a “How do?” or “Rough night out,” to which the other responds with a nod, or a “Yes; ’Tis!” and takes his departure into the blackness outside. At frequent intervals the overseer walks round and takes his stand here and there, with his hands behind him, or twisting his fingers in front, or with his thumbs thrust into the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and glares at the men, spitting out the tobacco juice upon the ground or on the red-hot forging. Presently he shouts: — “Ain’t ya done that thing yet? How much longer ya going to be? He’ll want a bit o’ salt directly. Wher’s Michael? Ain’t he in to-night? Wha’s up wi’ he?”

“He’s a-twhum along o’ the owl’ dooman to-night,” someone answers. The grimy toilers curse him under their breath and wish he would soon clear off, which he presently does, slipping quickly away into the shadows or climbing up the wooden stairway into the well-lit office.

The first spell is at ten o’clock — that is, after four hours of terrific hammering and sweating. This is the supper-hour. Here the engines cease and the wheels stop their grinding. The roar of the blast has ceased, too; there is not a flicker from the coke fires. The old furnaceman is still shovelling away, for the forger was on till the last moment. Now he “stops up,” lays a little coal dust along the furnace door, shuts off his blower, puts down the damper, and proceeds to rinse his hands in the water bosh. All the while he was attending to his fire he had the wiper about his neck and held one corner of it in his mouth. After drying his hands with it he gives his grimy face a good rub, goes to his clothes hanging up by the wall, slips on his waistcoat, stirs his tea in the can with the blade of his pocket-knife, takes his food from the peg and comes and sits down near the furnace, or in the sand-bunk. The one in charge of the steam walks from boiler to boiler, setting on the injectors. They admit the cool water with a murmurous, sleepy sound — there is no priming yet. The furnace fire glitters through the chinks of the door or grate like the stars on a frosty night. The old furnaceman does not eat much. He tastes a little and bites here and there, then he wraps the whole up again.

“What! Bistn’t agwain to hae thi zupper, then?” some one enquires.

“No-o! Can’t zim to get on wi’t to-night,” he answers.

“Well! Chock it out for they owld rats, they’ll be glad on’t. Yellacks is a girt un ther’ now, in atween they piles!”

Try how you will you cannot enjoy your food on the night shift. I have carried mine home again morning after morning, or thrown it out for the birds in the yard. I have seen men — and especially youths — go to sleep with the food in their mouths. You are too languid to eat much, and what you do eat has no savour. It is remarkable, also, that while you continue working you do not feel the fatigue so much, but as soon as you sit down you are assailed with increased weariness; you feel powerless and exhausted and have no strength or energy left. Many, in order to keep awake and fresh, go out into the town, deserted at that hour. Some walk outside in the yard and bruise their shins against this or that obstruction in the darkness. Others, again, after partaking of a few mouthfuls of food, go on making up their fires, not only to keep themselves awake, but also to help the work forward and earn their money for the shift. I have many times worked all night — through both meal-hours — in the attempt to earn my wages, and then have been deficient.

Here and there a small party will sit together and chat the meal-time away, or a few will endeavour to read. Very soon, however, the newspaper or book slips from the fingers. The tiredness and heat together prevail; the eyes close and the mouth opens — the toiler is fast asleep. Presently someone comes on the scene with a loud shout: “Hey-yup! What! bist thee vly-ketchin’ agyen? Get up and check, else tha’t be locked out,” or another staggers round with half-closed eyes and bawls out, “’Ow beest bi tiself, Bill?“ the reply to which usually is, ”Thee get an’ laay down,” or “None the better for thy astin’.” Occasionally several will start singing a song, or hymn, and be immediately assailed with loud cries of “Lay down, oot!” or “Yeow! Yeow! Kennul! Kennul!” or a large lump of coal is thrown against the roof to break and fall in dust upon the choristers. Some spread rivet bags in front of the furnace and lie upon them and others lie down upon the bare bricks or iron of the floor. A few minutes before eleven o’clock the stragglers arrive back from the town. The old furnaceman bestirs himself, lifts the damper, sets on the blower, routs the coals of the fire and shouts, “Come on, yer,” to his mates. The steam-hammer man opens the valve and raises the monkey, making it glide up and down to work the water out of the cylinder, the forgemen and smiths bustle about again and the terrific din recommences.

So the furious toil proceeds hour by hour. Bang, bang, bang. Pum-tchu, pum-tchu, ping-tchu, ping-tchu. Cling-clang, cling-clang. Boom, boom, boom. Flip-flap, flip-flap. Hoo-oo-oo-oo-oo. Rattle, rattle, rattle. Click, click, click. Bump, bump. Scrir-r-r-r-r-r-r. Hiss-s-s-s-s-s-s. Tchi-tchu, tchi-tchu, tchi-tchu. Clank, clank, clank, clank, clank. The noises of the steam and machinery drown everything else. You see the workmen standing or stooping, pulling, tugging, heaving, dragging to and fro, or staggering about as though they were intoxicated, but there is no other sound beyond the occasional shouting of the forger and the jerking or droning of the injectors. It is a weird living picture, stern and realistic, such as no painter could faithfully reproduce. If the oil in the stampers’ forges is worse than usual the dense clouds of nauseating smoke hang over you like a pall so thickly that you cannot see your fellows a few paces away, making it intensely difficult to breathe and adding a horrible disgust to the unspeakable weariness. Then the bright flashing metal and the white gas-jets show a dull red. Even the sound seems deadened by the smoke and stench, but this is merely the action of the impurity upon the sense organs; they are so much impaired with the grossness of the atmosphere as to fail in their functions. By and by, when the air has cleared a little, it all rushes back upon you with increased intensity. Everything is swinging and whirling round, and you seem to be whirled round with it, with not a thought of yourself, who you are, where you are, or what you are doing, but keep toiling mechanically away. Ofttimes you would be quite lost, but the revolutions of the machine, the automatic strokes of the hammer, and the habit of the job control you. And if this should fail, your mate, half asleep, whacks his heat along and casts it upon your toe, or sears you with the hot tongs, or he misses the top of the tool at the anvil and strikes your thumb instead. There are many things to keep you alive, and always the fear of not earning your money for the turn and having to be jeered at and bullied by the chargeman or overseer and so have your life made miserable. The faces and fronts of the smiths and forgers, as they stand at the fires or stoop over the metal, are brilliantly lit up — yellow and orange. Here are the piles of finished forgings and stampings upon the ground — white, yellow, bright red, dull red, and almost black hot; the long tongues of fire leap up from the coke forges, and every now and then a livid sheet of flame bursts out from the stamper’s dies. There is plenty of colour, as well as animation, in the picture, which obtains greater intensity through contrast with the blackness outside.

The greatest weariness assails you about midnight, and continues to possess you till towards three o’clock. Then Nature struggles violently, demanding her rights, twitching, clutching, and tugging at your eyelids and striving in a thousand ways to bring you into submission and force her rule upon you, but the iron laws of necessity, circumstance, and system prevail; you must battle the power within you and repel the sweet soother, struggling on in the unnatural combat. The keen eye of the overseer is upon you, who is always whipping you to your task, or the watchman is striving to take you loitering and so bring himself into notice; it is useless to give way. Necessity urges; the body must be clothed and fed. There are the wife and children at home, and you must live. I have felt it, and I know what it is. There, in the smoke and stench, the heat and cold, draught and damp of midnight I have slaved with the rest, not harder or with greater pains than they, though perhaps I have noted the feelings whereas they have not. The eyes ache, the ears ache, the teeth ache, the temples ache, the shoulders ache, the arms ache, the legs ache, the feet ache, and the heart aches. I have many times wished, in those dark, awful hours, that the hammer would smash my head; that I might be suddenly caught and hurled into eternity, and I have heard others express the same wish openly and sincerely. Sometimes I have stolen out of the great doors to stand for a moment in the open in the cold dark or starry night, and looked out towards the hills, or away over the town with the whirl of the shed behind me. There was the great red moon showing through the clouds low down, or the fiercely glittering Mars setting in the west, or inky blackness above, with a few tiny lights twinkling in the far-off streets of the town and a silence as deep as death out beyond. If I could but have heard the old barn owl hooting in the farmyard, the cow lowing in the meadow or stall, the fox yelping in the little wood, or even the bark of a dog, I should have been strengthened and relieved, but there was never a sound of them — nothing but the black outlines of the sheds around, the small distant lights of the town and the great white blaze and crash of noises within. Even to pause there is but to intensify the torture and the cold air soon chills you to the bone. The only course open is to keep toiling away with the rest and wear the night out.

The second stop is at two o’clock and is of brief duration — twenty minutes or half an hour at the outside. It is merely a break in order to have a mouthful of food, a something, so that it shall not be said that the men have to toil for seven consecutive hours in that unspeakable weariness. Here the huge engines become silent again and the heavy pounding stops. The wheels and machinery under the wall look as inert and innocent as though they had never moved; it would be difficult to imagine that they were capable of such noise and uproar if you had not heard it yourself but a few minutes before. The boilers, relieved of the strain upon their resources, begin to prime again with a continued crashing, shattering sound which the boilerman tries in vain to subdue with cold water through the injectors. The furnace glitters and the oil forges smoke. The air is laden with the peculiarly nauseous fumes of the water-gas that make the toilers feel sick and ill and destroy the appetite.

This time the men are unusually silent and mopish. Each selects a place for himself and sits, or lies down, apart from the others. Only the tough, wiry forgeman, the strong smith, or the hardy coalies and ash-wheelers can attack the food. The rest usually go to their jackets, open their handkerchiefs, look at the contents, eat a little perhaps, half-heartedly, and wrap them up again. The constitution of the forgeman is almost like iron itself. He and the smith can usually manage their meal, and the coal-wheelers, from being constantly out in the fresh air, are not quite as weary as are the others, and so can relish the food better. On Friday nights — when the men are more than usually drowsy — the food may be a little more tempting and tasty. At six o’clock the wages were paid, and at supper-time a few, at least, will have gone or sent out into the town for an appetizing morsel: some sausages, rashers, a mutton chop, a pound of tripe, a bloater, or a packet of fried fish and chipped potatoes — the youth’s favourite dainty. Then, in the early hours, amid the din of the boilers, the black frying-pan or coal shovel is produced and the savoury odour is wafted abroad. The greatest pleasure, however, is usually in the anticipation of the meal. The food itself is seldom eaten — or no more than a small part of it, at least — the other is cast out for the rats and rooks. Years ago, in the autumn, we boys used to gather mushrooms in the fields on our way to work and cook them for “dinner” in the early morning and suffer severely for it afterwards. Nature, disorganized with the exigences of the night shift, refused the proffered dainties. It is difficult to digest even ordinary food taken in the unwholesome air of the shed at such an unearthly hour.

Punctually to the moment, if not before time, the engines begin to throb again; the piston rods, gliding slowly at first, soon attain a rapid speed. The huge crank, flashing in the bright gas-light, leaps over and over. The big belt strains and creaks as though it would avoid its labour and the turning of the shaft overhead, but the heavy fly-wheel spins round, and the little pulleys and cogs go with it; they must all obey the urging of the mighty steam wizard lurking in the green-painted cylinder. The donkey engines, forcing the blast, are coughing and spitting out the white vapour and labouring painfully under the wall in the lean-to outside. Within the fires are flashing and the flames leaping, and the toil goes on as before.

About three o’clock, or soon after, the weariness begins to diminish somewhat, and the old habit of the body reasserts itself. The natural hour of repose is passing, and the fountain of energy begins to bubble up within you; you feel to be approaching the normal condition again. The fatigue now gives place to a feeling of unreality and stupidity; you seem to be dazed and irritable, as though you had been aroused from sleep before the accustomed time. Now you experience deep pains in the chest, resulting from loss of sleep. The head aches as though it would burst and the eyes are very painful and “gritty,” but you feel cheered, nevertheless, with the thought of daylight, the coming cessation from toil, and the opportunity of obtaining a breath of fresh, pure air again. The overseer slips to and fro quickly about this time in order to keep the men well on the move, pricking here and prodding there, and visiting those whom he knows will tell him all the news of the night’s work — such as may have escaped him. The toilers pay him but little attention, however, and keep plodding languidly away.

Steadily, as the day dawns, the light within increases, red, white, or golden, stealing through the thick glass of the roof or by the wide open doors, and soon after one appears with a long staff and turns off all the gas. It is really day once more, and there is not much longer to go. At twenty minutes past five the hooter sounds loudly, calling up the men of the day shift, and the pace flags visibly. A few, however, who have not done any too well in the middle hours of the night, hammer away with increased energy right up to the last, for they know the day overseers and the chargemen will go round and feel the forgings to see how late the others were toiling. If the iron is cool they know that their mates have been dilatory and the tale is told around.

A few minutes before six o’clock the engines slow down and stop and the roar of the blast ceases. The steam-hammers are lowered with a loud thud and the furnace fires are banked up; the mighty toil is over, for this turn, at any rate. Now the forgers and stampers unbind their aprons and roll them up; the smiths stow their tools, placing these in the iron box and those in the boshes of water to soak the shafts and tighten the handles of the sledges. After that they swill their hands at the tap, put on muffler, jacket, or great-coat, and file out of the shed — dirty, dusty, tired and sleepy-looking. Not for them the joy of morning, the vigour, freshness and bloom, the keen delight in the open air, the happy heart and elevated spirit. They slouch away through the living stream of the day toilers now arriving as black as sweeps, half-blinded with the bright daylight, blinking and sighing, feeling unutterably and unnaturally tired, out of sorts and out of place, too, and crawl home, like rats to their holes, to snatch a little rest, and recuperate for new efforts to be made on the following turn.

Few of the men’s wives or parents in the town will be up to welcome them at that early hour and provide them with warm tea and a breakfast. Accordingly, some go home and straight to bed without food at all, a few walk about the streets or out towards the country for an hour or so till the home fire is lit, while others go home and get the breakfast themselves. Perhaps, if trade in the shed is brisk, they will be required to work overtime till eight or nine o’clock. I have done this for months at a stretch and afterwards walked home to the village, ofttimes sitting down on the roadside to rest, reaching home at about ten o’clock and getting to bed an hour before noon, to be awakened by every slight noise without the house. At one time I was aroused by the old church clock striking, at another by the sound of the school bell, or the children at play underneath the window, or by the farm waggon. At four in the afternoon, rested or not, you must rise again, wash and dress, snatch a hasty meal, and plod off to the town, four miles distant, forgetful of everything behind you — the gentle peace of the village, the long line of dreamy-looking hills, the haymakers in the field, the sweetly sorrowful sound of the threshing machine by the ricks in the farmyard, the eternal pageantry of the heavens, the whole natural life and scenery of the world. The knowledge of the loss lies like lead at the heart and fills one with a keen regret, a poignant sense of the cruelty of the industrial system and your own weakness with it; yet one must live. But there is real tragedy in working the night shift at the forge.