January 4, 2025 • 29 mins
🌋⚙️ H.G. Wells - "The Cone" (1895) 🔥✨
A searing tale of industrial might, human passion, and the devastating consequences of betrayal, set against the infernal backdrop of a Victorian steelworks. 🌌🔗 In this dark and atmospheric narrative, H.G. Wells plunges us into a world of roaring furnaces and molten metal, where simmering jealousy and vengeance ignite into a catastrophic confrontation.
🔥⚙️ Amid the towering chimneys and glowing crucibles, two men’s fates collide in a dramatic spiral of rage and regret. Horrocks, the ironmaster, leads his rival Raut into the fiery heart of his factory, where the oppressive heat mirrors the boiling emotions that drive him. What begins as a tense tour of industrial marvels descends into a deadly game of power and fury, as the boundaries between man and machine blur in the crucible of revenge.✨💔
"The Cone" masterfully evokes the grim beauty and deadly hazards of the industrial age, crafting a visceral meditation on the destructive power of unchecked passion. The story’s crescendo—set against a landscape of fire, smoke, and steel—transforms human frailty into a haunting, almost mythic tragedy. Wells’s narrative captures the clash of progress and peril, the fragile balance of morality, and the unrelenting consequences of betrayal, leaving readers suspended between awe and horror. 🌋✊⚙️
A searing tale of industrial might, human passion, and the devastating consequences of betrayal, set against the infernal backdrop of a Victorian steelworks. 🌌🔗 In this dark and atmospheric narrative, H.G. Wells plunges us into a world of roaring furnaces and molten metal, where simmering jealousy and vengeance ignite into a catastrophic confrontation.
🔥⚙️ Amid the towering chimneys and glowing crucibles, two men’s fates collide in a dramatic spiral of rage and regret. Horrocks, the ironmaster, leads his rival Raut into the fiery heart of his factory, where the oppressive heat mirrors the boiling emotions that drive him. What begins as a tense tour of industrial marvels descends into a deadly game of power and fury, as the boundaries between man and machine blur in the crucible of revenge.✨💔
"The Cone" masterfully evokes the grim beauty and deadly hazards of the industrial age, crafting a visceral meditation on the destructive power of unchecked passion. The story’s crescendo—set against a landscape of fire, smoke, and steel—transforms human frailty into a haunting, almost mythic tragedy. Wells’s narrative captures the clash of progress and peril, the fragile balance of morality, and the unrelenting consequences of betrayal, leaving readers suspended between awe and horror. 🌋✊⚙️
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
H. G. Wells The Cone, published in eighteen ninety five.
The night was hot and overcast, the sky red rimmed
with the lingering sunset of midsummer. They sat at the
open window, trying to fancy the air was fresher. There.
The trees and shrubs of the garden stood stiff and dark.
(00:22):
Beyond in the roadway, a gas lamp burnt bright orange
against the hazy blue of the evening. Farther were the
three lights of the railway signal against the lowering sky.
The man and woman spoke to one another in low tones.
He does not, suspect, said the man, a little nervously.
(00:44):
Not he, she said, peevishly, as though that too irritated her.
He thinks of nothing but the works and the prices
of fuel. He has no imagination, no poetry. None of
these men of iron have, he said, so contentiously. They
have no hearts. He has not, she said. She turned
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her discontented face towards the window. The distant sound of
a roaring and rushing drew nearer and grew in volume.
The house quivered, one heard the metallic rattle of the tender.
As the train passed. There was a glare of light
above the cutting, and a driving tumult of smoke. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
(01:29):
eight black oblongs. Eight trucks passed across the dim gray
of the embankment, and were suddenly extinguished one by one
in the throat of the tunnel, which with the last
seemed to swallow down train, smoke and sound in one
abrupt gulp. This country was all fresh and beautiful once,
he said, and now it is Gehenna down that way,
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nothing but pot banks and chimneys, belching fire and dust
into the face of heaven. But what does it matter?
An end comes, an end to all this cruelty. Tomorrow,
he spoke, the last word, in a whisper. Tomorrow, she said,
speaking in a whisper, too, and still staring out of
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the window. Dear, he said, putting his hand on hers.
She turned with a start, and their eyes searched one another's.
Hers softened to his gaze, My dear one, she said,
And then it seems so strange that you should have
come into my life like this. To open she paused,
(02:38):
to open, he said, all this wonderful world. She hesitated,
and spoke still more softly, this world of love to me.
Then suddenly the door clicked and closed. They turned their heads,
and he started violently. Back. In the shadow of the
room stood a great shadowy figure sigh Island. They saw
(03:01):
the face dimly in the half light, with unexpressive dark
patches under the penthouse brows. Every muscle in Rout's body
suddenly became tense. When could the door have opened? What
had he heard? Had he heard all? What had he seen?
A tumult of questions. The newcomer's voice came at last,
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after a pause that seemed interminable. Well, he said, I
was afraid I had missed you, Horrocks, said the man
at the window, gripping the window ledge with his hand.
His voice was unsteady. The clumsy figure of Horrocks came
forward out of the shadow. He made no answer to
(03:47):
Rout's remark. For a moment he stood above them. The
woman's heart was cold within her. I told mister Rout,
it was just possible you might come back, she said,
in a voice that never quivered. Horrocks, still silent, sat
down abruptly in the chair by her little work table.
(04:08):
His big hands were clenched. One saw now the fire
of his eyes under the shadow of his brows. He
was trying to get his breath. His eyes went from
the woman he had trusted to the friend he had trusted,
and then back to the woman. By this time and
for the moment, all three half understood one another, Yet
(04:28):
none dared say a word to ease the pent up
things that choked them. It was the husband's voice that
broke the silence. At last, you wanted to see me,
he said to Rout. Rout started as he spoke. I
came to see you, he said, resolved to lie to
the last, Yes, said Horrocks. You promised, said Rout, to
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show me some fine effects of moonlight and smoke. I
promised to show you some fine effects of moonlight and smoke,
repeated Horrocks, in a colorless voice. And I thought I
might catch you to night before you went down to
the works, proceeded Rout, and come with you. There was
another pause. Did the man mean to take the thing coolly?
(05:17):
Did he, after all, know how long had he been
in the room. Yet, even at the moment when they
heard the door their attitudes. Horrocks glanced at the profile
of the woman, shadowy pallid in the half light. Then
he glanced at Rout and seemed to recover himself. Suddenly,
of course, he said, I promised to show you the
(05:40):
works under their proper dramatic conditions. It's odd how I
could have forgotten if I am troubling you, began Rout.
Horrocks started again. A new light had suddenly come into
the sultry gloom of his eyes. Not in the least,
he said. Have you been telling, mister Rout, of all
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these contrasts of flame and shadow? You think so splendid?
Said the woman, turning now to her husband for the
first time, her confidence creeping back again, her voice just
one half note too high. That dreadful theory of yours,
that machinery is beautiful and everything else in the world ugly.
I thought he would not spare you, mister Rout. It's
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his great theory, his one discovery in art. I am
slow to make discoveries, said Horrocks, grimly, damping her suddenly.
But what I discover? He stopped. Well, she said nothing,
and suddenly he rose to his feet. I promised to
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show you the works, he said to Rout, and put
his big clumsy hand on his friend's shoulder. And you
are ready to go, quite, said Rout and stood up. Also,
there was another pause. Each of them peered through the
indistinctness of the dusk at the other two. Horrock's hand
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still rested on Raut's shoulder. Rout half fancied still that
the incident was trivial after all. But Missus Horrocks knew
her husband better. Knew that grim quiet in his voice
and the confusion in her mind took a vague shape
of physical evil. Very well, said Horrocks, and dropping his hand,
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turned towards the door. My hat. Rout looked round in
the half light. That's my work basket, said Missus Horrocks,
with a gust of hysterical laughter. Their hands came together
on the back of the chair. Here it is, he said.
She had an impulse to warn him in an undertone,
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but she could not frame a word. Don't go and
beware of him, struggled in her mind, and the swift
moment passed. Got it, said Horrocks. Standing with the door
half open, Rout stepped towards him. Better say good bye
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to Missus Horrocks, said the iron master, even more grimly
quiet in his tone than before. Rout started and turned
good evening. Missus horrocks, he said, and their hands touched horrocks,
held the door open, with a ceremonial politeness unusual in
him towards men. Rout went out, and then, after a
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wordless look at her, her husband followed. She stood motionless
while Rout's light footfall in her husband's heavy tread like
bass and treble, passed down the passage together. The front
door slammed heavily. She went to the window, moving slowly,
and stood watching, leaning forward. The two men appeared for
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a moment at the gateway in the road, passed under
the street lamp, and were hidden by the black masses
of the shrubbery. The lamp light fell for a moment
on their faces, showing only unmeaning pale patches, telling nothing
of what she still feared and doubted and craved vainly
to know. Then she sank down into a crouching attitude
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in the big arm chair, her eyes wide open and
staring out at the red lights from the furnaces that
flickered in the sky. An hour after she was still there,
her attitude scarcely changed. The oppressive stillness of the evening
weighed heavily upon route. They went side by side down
the road in silence, and in silence turned into the
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cinder made byway that presently opened out the prospect of
the valley. A blue haze, half dust, half mist, touched
the long valley with mystery. Beyond were Hanley and Etruria,
gray and dark masses, outlined thinly by the rare golden
dots of the street lamps, And here and there a
gas lit window or the yellow glare of some late
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working factory or crowded public house. Out of the masses,
clear and slender against the evening sky, rose a multitude
of tall chimneys, many of them reeking, a few smokeless
during a season of play. Here and there a pallid
patch and ghostly stunted beehive shapes showed the position of
a pot bank or a wheel. Black and sharp against
(10:19):
the hot lower sky marked some colliery, where they raised
the iridescent coal of the place. Nearer at hand was
the broad stretch of railway, and half invisible trains shunted
a steady puffing and rumbling with every run, a ringing
concussion and a rhynthic series of impacts, and a passage
of intermittent puffs of white steam across the further view,
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and to the left, between the railway and the dark
mass of the low hill beyond. Dominating the whole view, colossal,
inky black, and crowned with smoke and fitful flames, stood
the great cylinders of the Jetta Company blast furnaces, the
central edifices of the big iron works of which Horrocks
was the manager. They stood heavy and threatening, full of
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an incessant turmoil of flames and seething molten iron. And
about the feet of them rattled the rolling mills, and
the steam hammer beat heavily and splashed the white iron
sparks hither and thither. Even as they looked, a truckful
of fuel was shot into one of the giants, and
the red flames gleamed out, and a confusion of smoke
and black dust came boiling upwards towards the sky. Certainly,
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you get some color with your furnaces, said Rout, breaking
a silence that had become apprehensive. Horrocks grunted. He stood
with his hands in his pockets, frowning down at the dim,
steaming railway and the busy iron works beyond, frowning as
if he were thinking out some knotty problem. Rout glanced
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at him and away again. At present, your moonlight effect
is hardly ripe, he continued, looking upward. The moon is
still smothered by the vestiges of daylight. Horrocks stared at
him with the expression of a man who has suddenly
awakened vestiges of daylight. Of course, of course, he too
(12:10):
looked up at the moon, pale still in the midsummer sky.
Come along, he said, suddenly, and gripping Rout's arm in
his hand, made a move towards the path that dropped
from them to the railway. Rout hung back. Their eyes
met and saw a thousand things in a moment that
their lips came near to say. Horrocks's hand tightened and
(12:32):
then relaxed. He let go, and before Rout was aware
of it, they were arm in arm and walking one
unwillingly enough down the path. You see the fine effect
of the railway signals towards Burslem, said Horrocks, suddenly, breaking
into loquacity, striding fast and tightening the grip of his elbow.
(12:53):
The while little green lights and red and white lights
all against the haze. You have an eye for effect,
Rout it's fine. And look at those furnaces of mine,
how they rise upon us as we come down the hill.
That to the right is my pet, seventy feet of him.
I packed him myself, and he's boiled away cheerfully with
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iron in his guts for five long years. I've a
particular fancy for him. That line of red there, a
lovely bit of warm orange, you'd call it Rout. That's
the puddler's furnaces. And there in the hot light, three
black figures. Did you see the white splash of the
steam hammer. Then that's the rolling mills. Come along, clang, clatter,
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How it goes, rattling across the floor sheet tin Rout,
amazing stuff. Glass mirrors are not in it. When that
stuff comes from the mill, and squelch, There goes the
hammer again. Come along. He had to stop talking to
catch at his breath. His arm twisted into Routs with
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benumbing tightness. He had come striding down the black path
towards the railway, as though he was possessed. Rout had
not spoken a word, had simply hung back against Horrocks's
pull with all his strength, I say, he said, now,
laughing nervously, but with an undertone of snarl in his voice.
(14:24):
Why on earth are you nipping my arm off, Horrocks
and dragging me along like this? At length, Horrocks released him,
his manner changed again, nipping your arm off? He said, sorry,
But it's you taught me the trick of walking in
that friendly way. You haven't learned the refinements of it yet, then,
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said Rout, laughing artificially again. By Jove, I'm black and blue.
Horrocks offered no apology. They stood now near the bottom
of the hill, close to the fence that bordered the railway.
The iron works had grown larger and spread out with
their approach. They looked up to the blast furnaces now
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instead of down. The further view of Etruria and Hanley
had dropped out of sight with their descent. Before them,
by the style rose a notice board bearing, still dimly
visible the words beware of the trains, half hidden by
splashes of coally mud fine effects, said Horocs, waving his arm.
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Here comes a train, the puffs of smoke, the orange glare,
the round eye of light in front of it, the
melodious rattle, fine effects. But these furnaces of mine used
to be finer before we shoved cones in their throats
and save the gas, how said Rout, Cones, cones, my man, cones.
(16:00):
I'll show you one nearer. The flames used to flare
out of the open throats. Great, what is it? Pillars
of cloud by day, red and black smoke, and pillars
of fire by night. Now we run it off in
pipes and burn it to heat the blast and the
top is shut by a cone. You'll be interested in
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that cone. But every now and then, said Rout, you
get a burst of fire and smoke up there. The
cone's not fixed. It's hung by a chain from a
lever and balanced by an equipoise. You shall see it nearer. Else,
of course there'd be no way of getting fuel into
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the thing. Every now and then the cone dips and
out comes the flare. I see, said Rout. He looked
over his shoulder. The moon gets brighter, he said. Come along,
said Horrocks, abruptly, gripping his shoulder again and moving him
suddenly towards the railway crossing. And then came one of
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those swift incidents, vivid but so rapid that they leave
one doubtful unreeling half way across Horrocks's hand suddenly clenched
upon him like a vice, and swung him backward, and
threw a half turn so that he looked up the line,
and there a chain of lamp lit carriage windows telescoped
swiftly as it came towards them, and the red and
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yellow lights of an engine grew larger and larger, rushing
down upon them. As he grasped what this meant, he
turned his face to Horrocks and pushed with all his
strength against the arm that held him back between the rails.
The struggle did not last a moment. Just as certain
as it was that Horrocks held him there, so certain
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was it that he had been violently lugged out of danger.
Out of the way, said Horrocks, with a gasp, as
the train came rattling by, and they stood panting by
the gate into the iron works. I did not see
it coming, said Rout, still even in spite of his
own apprehensions, trying to keep up an appearance of ordinary intercourse.
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Horrocks answered with a grunt. The cone, he said, And then,
as one who recovers himself, I thought you did not
hear I didn't, said Rout, I wouldn't have had you
run over then, for the world, said Horrocks. For a
moment I lost my nerve, said Rout. Horrocks stood for
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half a minute, then turned abruptly towards the iron works again.
See how fine these great mounds of mine, these clinker heaps.
Look in the night that truck yonder up above there,
Up it goes and out tilts the slag. See the
palpitating red stuff go sliding down the slope. As we
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get nearer, the heap rises up and cuts the blast furnaces.
See the quiver up above the big one. Not that way,
this way between the heaps, that goes to the puddling furnaces.
But I want to show you the canal first. He
came and took Rout by the elbow, and so they
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went along side by side. Rout answered Horrocks vaguely what
he asked himself. Had really happened on the line? Was
he deluding himself with his own fancies? Or had Horrocks
actually held him back in the way of the train.
Had he just been within an ace of being murdered.
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Suppose this slouching, scowling monster did know anything. For a
minute or two. Then Rout was really afraid for his life.
But the mood passed as he reasoned with himself. After all,
Horrocks might have heard nothing. At any rate, he had
pulled him out of the way in time. His odd
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manner might be due to the mere vague jealousy he
had shown once before. He was talking now of the
ash heap and the canal, A said Horrocks, What said Rout,
Rather the haze in the moonlight? Fine, our canal, said Horrocks, stopping. Suddenly,
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our canal by moonlight and firelight is immense. You've never
seen it. Fancy that you've spent too many of your
evenings for landering up in Newcastle. There, I tell you,
for real florid quality. But you shall see boiling water.
As they came out of the labyrinth of clinker heaps
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and mounds of coal and ore, the noises of the
rolling mill sprang upon them. Suddenly, loud, near and distinct.
Three shadowy workmen went by and touched their caps to Horrocks.
Their faces were vague in the darkness. Rout felt a
feudal impulse to address them, and before he could frame
his words, they passed into the shadows. Horrocks pointed to
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the canal close before them, now a weird looking place,
it seemed, in the blood red reflections of the furnaces.
The hot water that cooled the tweears came into it
some fifty yards up, a tumultuous, almost boiling affluent, and
the steam rose up from the water in silent white
wisps and streaks, wrapping damply about them, an incessant succession
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of ghosts coming up from the black and red eddies,
a white uprising that made the head swim. The shining
black tower of the larger blast furnace rose overhead out
of the mist, and its tumultuous riot filled their ears.
Rout kept away from the edge of the water and
watched Horrocks. Here it is red, said horrocks, blood red vapor,
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as red and hot as sin, but yonder there where
the moonlight falls on it and it drives across the
clinker heaps. It is as white as death. Rout turned
his head for a moment, and then came back hastily
to his watch. On Horrocks, come along to the rolling mills,
said Horrocks. The threatening hold was not so evident that time,
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and Rout felt a little reassured, But all the same,
what on earth did Horrocks mean about white as death
and red as sin? Coincidence? Perhaps? They went and stood
behind the puddlers for a little while, and then through
the rolling mills, where, amidst an incessant din the deliberate
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steam hammer beat the juice out of the succulent iron,
and black half naked titans rushed the plastic bars like
hot sealing wax between the wheels. Come on, set Horrocks
in Rout's ear, and they went and peeped through the
little glass hole behind the tweeres, and saw the tumbled
fire writhing in the pit of the blast furnace. It
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left one I blinded for a while. Then, with green
and blue patches dancing across the dark, they went to
the lift by which the trucks of ore and fuel
and lime were raised to the top of the big cylinder,
and out upon the narrow rail that overhung the furnace.
Route's doubts came upon him again. Was it wise to
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be here? If Horrocks did know everything, do what he would,
he could not resist. A violent trembling right under foot
was a sheer depth of seventy feet. It was a
dangerous place. They pushed by a truck of fuel to
get to the railing that crowned the thing. The reek
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of the furnace, a sulfurious vapor streaked with pungent bitterness,
seemed to make the distant hillside of Hanley quiver. The
moon was riding out now from among a drift of
clouds half way up the sky, above the undulating wooded
outlines of Newcastle. The steaming canal ran away from below
them under an indistinct bridge and vanished into the dim
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haze of the flat fields towards Burslem. That's the cone
I've been telling you of, shouted Horrocks, and below that
sixty feet of fire and molten metal, with the air
of the blast frothing through it like gas in soda water.
Rout gripped the hand rail tightly and stared down at
the cone. The heat was intense, The boiling of the
(24:18):
iron and the tumult of the blast made a thunderous
accompaniment to Horrocks's voice. But the thing had to be
gone through now, perhaps after all, in the middle bald
Horrocks temperature near a thousand degrees. If you were dropped
into it, flash into flame like a pinch of gunpowder
in a candle. Put your hand out and feel the
(24:42):
heat of his breath. Why even up here, I've seen
the rain water boiling off the trucks, and that cone there,
it's a damned sight. Too hot for roasting cakes. The
top side of its three hundred degrees. Three hundred degrees,
said Rout, three hundred centigrade, mind, said Horrocks. It will
(25:08):
boil the blood out of you in no time, ay,
said Rout, and turned boil the blood out of you
in No, you don't let me go, screamed Rout. Let
go my arm. With one hand, he clutched at the
hand rail, then with both. For a moment the two
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men stood swaying. Then suddenly, with a violent jerk, Horrocks
had twisted him from his hold. He clutched at Horocks
and mist his foot went back into empty air. In
mid air, he twisted himself and then cheek and shoulder
and knee struck the hot cone. Together. He clutched the
chain by which the cone hung, and the thing sank
(25:53):
an infinitesimal amount. As he struck it, a circle of
glowing red appeared about him, and a tongue of flame
so least from the chaos within, flickered up towards him.
An intense pain assailed him at the knees, and he
could smell the singing of his hands. He raised himself
to his feet and tried to climb up the chain,
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and then something struck his head. Black and shining with
the moonlight, the throat of the furnace rose about him.
Horrocks he saw stood above him by one of the
trucks of fuel on the rail. The gesticulating figure was
bright and white in the moonlight and shouting, fizzle, you fool, fizzle,
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you hunter of women, you hot blooded hound. Boil, Boil boil.
Suddenly he caught up a handful of coal out of
the truck and flung it deliberately, lump after lump at
Rout Horrocks, cried, Rout, Horrocks. He clung, crying to the chain,
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pulling himself up from the burning of the cone. Each
missile Horrocks flung hit him. His clothes charred and glowed,
and as he struggled, the cone dropped, and a rush
of hot, suffocating gas hooped out and burned round him.
In a swift breath of flame, his human likeness departed
from him. When the momentary red had passed, Horrocks saw
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a charred, blackened figure, its head streaked with blood, still
clutching and fumbling with the chain and writhing in agony,
A sindery animal, an inhuman, monstrous creature that began a sobbing,
intermittent shriek abruptly at the sight. The iron Master's anger passed,
A deadly sickness came upon him. The heavy odor of
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burning flesh came drifting up to his nostrils. His sanity
returned to him. God, have mercy upon me, he cried, O, God,
what have I done? He knew the thing below him,
save that it still moved, and felt was already a
dead man, that the blood of the poor wretch must
(28:08):
be boiling in his veins. An intense realization of that
agony came to his mind, and overcame every other feeling.
For a moment he stood irresolute, and then, turning to
the truck, he hastily tilted its contents upon the struggling
thing that had once been a man. The mass fell
with a thud and went radiating over the cone. With
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the thud, The shriek ended, and a boiling confusion of smoke,
dust and flame came rushing up towards him. As it passed,
he saw the cone clear again. Then he staggered back
and stood trembling, clinging to the rail with both hands.
His lips moved, but no words came to them. Down
(28:54):
below was the sound of voices and running steps. The
clangor of rolling in the shed ceased. Abrupt play
H. G. Wells The Cone, published in eighteen ninety five.
The night was hot and overcast, the sky red rimmed
with the lingering sunset of midsummer. They sat at the
open window, trying to fancy the air was fresher. There.
The trees and shrubs of the garden stood stiff and dark.
(00:22):
Beyond in the roadway, a gas lamp burnt bright orange
against the hazy blue of the evening. Farther were the
three lights of the railway signal against the lowering sky.
The man and woman spoke to one another in low tones.
He does not, suspect, said the man, a little nervously.
(00:44):
Not he, she said, peevishly, as though that too irritated her.
He thinks of nothing but the works and the prices
of fuel. He has no imagination, no poetry. None of
these men of iron have, he said, so contentiously. They
have no hearts. He has not, she said. She turned
(01:07):
her discontented face towards the window. The distant sound of
a roaring and rushing drew nearer and grew in volume.
The house quivered, one heard the metallic rattle of the tender.
As the train passed. There was a glare of light
above the cutting, and a driving tumult of smoke. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
(01:29):
eight black oblongs. Eight trucks passed across the dim gray
of the embankment, and were suddenly extinguished one by one
in the throat of the tunnel, which with the last
seemed to swallow down train, smoke and sound in one
abrupt gulp. This country was all fresh and beautiful once,
he said, and now it is Gehenna down that way,
(01:53):
nothing but pot banks and chimneys, belching fire and dust
into the face of heaven. But what does it matter?
An end comes, an end to all this cruelty. Tomorrow,
he spoke, the last word, in a whisper. Tomorrow, she said,
speaking in a whisper, too, and still staring out of
(02:13):
the window. Dear, he said, putting his hand on hers.
She turned with a start, and their eyes searched one another's.
Hers softened to his gaze, My dear one, she said,
And then it seems so strange that you should have
come into my life like this. To open she paused,
(02:38):
to open, he said, all this wonderful world. She hesitated,
and spoke still more softly, this world of love to me.
Then suddenly the door clicked and closed. They turned their heads,
and he started violently. Back. In the shadow of the
room stood a great shadowy figure sigh Island. They saw
(03:01):
the face dimly in the half light, with unexpressive dark
patches under the penthouse brows. Every muscle in Rout's body
suddenly became tense. When could the door have opened? What
had he heard? Had he heard all? What had he seen?
A tumult of questions. The newcomer's voice came at last,
(03:25):
after a pause that seemed interminable. Well, he said, I
was afraid I had missed you, Horrocks, said the man
at the window, gripping the window ledge with his hand.
His voice was unsteady. The clumsy figure of Horrocks came
forward out of the shadow. He made no answer to
(03:47):
Rout's remark. For a moment he stood above them. The
woman's heart was cold within her. I told mister Rout,
it was just possible you might come back, she said,
in a voice that never quivered. Horrocks, still silent, sat
down abruptly in the chair by her little work table.
(04:08):
His big hands were clenched. One saw now the fire
of his eyes under the shadow of his brows. He
was trying to get his breath. His eyes went from
the woman he had trusted to the friend he had trusted,
and then back to the woman. By this time and
for the moment, all three half understood one another, Yet
(04:28):
none dared say a word to ease the pent up
things that choked them. It was the husband's voice that
broke the silence. At last, you wanted to see me,
he said to Rout. Rout started as he spoke. I
came to see you, he said, resolved to lie to
the last, Yes, said Horrocks. You promised, said Rout, to
(04:54):
show me some fine effects of moonlight and smoke. I
promised to show you some fine effects of moonlight and smoke,
repeated Horrocks, in a colorless voice. And I thought I
might catch you to night before you went down to
the works, proceeded Rout, and come with you. There was
another pause. Did the man mean to take the thing coolly?
(05:17):
Did he, after all, know how long had he been
in the room. Yet, even at the moment when they
heard the door their attitudes. Horrocks glanced at the profile
of the woman, shadowy pallid in the half light. Then
he glanced at Rout and seemed to recover himself. Suddenly,
of course, he said, I promised to show you the
(05:40):
works under their proper dramatic conditions. It's odd how I
could have forgotten if I am troubling you, began Rout.
Horrocks started again. A new light had suddenly come into
the sultry gloom of his eyes. Not in the least,
he said. Have you been telling, mister Rout, of all
(06:01):
these contrasts of flame and shadow? You think so splendid?
Said the woman, turning now to her husband for the
first time, her confidence creeping back again, her voice just
one half note too high. That dreadful theory of yours,
that machinery is beautiful and everything else in the world ugly.
I thought he would not spare you, mister Rout. It's
(06:23):
his great theory, his one discovery in art. I am
slow to make discoveries, said Horrocks, grimly, damping her suddenly.
But what I discover? He stopped. Well, she said nothing,
and suddenly he rose to his feet. I promised to
(06:45):
show you the works, he said to Rout, and put
his big clumsy hand on his friend's shoulder. And you
are ready to go, quite, said Rout and stood up. Also,
there was another pause. Each of them peered through the
indistinctness of the dusk at the other two. Horrock's hand
(07:06):
still rested on Raut's shoulder. Rout half fancied still that
the incident was trivial after all. But Missus Horrocks knew
her husband better. Knew that grim quiet in his voice
and the confusion in her mind took a vague shape
of physical evil. Very well, said Horrocks, and dropping his hand,
(07:27):
turned towards the door. My hat. Rout looked round in
the half light. That's my work basket, said Missus Horrocks,
with a gust of hysterical laughter. Their hands came together
on the back of the chair. Here it is, he said.
She had an impulse to warn him in an undertone,
(07:48):
but she could not frame a word. Don't go and
beware of him, struggled in her mind, and the swift
moment passed. Got it, said Horrocks. Standing with the door
half open, Rout stepped towards him. Better say good bye
(08:08):
to Missus Horrocks, said the iron master, even more grimly
quiet in his tone than before. Rout started and turned
good evening. Missus horrocks, he said, and their hands touched horrocks,
held the door open, with a ceremonial politeness unusual in
him towards men. Rout went out, and then, after a
(08:30):
wordless look at her, her husband followed. She stood motionless
while Rout's light footfall in her husband's heavy tread like
bass and treble, passed down the passage together. The front
door slammed heavily. She went to the window, moving slowly,
and stood watching, leaning forward. The two men appeared for
(08:52):
a moment at the gateway in the road, passed under
the street lamp, and were hidden by the black masses
of the shrubbery. The lamp light fell for a moment
on their faces, showing only unmeaning pale patches, telling nothing
of what she still feared and doubted and craved vainly
to know. Then she sank down into a crouching attitude
(09:13):
in the big arm chair, her eyes wide open and
staring out at the red lights from the furnaces that
flickered in the sky. An hour after she was still there,
her attitude scarcely changed. The oppressive stillness of the evening
weighed heavily upon route. They went side by side down
the road in silence, and in silence turned into the
(09:35):
cinder made byway that presently opened out the prospect of
the valley. A blue haze, half dust, half mist, touched
the long valley with mystery. Beyond were Hanley and Etruria,
gray and dark masses, outlined thinly by the rare golden
dots of the street lamps, And here and there a
gas lit window or the yellow glare of some late
(09:57):
working factory or crowded public house. Out of the masses,
clear and slender against the evening sky, rose a multitude
of tall chimneys, many of them reeking, a few smokeless
during a season of play. Here and there a pallid
patch and ghostly stunted beehive shapes showed the position of
a pot bank or a wheel. Black and sharp against
(10:19):
the hot lower sky marked some colliery, where they raised
the iridescent coal of the place. Nearer at hand was
the broad stretch of railway, and half invisible trains shunted
a steady puffing and rumbling with every run, a ringing
concussion and a rhynthic series of impacts, and a passage
of intermittent puffs of white steam across the further view,
(10:41):
and to the left, between the railway and the dark
mass of the low hill beyond. Dominating the whole view, colossal,
inky black, and crowned with smoke and fitful flames, stood
the great cylinders of the Jetta Company blast furnaces, the
central edifices of the big iron works of which Horrocks
was the manager. They stood heavy and threatening, full of
(11:03):
an incessant turmoil of flames and seething molten iron. And
about the feet of them rattled the rolling mills, and
the steam hammer beat heavily and splashed the white iron
sparks hither and thither. Even as they looked, a truckful
of fuel was shot into one of the giants, and
the red flames gleamed out, and a confusion of smoke
and black dust came boiling upwards towards the sky. Certainly,
(11:27):
you get some color with your furnaces, said Rout, breaking
a silence that had become apprehensive. Horrocks grunted. He stood
with his hands in his pockets, frowning down at the dim,
steaming railway and the busy iron works beyond, frowning as
if he were thinking out some knotty problem. Rout glanced
(11:48):
at him and away again. At present, your moonlight effect
is hardly ripe, he continued, looking upward. The moon is
still smothered by the vestiges of daylight. Horrocks stared at
him with the expression of a man who has suddenly
awakened vestiges of daylight. Of course, of course, he too
(12:10):
looked up at the moon, pale still in the midsummer sky.
Come along, he said, suddenly, and gripping Rout's arm in
his hand, made a move towards the path that dropped
from them to the railway. Rout hung back. Their eyes
met and saw a thousand things in a moment that
their lips came near to say. Horrocks's hand tightened and
(12:32):
then relaxed. He let go, and before Rout was aware
of it, they were arm in arm and walking one
unwillingly enough down the path. You see the fine effect
of the railway signals towards Burslem, said Horrocks, suddenly, breaking
into loquacity, striding fast and tightening the grip of his elbow.
(12:53):
The while little green lights and red and white lights
all against the haze. You have an eye for effect,
Rout it's fine. And look at those furnaces of mine,
how they rise upon us as we come down the hill.
That to the right is my pet, seventy feet of him.
I packed him myself, and he's boiled away cheerfully with
(13:16):
iron in his guts for five long years. I've a
particular fancy for him. That line of red there, a
lovely bit of warm orange, you'd call it Rout. That's
the puddler's furnaces. And there in the hot light, three
black figures. Did you see the white splash of the
steam hammer. Then that's the rolling mills. Come along, clang, clatter,
(13:41):
How it goes, rattling across the floor sheet tin Rout,
amazing stuff. Glass mirrors are not in it. When that
stuff comes from the mill, and squelch, There goes the
hammer again. Come along. He had to stop talking to
catch at his breath. His arm twisted into Routs with
(14:04):
benumbing tightness. He had come striding down the black path
towards the railway, as though he was possessed. Rout had
not spoken a word, had simply hung back against Horrocks's
pull with all his strength, I say, he said, now,
laughing nervously, but with an undertone of snarl in his voice.
(14:24):
Why on earth are you nipping my arm off, Horrocks
and dragging me along like this? At length, Horrocks released him,
his manner changed again, nipping your arm off? He said, sorry,
But it's you taught me the trick of walking in
that friendly way. You haven't learned the refinements of it yet, then,
(14:48):
said Rout, laughing artificially again. By Jove, I'm black and blue.
Horrocks offered no apology. They stood now near the bottom
of the hill, close to the fence that bordered the railway.
The iron works had grown larger and spread out with
their approach. They looked up to the blast furnaces now
(15:11):
instead of down. The further view of Etruria and Hanley
had dropped out of sight with their descent. Before them,
by the style rose a notice board bearing, still dimly
visible the words beware of the trains, half hidden by
splashes of coally mud fine effects, said Horocs, waving his arm.
(15:33):
Here comes a train, the puffs of smoke, the orange glare,
the round eye of light in front of it, the
melodious rattle, fine effects. But these furnaces of mine used
to be finer before we shoved cones in their throats
and save the gas, how said Rout, Cones, cones, my man, cones.
(16:00):
I'll show you one nearer. The flames used to flare
out of the open throats. Great, what is it? Pillars
of cloud by day, red and black smoke, and pillars
of fire by night. Now we run it off in
pipes and burn it to heat the blast and the
top is shut by a cone. You'll be interested in
(16:20):
that cone. But every now and then, said Rout, you
get a burst of fire and smoke up there. The
cone's not fixed. It's hung by a chain from a
lever and balanced by an equipoise. You shall see it nearer. Else,
of course there'd be no way of getting fuel into
(16:40):
the thing. Every now and then the cone dips and
out comes the flare. I see, said Rout. He looked
over his shoulder. The moon gets brighter, he said. Come along,
said Horrocks, abruptly, gripping his shoulder again and moving him
suddenly towards the railway crossing. And then came one of
(17:03):
those swift incidents, vivid but so rapid that they leave
one doubtful unreeling half way across Horrocks's hand suddenly clenched
upon him like a vice, and swung him backward, and
threw a half turn so that he looked up the line,
and there a chain of lamp lit carriage windows telescoped
swiftly as it came towards them, and the red and
(17:24):
yellow lights of an engine grew larger and larger, rushing
down upon them. As he grasped what this meant, he
turned his face to Horrocks and pushed with all his
strength against the arm that held him back between the rails.
The struggle did not last a moment. Just as certain
as it was that Horrocks held him there, so certain
(17:45):
was it that he had been violently lugged out of danger.
Out of the way, said Horrocks, with a gasp, as
the train came rattling by, and they stood panting by
the gate into the iron works. I did not see
it coming, said Rout, still even in spite of his
own apprehensions, trying to keep up an appearance of ordinary intercourse.
(18:08):
Horrocks answered with a grunt. The cone, he said, And then,
as one who recovers himself, I thought you did not
hear I didn't, said Rout, I wouldn't have had you
run over then, for the world, said Horrocks. For a
moment I lost my nerve, said Rout. Horrocks stood for
(18:30):
half a minute, then turned abruptly towards the iron works again.
See how fine these great mounds of mine, these clinker heaps.
Look in the night that truck yonder up above there,
Up it goes and out tilts the slag. See the
palpitating red stuff go sliding down the slope. As we
(18:52):
get nearer, the heap rises up and cuts the blast furnaces.
See the quiver up above the big one. Not that way,
this way between the heaps, that goes to the puddling furnaces.
But I want to show you the canal first. He
came and took Rout by the elbow, and so they
(19:12):
went along side by side. Rout answered Horrocks vaguely what
he asked himself. Had really happened on the line? Was
he deluding himself with his own fancies? Or had Horrocks
actually held him back in the way of the train.
Had he just been within an ace of being murdered.
(19:33):
Suppose this slouching, scowling monster did know anything. For a
minute or two. Then Rout was really afraid for his life.
But the mood passed as he reasoned with himself. After all,
Horrocks might have heard nothing. At any rate, he had
pulled him out of the way in time. His odd
(19:53):
manner might be due to the mere vague jealousy he
had shown once before. He was talking now of the
ash heap and the canal, A said Horrocks, What said Rout,
Rather the haze in the moonlight? Fine, our canal, said Horrocks, stopping. Suddenly,
(20:18):
our canal by moonlight and firelight is immense. You've never
seen it. Fancy that you've spent too many of your
evenings for landering up in Newcastle. There, I tell you,
for real florid quality. But you shall see boiling water.
As they came out of the labyrinth of clinker heaps
(20:39):
and mounds of coal and ore, the noises of the
rolling mill sprang upon them. Suddenly, loud, near and distinct.
Three shadowy workmen went by and touched their caps to Horrocks.
Their faces were vague in the darkness. Rout felt a
feudal impulse to address them, and before he could frame
his words, they passed into the shadows. Horrocks pointed to
(21:03):
the canal close before them, now a weird looking place,
it seemed, in the blood red reflections of the furnaces.
The hot water that cooled the tweears came into it
some fifty yards up, a tumultuous, almost boiling affluent, and
the steam rose up from the water in silent white
wisps and streaks, wrapping damply about them, an incessant succession
(21:25):
of ghosts coming up from the black and red eddies,
a white uprising that made the head swim. The shining
black tower of the larger blast furnace rose overhead out
of the mist, and its tumultuous riot filled their ears.
Rout kept away from the edge of the water and
watched Horrocks. Here it is red, said horrocks, blood red vapor,
(21:48):
as red and hot as sin, but yonder there where
the moonlight falls on it and it drives across the
clinker heaps. It is as white as death. Rout turned
his head for a moment, and then came back hastily
to his watch. On Horrocks, come along to the rolling mills,
said Horrocks. The threatening hold was not so evident that time,
(22:10):
and Rout felt a little reassured, But all the same,
what on earth did Horrocks mean about white as death
and red as sin? Coincidence? Perhaps? They went and stood
behind the puddlers for a little while, and then through
the rolling mills, where, amidst an incessant din the deliberate
(22:30):
steam hammer beat the juice out of the succulent iron,
and black half naked titans rushed the plastic bars like
hot sealing wax between the wheels. Come on, set Horrocks
in Rout's ear, and they went and peeped through the
little glass hole behind the tweeres, and saw the tumbled
fire writhing in the pit of the blast furnace. It
(22:52):
left one I blinded for a while. Then, with green
and blue patches dancing across the dark, they went to
the lift by which the trucks of ore and fuel
and lime were raised to the top of the big cylinder,
and out upon the narrow rail that overhung the furnace.
Route's doubts came upon him again. Was it wise to
(23:12):
be here? If Horrocks did know everything, do what he would,
he could not resist. A violent trembling right under foot
was a sheer depth of seventy feet. It was a
dangerous place. They pushed by a truck of fuel to
get to the railing that crowned the thing. The reek
(23:32):
of the furnace, a sulfurious vapor streaked with pungent bitterness,
seemed to make the distant hillside of Hanley quiver. The
moon was riding out now from among a drift of
clouds half way up the sky, above the undulating wooded
outlines of Newcastle. The steaming canal ran away from below
them under an indistinct bridge and vanished into the dim
(23:54):
haze of the flat fields towards Burslem. That's the cone
I've been telling you of, shouted Horrocks, and below that
sixty feet of fire and molten metal, with the air
of the blast frothing through it like gas in soda water.
Rout gripped the hand rail tightly and stared down at
the cone. The heat was intense, The boiling of the
(24:18):
iron and the tumult of the blast made a thunderous
accompaniment to Horrocks's voice. But the thing had to be
gone through now, perhaps after all, in the middle bald
Horrocks temperature near a thousand degrees. If you were dropped
into it, flash into flame like a pinch of gunpowder
in a candle. Put your hand out and feel the
(24:42):
heat of his breath. Why even up here, I've seen
the rain water boiling off the trucks, and that cone there,
it's a damned sight. Too hot for roasting cakes. The
top side of its three hundred degrees. Three hundred degrees,
said Rout, three hundred centigrade, mind, said Horrocks. It will
(25:08):
boil the blood out of you in no time, ay,
said Rout, and turned boil the blood out of you
in No, you don't let me go, screamed Rout. Let
go my arm. With one hand, he clutched at the
hand rail, then with both. For a moment the two
(25:31):
men stood swaying. Then suddenly, with a violent jerk, Horrocks
had twisted him from his hold. He clutched at Horocks
and mist his foot went back into empty air. In
mid air, he twisted himself and then cheek and shoulder
and knee struck the hot cone. Together. He clutched the
chain by which the cone hung, and the thing sank
(25:53):
an infinitesimal amount. As he struck it, a circle of
glowing red appeared about him, and a tongue of flame
so least from the chaos within, flickered up towards him.
An intense pain assailed him at the knees, and he
could smell the singing of his hands. He raised himself
to his feet and tried to climb up the chain,
(26:13):
and then something struck his head. Black and shining with
the moonlight, the throat of the furnace rose about him.
Horrocks he saw stood above him by one of the
trucks of fuel on the rail. The gesticulating figure was
bright and white in the moonlight and shouting, fizzle, you fool, fizzle,
(26:34):
you hunter of women, you hot blooded hound. Boil, Boil boil.
Suddenly he caught up a handful of coal out of
the truck and flung it deliberately, lump after lump at
Rout Horrocks, cried, Rout, Horrocks. He clung, crying to the chain,
(27:01):
pulling himself up from the burning of the cone. Each
missile Horrocks flung hit him. His clothes charred and glowed,
and as he struggled, the cone dropped, and a rush
of hot, suffocating gas hooped out and burned round him.
In a swift breath of flame, his human likeness departed
from him. When the momentary red had passed, Horrocks saw
(27:24):
a charred, blackened figure, its head streaked with blood, still
clutching and fumbling with the chain and writhing in agony,
A sindery animal, an inhuman, monstrous creature that began a sobbing,
intermittent shriek abruptly at the sight. The iron Master's anger passed,
A deadly sickness came upon him. The heavy odor of
(27:46):
burning flesh came drifting up to his nostrils. His sanity
returned to him. God, have mercy upon me, he cried, O, God,
what have I done? He knew the thing below him,
save that it still moved, and felt was already a
dead man, that the blood of the poor wretch must
(28:08):
be boiling in his veins. An intense realization of that
agony came to his mind, and overcame every other feeling.
For a moment he stood irresolute, and then, turning to
the truck, he hastily tilted its contents upon the struggling
thing that had once been a man. The mass fell
with a thud and went radiating over the cone. With
(28:32):
the thud, The shriek ended, and a boiling confusion of smoke,
dust and flame came rushing up towards him. As it passed,
he saw the cone clear again. Then he staggered back
and stood trembling, clinging to the rail with both hands.
His lips moved, but no words came to them. Down
(28:54):
below was the sound of voices and running steps. The
clangor of rolling in the shed ceased. Abrupt play
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