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The shaft-tower of Burnham Breaker reached up so high from the surface of the earth that it seemed, sometimes, as if the low-hanging clouds were only a foot or two above its head. In the winter time the wind swept wildly against it, the flying snow drifted in through the wide cracks and broken windows, and the men who worked there suffered from the piercing cold.
He came to the foot of the hill and turned up the path to the breaker, looking up to the men in the shaft-tower as he hastened on, and waving his hand to them. "I believe it's Ralph," said Billy, "it surely is.
A man who was running toward the engine-room for shelter was blinded and stunned by the glare and crash, and fell to his knees. When he rose again and could use his eyes, he saw men and boys crowding from the building out into the pouring rain. But the breaker was on fire. Already the shaft-tower was wrapped in smoke and lighted with flame.
Already the first drops were rattling sharply on the breaker's roof, and warning puffs of wind were beating gently against the side of the shaft-tower. "I'm glad Ralph's no' workin' i' the screen-room," said Bachelor Billy, as he put up his hand to shield his eyes from the blinding glare. "It'd be a fearfu' thing to ha' the breaker hit." The fury of the storm was on them at last.
Beyond that, upon our left front, looms Fosse Eight, still surmounted by its battered shaft-tower. Right ahead, peeping over a low ridge, is a church steeple, with a clock-face in it. That is our objective. Next moment we have deployed into extended order, and step out, to play our little part in the great Battle of the Slag-Heaps.
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