“No, Pete, I can’t say that I do,” he chuckled. “It’s another of those things I guess I never really thought about”
“Wai, Bass, it ain’t so bad fer copper or brass—all it takes is a strong man with a steady hand on the pincers, so he don’t break or cut it after the firs’ lenth done been drawed, and bout the same thin’ goes fer sof iron. But when it comes to steel, buddy, thet’s a whole different bawlgame, I tell you! And thet’s why everbody here uses leaf springs or none atall and all the grips of the swords and dirks and all is wound with brass wire.”
“Nugai, face, bared torso, and arms sweat-shiny from the heat of the forge whereat Dan Smith was handling the strange tools to single out those that chanced to be to his liking for balance and weight, looked askance at the hanging-chairs, dies, and pincers, then remarked to Pete, “Ach, Meister Fairley, most primitive this iss.”
“Primitive?” yelped Pete. “Ever dang master smith in the damn Ridin’s done come to see it and they done swore it’s the bestes’ wire-drawing’ setup they ever seed.”
Nugai just sniffed, his flat, yellow-brown face inscrutable. “Yust so, Engelant a primitive country iss.”
“Well, goldurn it, lessee you do better, Mistuh Newgay!” Pete had demanded, stung in both personal and racial pride.
After wetting a dusty throat from Foster’s saddle bottle of brandy water, Pete went on with the tale. “Piss-pore thing bout drawin’ wire t’way it’s done here’bouts, Bass, is cain’t no man, no matter how strong he is, git no single drawin’ long-era a few inches shortern his own arm length, and thet means it’s allus some filin’ and smoothin’ down to do, speshly after the drawer starts on a-gettin’ tired.
“Wai, ol’ Newgay, he done fixted thet fer good and all, I tell you! Afore I hardly knowed whutall he wuz up to, he’d done took him a piecet of roun’ pole and some odds and ends and done made him a windlass-like. After he’d filed down the end of a brass rod, he had drawed hisself near three foot of wire on my ol’ setup, wrappted two, three inches of it rount a iron spike he’d done hammered in his pole, then he got on one crank and he got Dan Smith on t’other one and fore you could say ‘pee-rurkey,’ theyed done drawed thet whole, dang rod into the purtiest piecet of wire you ever set eyes to. Now ain’t thet suthin’, Bass?”
Without waiting for Foster to answer, Pete rushed on, saying, “Nother thang, too. While we all was a-workin’ on thet sword, Newgay tolt me how I could set up the workin’s of the Archbishop’s grist mill for a-drawin’ wire. After we was done and a-sertin’ in my office a-havin’ us some ale, him and me got to makin’ us up some drawings on it, and you know,
Bass, Fm rightly sure it’s gonna work. And the bestest part is, if I can make up iron gears and shafts and all, I’m dang sur thet hashup would draw steel wire, eny dang gauge^a body wants! And I’m a-gonna do ‘er, come nex’ winter, too.
CHAPTER 13
One day out of York, the rain commenced, never really hard but constant, day and night long, more than a week of it, turning roadside fields into shallow lakes and the roads themselves into treacherous quagmires pocked with seemingly bottomless pits of mud and filth, so that the leg of the journey from York to Leeds was one long travail—with both men and horses plastered with mud from top to bottom and end to end, camps cold for dearth of dry fuel, officers and other ranks shivering half sleepless through the dismal nights, while their bellies rumbled and complained at the wolfed-down chunks of hard bread, salt bacon, and sour, slimy cheese.
So woebegone and bedraggled was his command upon arrival in Leeds that Foster felt constrained to do that which he strongly disliked, though many commanders of royal forces had no such compunction and regularly exercised that right—he quartered his men upon the townsfolk and commandeered stables, barns, and vacant structures for his animals. Then, after a week of rest, recuperation, and warm food, he again took the road, anxious to reach the rendezvous near Manchester, marshal his squadrons, and proceed southeast to the siegelines still tight-drawn about London.