The aforesaid Jed, dripping perspiration and stink, looked up from his anvil. ‘Look, it’s simple, you boils up the water, you boils it up really hot, and that drives the pistons and it’s them as turns the wheels. There ain’t really that much to it, apart from the oiling and the greasing. Oi reckon that stopping it once started’ll be the ’ardest thing to do.’

Crucible Wesley, considered by locals as the brains of the outfit, in so far as the outfit had any brains, was nervous about this and went on, ‘I know you were Blacksmith of the Year in Scrote three years running and got the silver cup that our mam’s so proud of, but oi dunno … Oi reckon there’s summat more to it’n that. Trade secrets and whatnot.’

Jed appeared to commune with the spirits for a while and then he announced, ‘Well, oi’ve got the boiler half done and that’s a fact. And oi reckon that if we takes it slowly there shouldn’t be nuffin’ to worry about. After all, oi seen steam coming out of Mam’s kettle, ’tis only wet air after all.’

He thumped the boiler standing on its makeshift pedestal next to his work bench with one enormous hand.

‘Come on, help me outside with this and us’ll give it a go … We can always shut her down if she looks like she’s turning on us and oi reckon oi can outsmart a bloody kettle.’

They carried the huge vessel outside, although, truth to tell, Jed proudly picked up most of the weight on his own. His brother watched in admiration and a certain amount of trepidation, or it would have been trepidation had he known the word existed. As it was he could feel sweat trickling down his back. He started edging away backwards and once again he tried to remonstrate with his elder brother.

‘Well, oi dunno, Jed, they was doing all those measurements and things like that with levers and suchlike and when it was hissing, it damn well hissed.’

‘Yeah, and it cost we a dollar to see it! Don’t ’ee worry about a slipping stick … like I said, oi reckon oi got more brains than a boiler! And if it gives oi any problem then I’ll hammer it out into horseshoes. Come on, I’ll get the fire going and you can help oi pump the bellows.’

After Crucible had managed to help his brother set the boiler up in the clean open air amongst the trees, he had one last stab at trying to crowbar some sense into the dialogue.

‘Oi reckon it’s too difficult, otherwise us’d hear about other folk doing it as well.’

But to his dismay this suggestion only served to make his brother even more determined to tame the steam, because the man said, tapping the side of his nose, ‘That’s because oi reckon they weren’t as clever as oi!’