It was a grinder of a certain low type, peculiar to Hillsborough, but quite common there, where grinders are often the grandchildren of grinders.

This degenerate face was more canine than human; sharp as a hatchet, and with forehead villainously low; hardly any chin; and--most characteristic trait of all--the eyes, pale in color, and tiny in size, appeared to have come close together, to consult, and then to have run back into the very skull, to get away from the sparks, which their owner, and his sire, and his grandsire, had been eternally creating.
This greyhound of a grinder flung down a lot of dull bluish blades, warm from the forge, upon a condemned grindstone that was lying in the yard; and they tinkled.
"-- -- me, if I grind cockney blades!" said he.
This challenge fired a sympathetic handle-maker.

"Grinders are right," said he.

"We must be a -- -- mean lot and all, to handle his -- -- work." "He has been warned enough; but he heeds noane." "Hustle him out o' works." "Nay, hit him o'er th' head and fling him into shore." With these menacing words, three or four roughs advanced on him, with wicked eyes; and the respectable workmen stood, like stone statues, in cold and terrible neutrality; and Henry, looking round, in great anxiety, found that Bayne had withdrawn.
He ground his teeth, and stepped back to the wall, to have all the assailants in the front.

He was sternly resolute, though very pale, and, by a natural impulse, put his hand into his side-pocket, to feel if he had a weapon.