They entered a great hall remarkable at first for a curious smell, not offensive, but strong and rather pungent. In it stood half-a-dozen enormous vats, closed by wooden slides, like shutters, fitting tightly. A man standing by opened one of these, and presently Angela was able to make out, through the volumes of steam, something bright going round, and a brown mess going with it.
"That is hops. Hops for the biggest brewery, the richest, in all England. And all belonging to a girl who, likely enough, doesn't drink more than a pint and a half a day."
"I dare say not," said Angela; "it must be a dreadful thing indeed to have so much beer, and to be able to drink so little."
He led the way upstairs into another great hall, where there was the grinding of machinery and another smell, sweet and heavy.
"This is where we crush the malt," said Mr. Bunker--"see!" He stooped, and picked out of a great box a handful of the newly-crushed malt. "I suppose you thought it was roasted. Roasting, young lady," he added with severity, "is for stout, not for ale!"
Then he took her to another place and showed her where the liquor stood to ferment; how it was cooled, how it was passed from one vat to another, how it was stored and kept in vats, dwelling perpetually on the magnitude of the business, and the irony of fortune in conferring this great gift upon a girl.
"I know now," she interrupted, "what the place smells like. It is fusel oil." They were standing on a floor of open iron bars, above a row of long covered vats, within which the liquor was working and fermenting. Every now and then there would be a heaving of the surface, and a quantity of the malt would then move suddenly over.
"We are famous," said Mr. Bunker; "I say _we_, having been the confidential friend and adviser of the late Mr. Messenger, deceased; we are famous for our Stout; also for our Mild; and we are now reviving our Bitter, which we had partially neglected. We use the artesian well, which is four hundred feet deep, for our Stout, but the company's water for our ales; and our water rate is two thousand pounds a year. The artesian well gives the ale a gray color, which people don't like. Come into this room, now"--it was another great hall covered with sacks. "Hops again, Miss Kennedy; now, that little lot is worth ten thousand pounds--ten--thousand--think of that; and it is all spoiled by the rain, and has to be thrown away. We think nothing of losing ten thousand pounds here, nothing at all!"--he snapped his fingers--"it is a mere trifle to the girl who sits at home and takes the profits!"