ayed and
fluttered many-tinted flames that kept on waving and undulating as if
they were liquid, and swayed from side to side, giving forth with the
molten metal a glow that scorched my face.

For the first few seconds the molten metal had run off quickly and
filled the moulds; now what came was sluggish and not half so brilliant;
and I noticed that by a quick movement of a long iron rake one of the
men drew some of the earth and charcoal which formed the floor on one
side, so as to alter the course of the running molten contents of the
furnace, and instead of its passing into moulds it seemed to settle down
in a patch.

This, too, was most brilliant to the eye; and from it endless dazzling
coruscations darted up and played about, but for a much shorter period;
and in place of the ruddy glow of the metal, which rapidly cooled down
to look like silver, this last melting grew sombre and stony, ending by
looking of a blackish-grey.

I was still watching the fading away of the brilliant display, when
there was a familiar voice at the door of the building, and my father
stepped in to make inquiries about the running off of the molten ore,
and as he examined the result, he expressed his satisfaction.

"Mind!" he cried to me, as I was about to touch one of the ingots of
lead with my toes. "My good boy, these will not be cool enough to touch
yet. They retain the heat for a long while."

He stopped talking to me for some time, and explained how the men were
closing the bottom of the furnace again with fire-clay, and that they
would now go on pouring in at the top barrows full of charcoal and
broken-up ore. How that dark grey stuff was the molten stones and
refuse which remained after the metal had been cleared, and then he
laughed at what he called my innocence, as I asked him if the ingots, as
he called the square masses which now looked quite white, were silver.

"No, my boy," he said; "we are not so rich as that. If those pieces of
coarse metal, when melted down again, and submitted to a fresh process,
give us three pounds' weight of silver out of every hundred pounds of
lead we shall do well. Now then, would you like to go down the mine?"

He spoke as if he expected to hear me decline; but I had made up my mind
to go, and he looked quite pleased when he heard me say that I was
ready.

"Well," he said, as we reached the top of the shaft, "I'll go down
first, and you can follow. We can get candles at the bottom.