Ralph Hardwick was the village blacksmith. His shop stood on the bank of the river, not far from the dam. The great wheel below the flume rolled all day, throwing over its burden of diamond drops, and tilting the ponderous hammer with a monotonous clatter. What a palace of wonders to the boys was that grim and sooty shop!--the roar of the fires, as they were fed by the laboring bellows; the sound of water, rushing, gurgling, or musically dropping, heard in the pauses; the fiery shower of sparkles that flew when the trip-hammer fell; and the soft and glowing mass held by the smith's tongs with firm grasp, and turning to some form of use under his practised eye! How proud were the young amateur blacksmiths when the kind-hearted owner of the shop gave them liberty to heat and pound a bit of nail-rod, to mend a skate or a sled-runner, or sharpen a pronged fish- spear! Still happier were they, when, at night, with his sons and nephew, they were allowed to huddle on the forge, sitting on the bottoms of old buckets or boxes, and watching the fire, from the paly blue border of flame in the edge of the damp charcoal, to the reddening, glowing column that shot with an arrowy stream of sparks up the wide-throated chimney. How the dark rafters and nail-pierced roof grew ruddy as the white-hot ploughshare or iron bar was drawn from the fire!--what alternations of light and shadow! No painter ever drew figure in such relief as the blacksmith presented in that wonderful light, with his glistening face, his tense muscles, and his upraised arm. Alas! the hammer is still; the wheel dashes no more the glittering spray; the fire has died out in the forge; the blacksmith's long day's work is done! He settled in Innisfield when it was but a district attached to a neighboring town. There were but three or four houses in the now somewhat populous village. He came on foot, driving his cow; his wife following in the wagon, with their little stock of household goods,--not forgetting his hammer, more potent than Prospero's wand. The minister, the doctor, and Squire Kinloch, who constituted the aristocracy, yielded precedence in date to Ralph Hardwick, Knight of the Ancient Order of the Anvil. So he toiled, faithful to his calling. By day the din of his hammer rarely ceased, and by night the flame and sparks from his chimney were a Pharos to all travellers approaching the town. Children were born to him, for which he blessed God, and worked the harder. He attained a moderate prosperity, secure from want, but still dependent upon labor for bread. At length his wife died; he wept like a true and faithful husband as he was, and thenceforth was both mother and father to his babes.