Huntley, who had come out of the languid August afternoon, red in a glow of sunshine and heat, to which the very idea of long labor was alien, which accorded well enough with his own ambitious dreams and thoughts of sudden fortune--could not help feeling somehow as if Jaacob’s hammer, beneath the strokes of which the sparks flew, struck himself as well as the iron. Melmar dissipated into thin air, in the ruddy atmosphere of the smithy. The two darkling giants, large and small, moving about in the fierce glow of the firelight, the puff of the bellows, plied by an attendant demon, and the ceaseless clank of the hammer, all combined to recall to reality and the present, the thoughts of the dreaming lad. In this atmosphere the long labors of the Australian emigrant looked much more reasonable and likely than any sudden enrichment; and with the unconscious self-reference of his age, Huntley took no pains to find out what Jaacob meant, but immediately applied the counsel to his own case. “I suppose you’re very right, Jacob,” said Huntley; “but it’s hard work making a fortune; maybe it’s safer in the end than what comes to you from another man’s labors; but still, to spend a life in gathering money, is no very great thing to look forward to.” “Money!” said Jaacob, contemptuously. “Na, lad; if that’s your thought, you’re no’ in my way. Did you ever hear of a rich philosopher? ne’er a are have I heard tell o’, though I ken the maist of that fraternity. Money! na! it’s ideas, and no that sordid trash, that tempts me.” “And the mair fuil you!” said big John, half in chagrin, half in admiration. “You might have made your fortune twenty times over, if it hadna been for your philosophy.” “Whew!” whistled bowed Jaacob, with magnificent disdain; “what’s a’ the siller in the world and a’ its delichts--grand houses, grand leddies, and a’ the rest of thae vanities--to the purshuit of truth? That’s what I’m saying, callant--take every thing on trust because you’ve heard sae a’ your days, and your faither believed it before ye, gin ye please; but as for me, I’m no’ the man for sham--I set my fit, if a’ the world should come against me, on ideas I’ve won and battled for mysel’.” “When they’re as reasonable as the harrow, I’ve nae objection,” said big John; “but ilka man canna write his idies in wud and iron, Mr. Huntley. The like o’ that may be a’ very well for _him_, but it doesna answer you and me. Eh, man, but it’s warm! If it wasna that philosophy’s an awfu’ drouthy thing--and the wife comes down on me like murder when I get a gill--I wouldna say but it’s the best kind of wark for this weather. Ye’ll be goin’ up bye to the manse, Mr. Huntley. I hear they’re aye very well pleased to see onybody out of Norlaw; but ye maunna say ye’ve been here, for Jaacob and the minister, they’re at daggers drawn.”