nd talking to heaven
about damnation, take it all away from me." A shadow moved across the
countryside, and he saw clouds rising out of the north. A sudden wind
swept through the still forest, and immediately the air was aflame with
rushing autumn leaves. They fell across Howat's face and eddied about
the horses' legs. The grey bank deepened in space, the sun vanished; the
wind was bleak. It seemed to Howat Penny that the world had changed,
its gold stricken to dun and gaunt branches, in an instant. The road
descended to the clustered stone houses about Shadrach Furnace.

The horses were left under the shed of the smithy at the primitive cross
roads. Thomas Gilkan had gone to the river about a purchase of casting
sand, but expected to be back for the evening run of metal. Fanny was
away, Howat learned, visiting Dan Hesa's family. They would, of course,
have dinner at the Heydricks; and the latter sent a boy home to prepare
his wife. Ludowika and Howat aimlessly followed the turning road that
mounted to the coal house. A levelled and beaten path, built up with
stone, led out to the top of the stack, where a group of sooty figures
were gathered about the clear, almost smokeless flame of the blast.
Below they lingered on the grassy edge of the stream banked against the
hillside and flooding smoothly to the clamorous fall and revolving wheel
by the wood shed that covered the bellows. Pointed downward the latter
spasmodically discharged a rush of air with a vast creasing of their
dusty leather. A procession of men were wheeling and dumping slag into a
dreary area beyond. There was a stir of constant life about the Furnace,
voices calling, the ringing of metal on metal, the creak of barrows,
dogs barking. The plaintive melody of a German song rose on the air.

Behind a blood red screen of sumach Howat again kissed Ludowika. Her
arms tightened about his neck; she raised her face to him with an
abandon that blinded him to the world about, and his entire being was
drawn in an agony of desire to his lips. She sank limply into his rigid
embrace, a warm sensuous burden with parted lips.

At the Heydricks he ate senselessly whatever was placed before him. The
house, solidly built of grey stone traced with iron, had two rooms on
the lower floor. The table was set before a fireplace that filled the
length of the wall, its mantel a great, roughly squared log mortared
into the stones on either side. Small windows opened through deep
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