to rattle down the side into the valley;
there was a small heap close by, and under a shed there was a man
breaking up some dirty wet stuff with a hammer.

That was all that was to see except some troughs to carry off dirty
water, and the rough framework and trap-doors over what seemed to be a
well.

"Why, Sep," said my father laughing, "how blank you look! Don't you
admire the mine?"

"Is--is this a silver mine, father?" I faltered.

"Yes, my lad, silver-lead. Doesn't look very attractive, does it?"

I shook my head.

"But is it going to be worth a great deal of money?"

"Yes, my boy; only wait and you'll see. But I suppose you expected to
see a hole in the earth leading down into quite an enchanted cave--eh?--
a sort of Aladdin's palace, with walls sparkling with native silver?"

"Well, not quite so much as that, father," I replied; "but I did expect
to find something different to this."

"So do most people when they go to see a mine, Sep, and they are
horribly disappointed to find that they have not used their common
sense. They know that if they dig down into the earth to make a well,
in twenty feet or so, perhaps less, they come to water; and it has never
occurred to them that if they dig down to form a mine, it must naturally
be a wet dark muddy hole just like this one upon which you look with so
much disgust. But wait a bit, my boy. We shall soon have furnaces at
work and be smelting our ore and converting some of it into silver.
There'll be more to see then. You don't care to go down?" he said,
leaning his hand upon a windlass over the trap-doors.

"Is there anything to see, father?" I said rather dolefully.

"To see! Well, there are the sides of a big well-like hole which you
can see from here. Look!"

He threw open a trap-door, and I gazed into a well-like place with a
couple of ropes hanging down it, and I noted that the walls were made of
the stone that had been dug and broken out. The place looked dark and
damp, and there was the trickling of dripping water. That was all.

"Well, Sep, what do you say?--will you go?"

"Is it all like this, father?" I said.

"Yes, precisely, my lad. Shall I have you let down?"

"No, thank you," I said; "I think I'll stop up."

He nodded and smiled, and after staying with him for a time while he
examined some of the ore that the man was breaking up he set me free,
but not till I had asked him how many men he had at work, and been told
that a