sed with a radiance of unearthly beauty.

When the vessels have discharged all their precious liquid, the cauldron
into which the metal has been poured is swung in mid-air by that unseen,
effortless power which we know as hydraulic pressure, through the arc of
a wide circle, until it reaches the point where the great ingot-moulds
stand ready to receive the molten steel. Then the cauldron is tapped,
and once more the stream of turquoise flows forth, until the ladle is
empty and the moulds are filled to the brim with liquid fire. Such was
the work in which Job Hesketh was engaged, and it absorbed him body and
soul from year's end to year's end.

Job was a giant in stature and strength. Born on a farm in the very
heart of the Yorkshire wolds, he had drifted, as a boy of sixteen, to
Leeds, and had found the life and activities of the forge as congenial
as those of the farmstead. He had reached the age of fifty without
knowing a day's illness, and he would have been the first to admit that
fortune had smiled on him. His home life had been smooth, his wages had
been sufficient for his simple needs, and the good health that he
enjoyed was shared by his wife and five children. It is true that, in
spite of his long years of service, he had never risen to be a foreman;
but that, he knew quite well, was his own fault. During the summer
months his conduct at the forge was exemplary, but as soon as November
set in it was another matter. Fox-hunting was the passion of his life,
and with the fall of the leaf in the last days of October, Job grew
restless. He would eagerly scan the papers for news of the doings of the
Bramham Moor Hunt, and from the opening of the season to its close he
would play truant on at least one day a week. He knew every cover for
leagues around, and thought nothing of tramping six or eight miles to be
ready for the meet before following the hounds and huntsman all day on
foot across the stubble fields. In vain did foremen and works-managers
remonstrate with him; he promised to reform, but never kept his word.
The blood of many generations of wold farmers ran in his veins, and
everyone of them had been a keen sportsman. The cry of the hounds rang
in his dreams of a night, and when Mary Hesketh, lying by her husband's
side, heard him muttering in his sleep: "Tally-ho! Hark to Rover! Stown
away!" she knew that, when the hooter sounded at half-past five, it
would summon him, not to work, but to a day with the houn