earnest
or in jest that you have been talking all this while, there is most
unquestionably, as no rational being will dispute, a number of
incomprehensible and marvellous things in the world."

Conrad, who in the mean time had been regaling himself with some
strong beer, and fancied he had gained a complete victory over his
unknown antagonist, was irritated by this rejoinder, and the more so
because the peasants, who had heard the conversation, were not capable
of undertaking the part of arbitrators.

"Heyday!" he now exclaimed; "you seem to me to be one of those people
who have hardly a notion as to what is marvellous or what natural.
Have you ever seen spirits with your own eyes, as I have? Have you
ever held conversations with goblins, with the little creatures that
go into and come out of the mountain-lord's great house there? Have
you ever seen metals and precious stones a-growing? or gold and silver
trees waving and tossing about, all alive and vegetating?"

"Do you believe then," asked the stranger, "that stones grow and
decay, that metals shoot up and propagate their species? Do you fancy
that the beds under the earth sprout up just like a potatoe-field?"

"I know nothing about potatoes and all such vermin!" cried Conrad in a
passion,--it being something new to him to have an unknown, and, as it
seemed, an insignificant person lord it over him: "But that metals and
rocks have life and motion in them every body is aware, that they grow
up and die away, and that, as there is sunshine and moonshine here
above, rain and mist, frost and heat, so there are vapours and blasts
there below, which burst in and rush out, and boil invisibly in the
dark there, and mould themselves into shape. One of these blasts will
curdle into a mist, and then it trickles down, and intermarries with
the essences of the hills and of the regions under the earth; and
according to the course and form the steam takes then, it begets
metals or stones, it quickens into silver or gold, or runs along as
iron and copper branching out or cleft asunder in veins that strike
far and near."

"What then, are you so far behind all the rest of the world here!"
asked the stranger with every mark of astonishment. "O my good friend,
with your leave, ever since the creation, or at all events ever since
the deluge, the mountains, and stones, and rocks, and metals, and
gems, have been lockt up in their houses and never gadded abroad. We
dig and delve in her