ds are
earnestly busy in laying bare what is beneath; while scores of men,
women, and children are silently and earnestly looking on. One has
just brought out a ball of stone, or something like stone, about the
size of a man's hand, known among the quarrymen as 'a fairy ball;' it
is composed of a hard crust, like rusted iron, which, on being broken,
is found to contain a yellow shining metal of various shapes and
sizes--grains, octohedrons, cubes, and their allied forms, as is the
case with gold; and what else can it be but the precious metal, thinks
the finder, as he places it in his receptacle, and applies himself
anew to his vocation. In a little while he stumbles on another of
these balls, as big as a man's hat, which he breaks, and opens with
increasing eagerness; when, lo! it is as empty as a 'deaf nut'--the
water which percolated through the shale having rusted the iron that
goes to form the crust along with the ochre, but failed, as in the
previous case, to form crystals in the interior. A third, fourth, and
fifth are found to be as hollow as the last, and the 'digger' begins
to look a little crestfallen, and abate his eagerness.

But here is an Irishman, who has been vastly more lucky, dancing a
jig, with a footless stocking near him, tied at each end, packed as
full as it can hold of 'the fine stuff,' as he calls it, while with
wonderful agility he flourishes a heavy pickaxe and spade over his
head, and screams at the highest pitch of his voice: 'Sure, now, and
isn't my fortune made!' By and by, getting at once hoarse and tired,
he desists from his exertions, and entreats a boy near him 'to go into
the bog beyont there, and get him some poteen, which he is sure is
making in the stills among the turf;' offering him at the same time a
lump of his 'treasure' as payment for his trouble.

Here is a tall, grave, shrewd-looking man, very like an elder of the
kirk, throwing away part of his accumulation, but somewhat stealthily
retaining a portion in the large cotton handkerchief in which he had
placed it, while a respectable-looking woman is saying to him: 'John,
the minister says, it's no gold, but only brimstone.' To which he
answers, with an audible sigh: 'Well hath the wise man said, all is
vanity and vexation of spirit.' Here is a strong-built but
lumpish-looking fellow, seemingly a ploughman or day-labourer, leaving
the scene of action in evident disgust, who, on being asked if he had
been successful, answers