timidity, yet half infected by it. "Come forward, and show
yourself, like a man, or I'll fling this chunk of marble at your
head!"

"You offer me a rough welcome," said a gloomy voice, as the
unknown man drew nigh. "Yet I neither claim nor desire a kinder
one, even at my own fireside."

To obtain a distincter view, Bartram threw open the iron door of
the kiln, whence immediately issued a gush of fierce light, that
smote full upon the stranger's face and figure. To a careless eye
there appeared nothing very remarkable in his aspect, which was
that of a man in a coarse brown, country-made suit of clothes,
tall and thin, with the staff and heavy shoes of a wayfarer. As
he advanced, he fixed his eyes--which were very bright--intently
upon the brightness of the furnace, as if he beheld, or expected
to behold, some object worthy of note within it.

"Good evening, stranger," said the lime-burner; "whence come you,
so late in the day?"

"I come from my search," answered the wayfarer; "for, at last, it
is finished."

"Drunk!--or crazy!" muttered Bartram to himself. "I shall have
trouble with the fellow. The sooner I drive him away, the
better."

The little boy, all in a tremble, whispered to his father, and
begged him to shut the door of the kiln, so that there might not