curled upward to a dizzy height and spread itself out against the sky.
Lying in the weird light of these chimneys, with here and there a gable
or a spire suddenly outlined in vivid purple, the huddled town beneath
seemed like an outpost of the infernal regions. Lynde, however, resolved
to spend the night there instead of riding on farther and trusting for
shelter to some farm-house or barn. Ten or twelve hours in the saddle
had given him a keen appetite for rest.

Presently the roar of flues and furnaces, and the resonant din of mighty
hammers beating against plates of iron, fell upon his ear; a few minutes
later he rode into the town, not knowing and not caring in the least
what town it was.

All this had quite the flavor of foreign travel to Lynde, who began
pondering on which hotel he should bestow his patronage--a question that
sometimes perplexes the tourist on arriving at a strange city. In
Lynde's case the matter was considerably simplified by the circumstance
that there was but a single aristocratic hotel in the place. He
extracted this information from a small boy, begrimed with iron-dust,
and looking as if he had just been cast at a neighboring foundry, who
kindly acted as cicerone, and conducted the tired wayfarer to the
doorstep of The Spread Eagle, under one of whose wings--to be at once
figurative and literal--he was glad to nestle for the night.




II

IN WHICH THERE IS A FAMILY JAR