Then something on the floor caught his attention: something bright, close by his feet.
Between his out-spread legs, as it seemed, a thin streak of silver was creeping along the flooring.

He rubbed his eyes, and looked again.
He was straddling across a stream of molten metal.
As Zeb caught sight of this, the stranger twirled, leapt a foot in the air, and came down smartly on the final note, with a click of his heels.
The music ceased abruptly.
A storm of clapping broke out, but stopped almost on the instant: for the stranger had flung an arm out towards the hearth-stone.
"A mine--a mine!" The white streak ran hissing from the heart of the fire, where a clod of earth rested among the ashen sticks.
"Witchcraft!" muttered one or two of the guests, peering forward with round eyes.
"Fiddlestick-end! I put the clod there myself.

'Tis _lead!_" "Lead ?" "Ay, naybours all," broke in Farmer Tresidder, his bald head bedewed with sweat, "I don't want to abash 'ee, Lord knows; but 'tis trew as doom that I be a passing well-to-do chap.

I shudn' wonder now"-- and here he embraced the company with a smile, half pompous and half timid-- "I shudn' wonder if ye was to see me trottin' to Parlyment House in a gilded coach afore Michaelmas--I be so tremenjous rich, by all accounts." "You'll excoose my sayin' it, Farmer," spoke up Old Zeb out of the awed silence that followed, "for doubtless I may be thick o' hearin', but did I, or did I not, catch 'ee alludin' to a windfall o' wealth ?" "You did." "You'll excoose me sayin' it, Farmer; but was it soberly or pleasantly, honest creed or light lips, down-right or random, 'out o' the heart the mouth speaketh' or wantonly and in round figgers, as it might happen to a man filled with meat and wine ?" "'Twas the cold trewth." "By what slice o' fortune ?" "By a mine, as you might put it: or, as between man an' man, by a mine o' lead." "Farmer, you're either a born liar or the darlin' o' luck." "Aye: I feel it.

I feel that overpowerin'ly." "For my part," put in Mrs.Jim Lewarne, "I've given over follerin' the freaks o' Fortune.