and thrown in at the top. There was an opening at the bottom of the
tower, like an oven-mouth, but large enough to admit a man in a
stooping posture, and provided with a massive iron door. With the
smoke and jets of flame issuing from the chinks and crevices of this
door, which seemed to give admittance into the hillside, it resembled
nothing so much as the private entrance to the infernal regions, which
the shepherds of the Delectable Mountains[2] were accustomed to show
to pilgrims.

There are many such lime-kilns in that tract of country, for the
purpose of burning the white marble which composes a large part of the
substance of the hills. Some of them, built years ago, and long
deserted, with weeds growing in the vacant round of the interior,
which is open to the sky, and grass and wild flowers rooting
themselves into the chinks of the stones, look already like relics of
antiquity, and may yet be overspread with the lichens of centuries to
come. Others, where the lime-burner still feeds his daily and
night-long fire, afford points of interest to the wanderer among the
hills, who seats himself on a log of wood or a fragment of marble, to
hold a chat with the solitary man. It is a lonesome, and, when the
character is inclined to thought, may be an intensely thoughtful,
occupation; as it proved in the case of Ethan Brand, who had mused to
such strange purpose, in days gone by, while the fire in this very
kiln was burning.

The man who now watched the fire was of a different order, and
troubled himself with no thoughts save the very few that were
requisite to his business. At frequent intervals he flung back the
clashing weight of the iron door, and, turning his face from the
insufferable glare, thrust in huge logs of oak, or stirred the immense