Leaving this scene of motley labour, so novel and strange to an American eye, we continued our walk to Halesowen, an ancient town squatting down among the hills on the little Stour. Here hammers, from a thousand pounds to one in weight, make the picturesque valley echo with the heavy bass and sharp treble of their music night and day. The click of the nail-makers rather predominates in these iron voices of labour. The sun was fast declining in the west, so there was less time than I could have wished for visiting these little domestic workshops. We called in at one, however, and had a long talk with the woman at her anvil. She was the head of the establishment, and a cheery, pleasant-spoken mother of four children, two of which were twins. One of these she had set upon a piece of canvas on her forge, and it was looking very attentively at
"The burning sparks that fly
Like chaff from a threshing-floor."
Her husband was a collier, and she alone carried on the nail-making in the little shop, which is an apartment or addendum to every nailer's house as much as his kitchen. She could only be four days of the week at the forge, because, as she said, she had to "fettle" about the house, washing and mending for the family and doing other wife's work. Indeed, she remarked that
