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Chap. vii]
THE NAILMAKER
243

especially of Richard Foley, it was found that the machinery would not act—at all events, it would not split the bars of iron. Again Foley disappeared. It was thought that shame and mortification at his failure had driven him away for ever. Not so! Foley had determined to master this secret of iron-splitting, and he would yet do it. He had again set out for Sweden, accompanied by his fiddle as before, and found his way to the iron works, where he was joyfully welcomed by the miners; and, to make sure of their fiddler, they this time lodged him in the very splitting-mill itself. There was such an apparent absence of intelligence about the man, except in fiddle-playing, that the miners entertained no suspicions as to the object of their minstrel, whom they thus enabled to attain the very end and aim of his life. He now carefully examined the works, and soon discovered the cause of his failure. He made drawings or tracings of the machinery as well as he could, though this was a branch of art quite new to him; and after remaining at the place long enough to enable him to verify his observations, and to impress the mechanical arrangements clearly and vividly on his mind, he again left the miners, reached a Swedish port, and took ship for England. A man of such purpose could not but succeed. Arrived amongst his surprised friends, he now completed his arrangements, and the results were entirely successful. By his skill and his industry he soon laid the foundations of a large fortune, at the same time that he restored the business of an extensive district. He himself continued, during his life, to carry on his trade, aiding and encouraging all works of benevolence in his neighbourhood. He founded and endowed a