A ROUND

Lead ore lifted from a Cornish mine, married in a furnace to Cornish tin, their one flesh pewter, a barnacled plate salvaged from the ribs of a ship of the line, in Cape Town market sold for a florin, bartered for biltong in the Free State, a farmer's wedding present for his bride to shine, until - with the wagon-team taken, the farm in flames - she cried as he melted it down, tilting its gleam to the lips of his bullet-mould, one of whose slugs would open a seam in a Cornish miner's son.