the
midday sun
For the whole of the sand-pit was full , right up to the very top , with new shining gold pieces , and all the little sand-martins ' little front doors were covered out of sight . Where the road for the carts wound into the gravel-pit the gold lay in heaps like stones lie by the roadside , and a great bank of shining gold shelved down from where it lay flat and smooth between the tall sides of the gravel-pit . And all the gleaming heap was minted gold . And on the sides and edges of these countless coins the midday sun shone and sparkled , and glowed and gleamed till the quarry looked like the mouth of a smelting furnace , or one of the fairy halls that you see sometimes in the sky at sunset . The children stood with their mouths open , and no one said a word . At last Robert stopped and picked up one of the loose coins from the edge of the heap by the cart-road , and looked at it . He looked on both sides .