rom that is shaking yonder pane; I only know
that it is there."

"Nay, father, but _I_ know," said Harry, with a little blush at her own
erudition: "the Buccas are the ghosts of the old Jews who crucified our
Lord, and were sent as slaves by the Roman emperor to work the Cornish
mines."

"Very like," said Trevethick, approvingly, although probably without any
clear conception of the historical picture thus presented to him. "It's
the least they could do in the spirit, after having done so much
mischief in the flesh."

The contradiction involved in this exemplary remark, combined with the
absurdity of repentance taking the form of interest in mining
speculations, was almost too much for Richard's sense of humor; but he
only nodded with gravity, as became a man who was imbibing information,
and inquired further, whether, in addition to these favorers of
industry, there were any spirits who worked ill to miners.

"Well, I can't say as there are," said the landlord, with the air of a
man who can afford to give a point in an argument; "but there's a many
things not of this world that happen underground, leastway in _our_
mines, for Sol there is from the north, and it mayn't be the same in
those parts."

"It certainly is not," interrupted Solomon, taking his pipe out of his
mouth to intensify the positiveness of his position.

"I say," continued Trevethick, reddening, "that down in Cornwall here
there is scarce a mine without its spirit o' some sort. At Wheal Vor,
for example, a man and his son were once blown to pieces while blasting;
and, nothing being left of them but fragments of flesh, the engine-man
put 'em into the furnace with his shovel; and now the pit is full of
little black dogs. I've seen one of 'em myself."

Solomon laughed aloud.

Richard was expecting an explosion of wrath. The old man turned toward
him quietly, and observed with tender gravity: "And in a certain mine,
which Sol and I are both acquainted with, a white rabbit always shows
itself before any accident which proves fatal to man. It was seen on the
day that Sol's father sacrificed his life for mine." Then he told the
story which Richard had already heard from Harry's lips, while Solomon
smoked in silence, and Harry looked hard at the fire, as though--as
Richard thought--to avoid meeting the glance of her father's hereditary
benefactor.

"You are right to remember such a noble deed as long as you live," said
Richard, when the old man had