Bachelor Billy, pushing the cars out from the head, said to himself that he was glad Ralph was no longer picking slate. It was better that he should work in the mines. It was cool there in summer and warm in winter, and it was altogether more comfortable for the boy than it could be in the breaker; neither was it any more dangerous, in his opinion, than it was among the wheels and rollers of the screen-room. He had labored in the mines himself, until the rheumatism came and put a stop to his under-ground toil. He mourned greatly the necessity that compelled him to give up this kind of work. It is hard for a miner to leave his pillars and his chambers, his drill and powder-can and fuse, and to seek other occupation on the surface of the earth. The very darkness and danger that surround him at his task hold him to it with an unaccountable fascination. But Bachelor Billy had a good place here at the breaker. It was not hard work that he was doing. Robert Burnham had given him the position ten years and more ago. Even on this hot mid-summer day, the heat was less where he was than in any other part of the building. A cool current came up the shaft and kept the air stirring about the head, and the loaded mine-cars rose to the platform, dripping cold water from their sides, and that was very refreshing to the eye as well as to the touch. It was well along in the afternoon that Billy, looking out to the north-west, saw a dark cloud rising slowly above the horizon, and said to Andy Gilgallon, his assistant, that he hoped it would not go away without leaving some rain behind it. Looking at it again, a few minutes later, he told Andy that he felt sure there would be water enough to lay the dust, at any rate. The cloud increased rapidly in size, rolling up the sky in dark volumes, and emitting flashes of forked lightning in quick succession. By and by the face of the sun was covered, and the deep rumbling of the thunder was almost continuous. There was a dead calm. Not even at the head of the shaft could a particle of moving air be felt. "Faith! I don't like the looks o' it, Billy," said Andy Gilgallon, as a sharp flash cut the cloud surface from zenith to horizon, and a burst of thunder followed that made the breaker tremble. "No more do I," replied Bachelor Billy; "but we'll no' git scart afoor we're hurt. It's no' likely the buildin' 'll be washit awa'." "Thrue for ye! but this bit o' a steeple ud be a foine risting-place for the lightnin's fut, an' a moighty hot fut it has, too--bad 'cess to it!" The man had been interrupted by another vivid flash and a sharp crack of thunder. The mountains to the north and west were now entirely hidden, and the near hills were disappearing rapidly behind the on-coming storm of rain. Already the first drops were rattling sharply on the breaker's roof, and warning puffs of wind were beating gently against the side of the shaft-tower.