Mr. Blase Pellet chanced to be standing at his shop-door, rubbing his hands on his white apron. He was an awkward-looking, under-sized, unfortunately-plain man, with very red-brown eyes, and rough reddish hair that stood up in bristles. When he caught sight of Frank, he backed into the shop, went behind the counter, and peeped out at him between two of the glass globes. "I wonder what he's come out to look at now?" debated Mr. Blase with himself. "_She_ can't be in the street! What a proud wretch he looks this morning!--with his fine curls, and that ring upon his finger!" "Twenty of them, at least, ready to go in!" mentally spoke Frank, his eyes fixed on the miners standing about the Golden Shaft. "And some of them will never come out all day." Frank went in to breakfast. The meal was laid in a small parlour, behind the best sitting-room, which was on the side of the passage opposite to the surgery, and faced the street. This back-room looked down on a square yard, and the bare open country beyond: to the mines and to the miners' dwelling-places. They lay to the right, as you looked out. To the left stretched a barren tract of land, called the Bare Plain--perhaps from its dreary aspect--which we shall come to by-and-by. Edina sat at the breakfast-table, her back to the window; Dr. Raynor sat opposite to her. Frank took his usual place between them, facing the cheerful fire. "If your coffee's cold, Frank, it is your own fault," said Edina, handing his cup to him. "I poured it out as soon as papa came in." "All right, Edina: it is sure to be warm enough for me," was the answer, as he took it and thanked her. He was the least selfish, the least self-indulgent mortal in the world; the most easily satisfied. "What a pity it is about the men:" exclaimed Edina to Frank: for this report of the Seven Whistlers had become generally known, and the doctor's maid-servant had imparted the news to Miss Raynor. "They will make it an excuse for two or three days' drinking." "As a matter of course," replied Frank. "It seems altogether so ridiculous. I have been saying to papa that I thought Josiah Bell had better sense. He may have taken more than was good for him last night; and fancied he heard the sounds." "Oh, I think he heard them," said the doctor. "Bell rarely drinks enough to cloud his faculties, And he is certainly not fanciful." "But how, Uncle Hugh," put in Frank, "you cannot seriously think that there's anything in it!" "Anything in what?" "In this superstition. Of course one can readily understand that a flock of birds may fly over a place by night, as well as by day; and that they may give out sounds and cries on the way. But that these cries should forebode evil to those who may hear them, is not to be credited for a moment." Dr. Raynor nodded. He was languidly eating an egg. For some time past, appetite had failed him.