answered the guide; "a poor lad, who ran away from the mines a great
long while ago." "Are you sure that he ran away?" said the gentleman.
"Yes," answered the guide, "sure and certain I am of that." "Not at all
sure and certain of any such thing," cried one of the oldest of the
miners, who interrupted the guide, and then related all that he knew,
all that he had heard, and all that he imagined and believed concerning
the sudden disappearance of Jervas; concluding by positively assuring
the stranger that the ghost of the said Jervas was often seen to walk,
slowly, in the long west gallery of the mine, with a blue taper in his
hand.--"I will take my Bible oath," added the man, "that about a month
after he was missing, I saw the ghost just as the clock struck twelve,
walking slowly, with the light in one hand, and a chain dragging after
him in t'other; and he was coming straight towards me, and I ran away
into the stables to the horses; and from that time forth I've taken
special good care never to go late in the evening to that there gallery,
or near it: for I never was so frightened, above or under ground, in all
my born days."

The stranger, upon hearing this story, burst into a loud fit of
laughter; and, on recovering himself, he desired the ghost-seer to look
stedfastly in his face, and to tell whether he bore any resemblance to
the ghost that walked with the blue taper in the west gallery. The miner
stared for some minutes, and answered, "No; he that walks in the gallery
is clear another guess sort of a person; in a white jacket, a leather
apron, and ragged cap, like what Jervas used to wear in his lifetime;
and, moreover, he limps in his gait, as Lame Jervas always did, I
remember well." The gentleman walked on, and the miners observed, what
had before escaped their notice, that he limped a little; and, when
he came again to the light, the guide, after considering him very
attentively, said, "If I was not afraid of affronting the like of a