"If one on 'em should fall, I'm th' one as it had better fall on. There
is na mony foak as ud miss Joan Lowrie. Yo' ha' work o' yore own to do."
She stepped into the gallery before he could protest, and he could only
follow her. She went before, holding the Davy high, so that its light
might be thrown as far forward as possible. Now and then she was forced
to stoop to make her way around a bending prop; sometimes there was a
falling mass to be surmounted: but she was at the front still when they
reached the other end, without finding the object of their search.
"It--he is na there," she said. "Let us try th' next passage," and she
turned into it.
It was she who first came upon what they were looking for; but they did
not find it in the next passage, or the next, or even the next. It was
farther away from the scene of the explosion than they had dared to
hope. As they entered a narrow side gallery, Grace heard her utter a low
sound, and the next minute she was down upon her knees.
"Theer's a mon here," she said. "It's him as we're lookin' fur."
She held the dim little lantern close to the face,--a still face with
closed eyes, and blood upon it. Grace knelt down too, his heart aching
with dread.
"Is he--" he began, but could not finish.
Joan Lowrie laid her hand upon the apparently motionless breast and
waited almost a minute, and then she lifted her own face, white as the
wounded man's--white and solemn, and wet with a sudden rain of tears.
"He is na dead," she said. "We ha' saved him."
She sat down upon the floor of the gallery, and lifting his head, laid
it upon her bosom, holding it close, as a mother might hold the head of
her child.
"Mester," she said, "gi' me th' brandy flask, and tak' thou thy Davy an'
go fur some o' the men to help us get him to th' leet o' day. I'm gone
weak at last. I conna do no more. I'll go wi' him to th' top."
When the cage ascended to the mouth again with its last load of
sufferers, Joan Lowrie came with it, blinded and dazzled by the golden
winter's sunlight as it fell upon her haggard face. She was holding the
head of what seemed to be a dead man upon her knee. A great shout of
welcome rose up from the bystanders.
She helped them to lay her charge upon a pile of coats and blankets
prepared for him, and then she turned to the doctor who had hurried to
the spot to see what could be done.
"He is na dead," she said. "Lay yore hond on his heart. It beats yet,
Mester,--on'y a little, but it beats."
"No," said the doctor, "he is not dead--yet"; with a breath's pause
between the two last words. "If some of you will help me to put him on a
stretcher, he may be carried home, and I will go with him. There is just
a chance for him, poor fellow, and he must have immediate attention.
Where does he live?"
"He must go with me," said Grace. "He is my friend."
So they took him up, and Joan stood a little apart and watched them
carry him away,--watched the bearers until they were out of sight, and
then turned again and joined the women in their work among the
sufferers.
By permission of Charles Scribner's Sons.