Tired with my two days' early rising, I did not get up until late. I
had nearly finished dressing, and was standing by my window, when I
heard a woman's voice calling me in muffled tones below.
My room looked to the back of the house, and the woman had come to the
inside of a thick fuchsia-hedge, which here divided the cottage, and its
tiny surroundings, from the road.
Looking out, I saw the under-viewer's wife, gazing up with clasped hands
and a white face.
"For the love of God, come down to me quietly, Miss Morgan."
The pain and anguish in the woman's face communicated part of her
intelligence to me. I knew there was great and urgent need for me to go
downstairs without anybody hearing. The immediate action which this
required, prevented my feeling any pain. I stood by the woman, looked
hard into her eyes, and said, "Well?"
"Dear heart, you must know it," she said, taking my hand. "Come with
me."
She almost pushed me before her through the little gate; when we got on
the high road, she began to run. I knew that she was going in the
direction of Pride's Pit. My strangely vivid dream returned to me.
Here was a solution of the mystery. I believed in dreams--this dream
was not accidental. It had been sent to me as a warning--it was true.
Owen had neglected to have the shaft, leading into Pride's Pit, filled
up, and the under-viewer's child had fallen a victim to this neglect.
The child had fallen down the old shaft. He was dead, and the mother
was bringing me now to show me face to face what my brother's
carelessness had effected. The life of a little child was sacrificed.
I was to see for myself what Owen had done. I felt sure of this. The
woman ran very fast, and I kept pace by her side. The distance was over
half a mile, and partly up-hill. When we came to the ascent, which was
rather steep, we could not go quite so quickly, and I had time to look
in the woman's face. It was hard and set, the lips very white, the eyes
very staring. She neither looked at me nor spoke. It came into my
heart that she was cruel, even though her child _was_ dead, to hurry me
forward without one word of warning: to show me, without any
preparation, what my brother had done. I would not be treated so. I
would not face this deed without knowing what I was to see. The instant
I made this resolution, I stood still.
"Stop!" I said. "I _will_ know all. Is the baby dead?"
The woman stood still also, pressing her hand on her labouring breast.
"Dear heart! she knows," she gasped. "Yes, yes, my dear--the baby's
dead."
I did not say I was sorry, nor a single word. I simply, after my
momentary pause, began to run harder than ever. We had now got in sight
of the pit, and I saw a little crowd of people about it. Some men in
their miners' dresses, a boy or two, a larger proportion of women. I
half expected the men, women, and children to curse me as I drew near.
We ran a little faster, and the woman's panting breath might have been
heard at some distance. Suddenly a boy caught sight of us, and
detaching himself from the group, ran to the woman's side.
"Does she know?" he exclaimed, catching her hand almost frantically.
"She must not see without knowing."
The boy, who spoke in a voice of agony, was Miles Thomas.
"Yes," replied the woman; "she guessed it herself. She knows that the
baby's dead."
"Thank God!" said the boy. I looked from one face to the other. I
could not help pitying myself, as though it were _my_ sorrow. I thought
the boy's tone the kindest--he should take me to see the murdered child.
Suddenly I changed my mind. Why should I need or look for compassion.
The mother had come all this way to punish me and mine--the mother's
just revenge should not be foiled. When we got into the group, I took
her hand.
"You shall show him to me," I said. "You shall show me your little dead
baby."
There was a pause on all sides--one or two people turned aside. I saw a
woman put her apron to her face, and heard a man groan. Every eye was
fixed on me, and, at the same moment, the under-viewer's wife and Miles
went on their knees, and began to sob.
"Oh! my darling; you are wrong--you have made a mistake," began the
woman.
"I _felt_ she did not, could not know," sobbed Miles.
The crowd opened a little more, and I went forward. Very near the mouth
of the old shaft, lying on a soft bed of grass and undergrowth, was a
woman--a woman with a face as white as death. I went up close to her,
and gazed at her steadily. Her face looked like death, but she was not
dead--a moan or two came through white lips. By the side of the woman,
stretched also flat, lay a child; his hat was thrown by his side, and
one little leg was bare of shoe and stocking. A white frock was also
considerably soiled, and even torn. I took in all these minor details
first--then my eyes rested on the face. I went down on my knees to
examine the face, to note its expression more attentively. On the brow,
but partly concealed by the hair, was a dark mark, like a bruise,
otherwise the face was quiet, natural, life-like. A faint colour
lingered in the cheeks; the lips were parted and smiling.
The woman was groaning in agony. The child was quiet--looking as a
child will look when he has met with a new delight. I laid my hand on
the little heart--it never stirred. I felt the tiny pulse--it was
still. The injured and suffering woman was Gwen. The dead baby was not
the under-viewer's child, but David's little lad.
I took no further notice of Gwen, but I kept on kneeling by the side of
the dead child. I have not the least idea whether I was suffering at
this moment; my impression is that I was not. Mind, body, spirit, were
all quiet under the influence of a great shock. I knew and realised
perfectly that little David was dead; but I took in, as yet, no
surrounding circumstances. Finding that I was so still, that I neither
sobbed nor groaned--in fact, that I did nothing but gaze steadily at the
dead child, the under-viewer's wife knelt down by my side, and began to
pour out her tale. She did this with considerable relief in her tone.
When she began to speak, Miles also knelt very close to me, and laid his
hand with a caressing movement on my dress. I was pleased with Miles'
affection--glad to receive it--and found that I could follow the tale
told by the under-viewer's wife, without any effort.
I mention all this just to show how very quiet I not only was in body,
but in mind.
"No, the shaft was never filled in," began the woman. "I waited day
after day, but it was never done; and little Ellen, and Gwenllynn, and
the baby, they seemed just from contrariness to h'always want to go and
look over the brink. And what made it more danger, was the brambles and
grass, and growth of h'all kinds, which from never being cut away, has
got thicker year by year; so that coming from that side," pointing west
with her finger, "you might never see the old shaft at all, but tumble
right in, and know nothing till you reach the bottom. Well, I was so
frighted with this, and the contrariness of the children, that finding
Mr Morgan had forgot again to have the shaft filled in, or closed
round, only last night I spoke to my husband, and begged him to cut away
some of the rankest of the growth, as it war, what it is, a sin and a
shame to have the shaft like a trap, unknown to folks; but my husband,
he war dead tired, and he knowed that I'm timmersome, so he only said,
`Let be, woman--let be.' And this morning he was away early--down to
the mine. Well," after a long pause, "I had done my bit o' work. I had
dressed the baby--bless him--and given Ellen and Gwenllynn their
breakfast, and I was standing by the house door, my eye on the old
shaft, and my mind set on the thought that I might put up a fence round
it myself, so as to ward off the children, when sudden and sharp--almost
nigh to me--I heard a woman scream, and looking, I saw a woman running
for her bare life, and screaming and making for my cottage; and she had
a child in her arms; and sudden, when I saw her, I knew who she was, and
why she was running. I knew she was the nurse of Squire Morgan's little
son, and that she had the child with her. I knew she had been to the
eye-well, for the cure of the sight of the baby, and that she was coming
by this short cut home. And she never knew that she'd have to pass
through the field with Mr Daniels' bull. Well, I saw her running, and
the bull after her, but he was a good way behind; and I thought she'd
reach the cottage. And I shouted out to encourage her; when all on a
heap, it flashed on me, that she was making straight for the shaft, and
that she'd be right down in the pit, if I couldn't stop her. Just then,
two men came up, and turned the bull aside, but she didn't know it, and
kept on running harder and harder. `Stop!' I shouted. `Stop! you'll
be down in the mine'; but she neither heeded nor heard me, and she went
right through the thicket and the underwood. I heard it cracking under
her feet. I saw her fall, and scream more piercing than h'ever."
Another pause from the narrator--then in a breathless kind of way, "I
war at the other side o' the pit in a twinkling. She had not gone
down--not quite. Her head was above the ground, and she was holding on
for bare life to a bit of underwood. She could only hold with one hand;
the other was round the child. In one second she'd have been down, for
the weight was too much, when I threw myself on my face and hands, and
grasped the baby's frock. `Hold the tree with both hands,' I said, `and
I'll keep the baby.' Poor soul! she looked up at me so anguish-like;
but she did what I bid her, or they'd both have gone down. I was
drawing up the baby, when a loose stone came tumbling--it was not much,
it but hit him sharp on the temple. He never cried out, but his head
dropped all on a sudden. When I got him to the top, he was dead. I
laid him on the bank, and just then the men who had turned away the
bull, came up, and they lifted the woman out of the shaft--one of her
legs was broke!"
The under-viewer's wife paused to wipe the moisture from her brow. Just
then little feet came pattering, and the living child of the
under-viewer, about whom I had grieved and dreamt, came up and looked
down at the dead child of my brother. The face of the living baby gazed
solemnly at the face of the dead baby. Nobody interrupted him, and he
sat down and put, half in play, as though expecting an answering touch,
his plump hand on the little hand that was still. At this moment there
was a commotion in the crowd, then profound stillness, then a giving way
on all sides, and a man's hasty footsteps passed rapidly through our
midst. Up straight to where the dead child was lying, the man came. He
bent his head a little--he saw no other creature. This man was Owen.
For about half a minute he was still. Then from his lips came one sharp
cry--the sharpest cry of anguish I ever heard from mortal lips--then he
rushed away.