He picked up a rather large stone and approached the wall.
“Be careful!” she enjoined him.
“Oh! It’s all right,” he said lightly. “Let’s listen. Come near and listen.”
She reluctantly obeyed, and he threw the stone over the dirty ruined wall, the top of which was about level with his hat. For two or three seconds there was no sound. Then a faint reverberation echoed from the depths of the shaft. And on Sophia’s brain arose dreadful images of the ghosts of miners wandering for ever in subterranean passages, far, far beneath. The noise of the falling stone had awakened for her the secret terrors of the earth. She could scarcely even look at the wall without a spasm of fear.
“How strange,” said Mr. Scales, a little awe in his voice, too, “that that should be left there like that! I suppose it’s very deep.”
“Some of them are,” she trembled.
“I must just have a look,” he said, and put his hands on the top of the wall.
“Come away!” she cried.
“Oh! It’s all right!” he said again, soothingly. “The wall’s as firm as a rock.” And he took a slight spring and looked over.
She shrieked loudly. She saw him at the distant bottom of the shaft, mangled, drowning. The ground seemed to quake under her feet. A horrible sickness seized her. And she shrieked again. Never had she guessed that existence could be such pain.