‘Ay, ay, ma’am,’ said the voice of the workman, ‘or we should know it by this time.’
But at that moment a faint, gasping cry caught Jane’s ear.
Others heard it too. It was a child’s voice, and grew stronger after a moment. It came from the corner of the shed outside the stable.
‘Oh, oh!’ cried the women, pressing forward, ‘the poor little Fields!’
Then it was recollected that Mrs. Field—one of those impracticable women on whom the shafts of school officers were lost, and who was always wandering in the town—had been seen going out, leaving two small children playing about, the younger under the charge of the elder. The father was a carter, and had been sent on some errand with the horses.
This passed while anxious hands were struggling with stones and earth, foremost among them Alexis White. The utmost care was needful to prevent the superincumbent weight from falling in and crushing the life there certainly was beneath, happily not the rock from above, but some of the debris of the stable. Frank Stebbing and the foreman had to drive back anxious crowds, and keep a clear space.
Then came running, shrieking, pushing her way through the men, the poor mother, who had to be forcibly withheld by Miss Mohun and one of the men from precipitating herself on the pile of rubbish where her children were buried, and so shaking it as to make their destruction certain.
Those were terrible moments; but when the mother’s voice penetrated to the children, a voice answered—
‘Mammy, mammy get us out, there’s a stone on Tommy,’—at least so the poor woman understood the lispings, almost stifled; and she shrieked again, ‘Mammy’s coming, darlings!’
The time seemed endless, though it was probably only a few minutes before it was found that the children were against the angle of the shed, where the wall and a beam had protected the younger, a little girl of five, who seemed to be unhurt. But, alas! though the boy’s limbs were not crushed, a heavy stone had fallen on his temple.