“What’s that young rascal doing?” I said to myself, setting forth to see. I came towards the other side of the quarry: on this, the moister side, the bushes grew up against the wall, which was higher than on the other side, though piled the same with old dry stones. As I drew near I could hear the scrape and rattle of stones, and the vigorous grunting of Sam as he laboured among them. He was hidden by a great bush of sallow catkins, all yellow, and murmuring with bees, warm with spice. When he came in view I laughed to see him lugging and grunting among the great pile of stones that had fallen in a mass from the quarry-side; a pile of stones and earth and crushed vegetation. There was a great bare gap in the quarry wall. Somehow, the lad’s labouring earnestness made me anxious, and I hurried up.
He heard me, and glancing round, his face red with exertion, eyes big with terror, he called, commanding me:
“Pull ’em off ’im—pull ’em off!” Suddenly my heart beating in my throat nearly suffocated me. I saw the hand of the keeper lying among the stones. I set to tearing away the stones, and we worked for some time without a word. Then I seized the arm of the keeper and tried to drag him out. But I could not.
“Pull it off ’im!” whined the lad, working in a frenzy.
When we got him out I saw at once he was dead, and I sat down trembling with exertion. There was a great smashed wound on the side of the head. Sam put his face against his father’s and snuffed round him like a dog, to feel the life in him. The child looked at me:
“He won’t get up,” he said, and his little voice was hoarse with fear and anxiety.
I shook my head. Then the boy began to whimper. He tried to close the lips which were drawn with pain and death, leaving the teeth bare; then his fingers hovered round the eyes, which were wide open, glazed, and I could see he was trembling to touch them into life.
“He’s not asleep,” he said, “because his eyes is open—look!”
I could not bear the child’s questioning terror. I took him up to carry him away, but he struggled and fought to be free.
“Ma’e ’im get up—ma’e ’im get up,” he cried in a frenzy, and I had to let the boy go.