I wondered too.
Philippa looked up, with eyes that accepted me without comment.
"Only stunned, I think," she said hoarsely. "He opened his eyes an instant ago."
"The timber fell on him," said the country boy. "Look where he have the old prop knocked. 'Twas little but he was dead."
Anthony stirred uneasily.
"Oh, mother, you're holding me too tight!" he said fractiously.
From somewhere ahead vague noises came, rumblings, scrapings, hangings like falling stones—
"It must be they're putting a ladder down in the shaft," said the boy.
Anthony had broken his collar-bone. So Dr. Fraser said; she tied him up with her knitted scarf by the light of the electric torch; I carried him up the ladder, and have an ineffaceable memory of the lavender glare of daylight that met us, and of the welcome that was in the everyday rain and the wet grass. In the relief of the upper air I even bore with serenity the didactics of Andrew, who assured me that he had seen from the first that the shaft was the centre of the position, though he had never been in the slightest degree uneasy, because Dr. Fraser had seen some one with Anthony.
Dr. Fraser said nothing; no more did I.