"The men is bringing him up the road. Here they come now. You'd better go back, and kinder break the news to the folks. I'm terribly gritty—as gritty as any man—but I can't do that!"
Richard did not hear the last words. Trembling from head to foot, he sped up the road to meet four men, carrying a rude stretcher between them and slowly approaching.
CHAPTER II.
BITTER MOMENTS.
The serious accident that had befallen Mr. Dare was in reality a very simple one. The ladder that he had been ascending was covered with early morning dew, and when near the top his foot had slipped, and, being unable, on account of his rheumatism, to catch a quick hold, he had fallen on his side to the ground. No one had seen his fall, and he lay unconscious for full ten minutes before a fellow workman, who had been busy on the other side of the building, discovered him and summoned assistance.
The five or six men that were soon gathered did what they could to bring him to consciousness, but without success. One of them ran off to hunt up the doctor, and then the others took a door that had not yet been hung in the new house, and, fastening a heavy strip at either end for handles, covered it with their coats, and placed the wounded man upon it.
None of the men cared to face Mrs. Dare with such painful news, and it was only after repeated urging that Nicholas Boswell had been induced to go on ahead.
"My father, my poor father!" was all Richard could say, as he gazed at the motionless form upon the litter.
[Illustration: "My father, my poor father!">[
"Reckon he's hurt pretty bad," said Sandy Stone, a mason, who had been the first to be called to the scene of the accident. "'Tain't outside so much as it's in. Wait till we get him home."