Bore looked at me, and I at him, for a few seconds in silence, when the other man spun round the now light windlass till the other bucket rose.
“Here, lay hold o’ this here,” he cried to me; and from the readiness to obey felt by all in an emergency, I seized the windlass and assisted his master to let him down, as he thrust one leg through the pail-handle and was soon out of sight, for we lowered him down as fast as was possible.
“I’m blowed if there won’t be a coroner’s inquess over this job,” panted Mr Bore, as he turned away at his handle; “I know’d it warn’t safe, only he would go.”
“For goodness sake, turn quicker man,” I cried; and at last, after what seemed ten minutes at least, the empty bucket rose.
“Now, then,” I shouted down the well, “tie the rope round him, quick, and then hang on.”
No answer.
“Do you hear there?” I cried again, with a horrid dread coming over me that the catastrophe was to be doubled; but at last a dull, “All right,” came echoing up.
As for Bore, he sat there upon his handle looking the colour of dough. I saw at once there was no help to be expected from him, so I shouted to one of the maids, and in a few minutes my wife and half a dozen neighbours, male and female, were standing, pale and horror-stricken, around the well.
In the mean time I had tried again and again to rouse the last man down, but could get nothing but a sort of half-stifled “All right;” while at last even that was not forthcoming, nothing but a hollow stertorous groan at intervals.
Brown, a stout young fellow, wanted to go down; but I stopped him, and in a few seconds had our own well-rope secured round my waist, after giving it a twist on the windlass; and then having seen the handles in the hands of trusty men, I stepped into the bucket and prepared to descend, feeling compelled to go, but all the while in a state of the most horrible fear imaginable, for I always was from a boy a sad coward.