"No!" murmured Betty, with a glance of fear and doubt at the black vista which she saw through the gap. "But—don't be afraid to speak."
"I'm thinking this," continued the tinker: "Supposing a man was following this track from Ellersdeane to Scarnham, or t'other way about, as it might be—supposing he was curious to look down one of these old shafts—supposing he looked down this one, which stands, as you see, not two yards off the very track he was following—supposing he leaned his weight on this rotten bit of fencing—supposing it gave way? What?"
Neale, who had been listening intently, made a movement as if to lay his hand on the grey stones. Betty seized him impulsively.
"Don't, Wallie!" she exclaimed. "That frightens me!"
Creasy lifted his foot and pressed it against the stones at one edge of the gap. Before even that slight pressure three or four blocks gave way and dropped inward—the sound of their fall came dully from the depths beneath.
"You see," said the tinker, "it's possible. It might be. And—as you can tell from the time it takes a stone to drop—it's a long way down there. They're very deep, these old mines."
Neale turned from the broken wall and looked narrowly at the ground about it.
"I don't see any signs of anybody being about here recently," he remarked. "There are no footmarks."
"There couldn't be, mister," said Creasy. "You could march a regiment of soldiers over this moorland grass for many an hour, and there'd be no footprints on it when they'd gone—it's that wiry and strong. No!—if half a dozen men had been standing about here when one fell in—or if two or three men had come here to throw another man in," he added significantly, "there'd be no footmarks. Try it—you can't grind an iron-shod heel like mine into this turf."
"It's all very horrible!" said Betty, still staring at the black gap with its suggestions of subterranean horror. "If one only knew——"