At that moment several of the neighbors who were assisting in the search were seen coming toward the cottage.
They gathered in a little knot by the garden wall. With a 82 heart heavier than lead in his bosom John Brooks went forward to meet them.
“You haven’t got any track of my little Daisy?” he asked, despondingly. The men averted their faces. “For God’s sake speak out, my men!” he cried, in agony; “I can’t stand this suspense.”
“There are footprints in the wet grass down yonder,” one of them replied; “and they lead straight down to the old shaft. Do you think your girl has made away with herself?”
A gray, ghastly pallor settled over John Brooks’ anguished face.
“The Lord knows! All of you stay here while I go down there and look. If I should find anything there I’d rather be alone.”
There was a depth of agony in the man’s voice that touched his hearers, and more than one coat-sleeve was drawn hastily across sympathetic eyes as they whispered one to the other he would surely find her there.
John Brooks had reached the very mouth of the pit now, and through the branches of the trees the men saw him suddenly spring forward, and stoop as if to pick up something, and bitter cries rent the stillness of the summer morning.
“Daisy! oh, Daisy! my child, my child!”
Then they saw him fall heavily to the ground on the very brink of the shaft.