"Her says right," interposed a voice. "It wasn't the master as went down the shaft; it were young Rupert Trevlyn."
"Rupert Trevlyn," uttered the minister in startled tones. "I hope he is not down."
"Yes, he's down, sir."
"But where can Mr. Chattaway be?" exclaimed Ford, the clerk, who made one of the throng. "Do you know, Meg Pennet?"
"He's where ill-luck have overtook him for his cruelty to us," answered Meg Pennet, flinging her hair from her sorrowful face. "I telled him the ill he forced on others might happen come home to him—that he might soon be lying in his pain, for aught he knew. And he went right off to the ill then and there—and he's a-lying in it."
The sympathies of the hearers were certainly not given to Mr. Chattaway. He was no favourite with his dependants at Blackstone, any more than with his neighbours around the Hold. But the woman's words were strange, and they pressed for an explanation.
"He be lying under the wall o' the old ruin," was her reply. "I come upon him there, and I guess his brave horse had flung him. When I'd ha' lifted him, he cried out with pain—as my poor man was a-crying in the night with his back—and I saw him lay hisself down again after I'd left him. And Chattaway he swore at me for my help—and you can go to him and be swore at too. Happen his leg be broke."
The minister turned away to seek Mr. Chattaway. Unless completely disabled, it was necessary that he should be at the scene; no one of any particular authority was there to give orders; and the inevitable confusion attendant on such a calamity was thereby increased. Ford, the clerk, sped after Mr. Lloyd, and one or two stragglers followed him; but the rest were chained to the more exciting scene of the disaster.
Mr. Chattaway had raised himself when they reached him, and was holding on by the wall. He broke into a storm of grumbling, especially at Ford, and asked why he could not have found him out sooner. As if Ford could divine what had befallen him! Mr. Lloyd stooped and touched the ankle, which was a good deal swollen. It was sprained, Chattaway said; but he thought he could manage to get on his horse with their assistance. He abused the beggar unmercifully, and expressed his intention of calling a meeting of his brother-magistrates, that measures might be taken to rid the country of tramps and razor-grinders; and he finished up in the heat of argument by calling the accident which had befallen him a cursed misfortune.
"Hush!" quietly interrupted Mr. Lloyd. "I should call it a blessing."