"Ah, Betsy. You'll be sorry for this when too late. I'm determined to end my misery. I'll jump down the well and drown myself. And you'll be the cause of it!" whined Billy.
The night was dark. Betsy felt a little relenting as she heard her husband groping about in the wood shed. Then she could dimly discern him making for the well; plainly hear the creaking of the hinges and the lid thrown back with a thud. Then came the cry of "Good bye, Betsy, I'm gone!" The dull sound of a heavy body plunging into the water—a gasping moan, and all was still.
Betsy's old affection for her erring husband at once returned with tenfold force, for she raced downstairs, rushing into the darkness, shrieking for help.
The neighbours were aroused. Men and women tumbled out of their back doors in such scanty dishabille that would have charmed a sculptor. Betsy, still screeching like a bagpipe, had to be forcibly restrained from jumping to the rescue by the bystanders.
Dick Ward, the blacksmith, thrust the bucket-pole into the well, singing out, "Lay hold, Billy, if ye ain't too fur gone!"
"I can feel un," shouted Dick, as the pole struck some hard substance with a sounding smack.
"My eye, Dick! he'll feel you too, if that's Billy's head you tapped," said Nat; "it 'ud be one for his nob and no mistake."
They caught a glimpse, by the uncertain light of a flaming candle, of a something floating low on the surface of the water.
"His head feels as hard as a koker nut," said Dick, as the pole rattled on the dark object.
"Why it seems off his shoulders, for it goes bobbing up and down like a dumplin in a soup-kettle!"