"Ah!—get me up out of the gangway. I'm a job for the doctor, I take it...." His voice became inaudible, but not before the word "Water!" had passed his lips. The old turf-cutter was coming slowly. If he could be raised and moved to a safe place by the roadside, for the moment, further help could be got. The Rector knew the old man would not hear if he spoke at his loudest, but he contrived to make him understand. Between them they raised poor Jim gently, and got him out of the blazing sun. His fortitude was great to utter no sound—or, was he injured to death, and half insensible? The Rector recalled what he had heard of him in that old accident, and thought the former.
No, he was not insensible! For when they had laid him on some soft bracken a little way off the road, and the old man had gone for assistance to the nearest cottage—for he himself did not dare to leave him—Jim tried again to speak.
"What, Jim? Say it again!" The Rector put his ear close to catch the words.
"Make the best of me, and let my lassie come!" He was wandering, clearly. But it was easy to see his meaning—that he wished to seem as little hurt as might be to his child, whom he imagined near at hand. Easier still when he added, "She came afore. Let her come now!"
"Lizarann is not here now, Jim." The speaker's voice half choked him. But why was this worse than the other telling would have been?
He was speaking again. It was only repetition. "She came afore. Let her come now!" His voice was all but inaudible, and the Rector's words had been lost upon him.
The deaf old man had done his errand well. The daughter of the little roadside inn, quicker of foot than he, came bringing water, and, what was needed too, brandy. Speech came again after a mouthful, swallowed with difficulty.
"Am I a bad sight, master? Let the lassie come! Never you fear for her! She's used to her Daddy." He spoke so naturally, all allowance made for pain resolutely kept at bay, that his only hearer—for the girl from the inn heard nothing—was quite at a loss. A bald truth was safe for the moment, though.
"Lizarann is not here, Jim. She cannot come to you now." The last words almost said why as well! Then both Jim's hearers heard what came quite distinctly from his lips: "What's got the lassie, Master, my lassie? I tell ye, I heard her sing out 'Pi-lot!' Aye!—once and again, 'Pi-lot!' when you was coming across the common yonder!"
But whether he himself heard the only reply Athelstan Taylor could force his lips to—"Not with me, Jim; Lizarann was not with me"—no one ever knew. For all he said was, "My little lass!" and never spoke again.