“Thank ye, Dick—I would, mother,” murmured David, who by this time had been brought into the house and placed in a chair.
“I would give him a little broth or tea, Mrs Adams, and he’ll come all right soon,” said Samuel, as he and his son left the cottage to return to the mine.
“Bless you, bless you, my boy,” said the widow, as she watched Dick from the window for a moment: and she didn’t say those words with her mouth only, but with her whole heart.
Samuel would have sent Dick home, but he begged that, though he was tired, he might go back to learn how it had fared with poor Bill Hagger.
“But I thought that Bill Hagger was one of your greatest enemies. He seemed always to be ill-treating you,” observed Samuel.
“So he did, father,” answered Dick. “But don’t you mind what the missionary said the other day? ‘We should love our enemies and do good to them that despitefully use us and hate us.’”
“So he did, Dick, to be sure; and I’ve often thought since then, what a hard matter it must be to do it.”
“He said that we must pray for God’s help and grace, father, and that then we shall be able to do what now seems so hard,” was Dick’s answer.
On reaching the bottom of the shaft, and going on a little way, they met some men carrying Bill Hagger, who had been got out from under the coal, but so dreadfully mangled, that it did not seem possible he could live.
Samuel now went back to work with his pick, and Dick returned to the charge of his trap.