Page:While the Billy Boils, 1913.djvu/169

 ''Old on, Tom, father wants me.'

The boy ran to the shaft, rested his hands and forehead against the bole of the windlass, and leant over to hear what his father was saying.

Without a moment's warning the treacherous bole slipped round; a small body bounded a couple of times against the sides of the shaft and fell at Mason's feet, where it lay motionless!

'Mason!'

'Ay?'

'Put him in the bucket and lash him to the rope with your belt!'

A few moments, and―

'Now, Tom!'

Tom's trembling hands would scarcely grasp the handle, but he managed to wind somehow.

Presently the form of the child appeared, motionless and covered with clay and water. Mason was climbing up by the steps in the side of the shaft.

Tom tenderly unlashed the boy and laid him under the saplings on the grass; then he wiped some of the clay and blood away from the child's forehead, and dashed over him some muddy water.

Presently Isley gave a gasp and opened his eyes.

'Are yer―why―hurt much, Isley?' asked Tom.

'Ba―back's bruk, Tom!'

'Not so bad as that, old man.'

'Where's father?'

'Coming up.'

Silence awhile, and then―

'Father! father! be quick, father!'