The wonder was that he had not been killed instantly. Waters briefly explained the condition of things below. He had found a wide hollow, perhaps over thirty feet deep, and in it was the old pit mouth, half-choked with rubbish. Much of the falling mass had poured into that aged opening, to disappear utterly; but part had landed on one side of it; and upon this pile he had discovered Mr. Dale, badly injured, yet alive and still conscious. Jim had been too hurried, and the light had been too dim, for seeing more. One of the cottagers, Jim's mother, had an unoccupied room, and there, with her consent, Mr. Dale was placed. A messenger rushed for the doctor, another for the village nurse. There was no second room in the cottage for Pattie, so she had to be a small mattress on the floor of Mrs. Waters' room. Cragg would have liked to take her home, but he remembered Mrs. Cragg, and hesitated. Also, he was sure that nothing would induce Pattie to leave her father. Presently the village nurse arrived, and took the patient in hand, and shortly afterward the doctor made his appearance. CHAPTER V Alone in the Wide World CRAGG was finishing his breakfast with Dot upon his knee. He liked to have her company whenever it was possible, and breakfast being one of his leisure times, he generally then indulged the inclination. Whatever the pressure of business might be, he always declined to attend to it until he had enjoyed a good morning meal. To-day, for once, not even breakfast and the presence of Dot could prevent an air of haste. Mr. Cragg was anxious to get out as early as might be. Dot was a small person, even for her limited age, with an obtrusively turned-up nose, and a wide mouth always on the grin. Dot was not easily suppressed. She had an aggressive look of self-confidence, and, like a cork, though she could be pushed under water, she soon rose to the surface again. Without being in the least pretty, there was a certain charm in her expression of blissful content; and the wide-awake air was startling at less than four years old. Nothing escaped Dot. She already had her own views, ready-made, upon most subjects which came to hand. Mr. Cragg had been telling her, between mouthfuls of food, about the events of the evening before; Dot listening to him, open-eyed. She possessed big light-grey eyes, and supreme pity now filled them, not so much for the injured man as for Pattie. "She's a poo-ar lickle girl, ain't she?" came at the first pause. Dot had a considerable vocabulary, but the style of pronunciation was peculiarly her own. "Biggern me, I s'pose, dad?" "Ever so much bigger than you, Dot." "Evern so much," repeated Dot, with satisfaction. "And she hasn't got no ma-ma, nor no dadda." "I'm afraid her dadda is badly hurt. That's what I'm after now, to see how he is, poor man."