"What a horrible situation!" exclaimed the old gentleman; "but no time must be lost in talking about it, or inquiring into the why or the wherefore. So here you, Timothy, John Clarke, Harris, Tom Carpenter, run for your lives, every man Jack of you to the farm, where you'll find plenty rope;--and here, miners, my dear men--do you bestir yourselves--succeed or not, I'll pay you well. Could any thing be more fortunate?" continued the old gentleman, soliloquising to himself--"could any thing be more fortunate than our show of fire-works bringing all the miners of the parish about our ears; the very best hands in the world, from woeful experience in like matters, to render aid in an accident of this kind." No one required to be told a second time; and almost ere the words were out of the worthy squire's mouth, every body had dispersed here and there to procure ropes, and whatever might be required; all of which were collected with a celerity almost incredible; and then off started plenty of able and willing hands, all in eager haste to accomplish the charitable object they were bent upon. And now we must return to poor Vernon Wycherley, whom we left pent up in a narrow dungeon many feet beneath the surface, enveloped in darkness, and with difficulty sustaining an irksome and even painful position, by keeping his body jammed across, and, as it were, forming a kind of bridge over this awful chasm; whilst the loose soil, upon whose unstable foundation his only chance of safety depended, gradually crumbling away, kept his attention unceasingly alive to the certain fate that awaited him when unable longer to retain his hold; the horrors of which were still further augmented by the deafening din that thundered forth as each detached mass reached the water far, far below. Few men, indeed, could have sustained a sufficient degree of self-possession to have held on a minute under such trying circumstances; but our tall young hero was possessed of that true kind of courage, which, though disinclined to seek out danger for mere danger's sake, is never daunted by its approach, however fearful or unexpected it may be; and thus he was enabled to await his impending fate with calm resignation. Strange, too, as it may appear, his thoughts, notwithstanding his appalling situation, would now and then wander to common everyday matters. Even the events of that very afternoon occurred to him, and the beauteous form he had been so much struck with passed in fancy before his eyes. "Would she pity his fate?" he asked himself--"alas! no--how was she to know any thing about it? Poor Frank, too," he thought, "what can he say to my unexpected, and probably fatal accident? I fear all his philosophy will, at least this time, fail of convincing him;--it is _all for the best_, but better for myself, perhaps, than him, as far as chances of being saved go; for with his little legs, it must have been all over with him some time before this.