As for Bore, he sat there upon his handle looking the colour of dough. I saw at once there was no help to be expected from him, so I shouted to one of the maids, and in a few minutes my wife and half a dozen neighbours, male and female, were standing, pale and horror-stricken, around the well. In the mean time I had tried again and again to rouse the last man down, but could get nothing but a sort of half-stifled "All right;" while at last even that was not forthcoming, nothing but a hollow stertorous groan at intervals. Brown, a stout young fellow, wanted to go down; but I stopped him, and in a few seconds had our own well-rope secured round my waist, after giving it a twist on the windlass; and then having seen the handles in the hands of trusty men, I stepped into the bucket and prepared to descend, feeling compelled to go, but all the while in a state of the most horrible fear imaginable, for I always was from a boy a sad coward. "Oh! don't; pray don't go, Fred," whispered my wife, as she clung to me. "I must, I must, darling," I whispered again. "It would be worse than murder to let the poor fellows lie there when a little exertion would save them." "Oh! for my sake, don't, pray;" and then the poor little woman staggered, and would have fallen down the well if I had not caught her in my arms; when we should both have fallen but for the rope round my waist, which fortunately stood the strain, but cut into my ribs fearfully. There were plenty of hands, though, ready to assist, and the poor fainting girl was borne into the house. "Now then," I cried, "lower gently; and the moment I stop crying out `Right' haul up again, for there will be something wrong." The windlass creaked and groaned, and then all at once the people round the well seemed to give a jump upwards, and then were gone, while the green, slimy sides of the pit were running up past me as I seemed to stand still in the well-sinker's broad oak bucket. For a moment I clung to the rope with my eyes shut, when all at once there was a bump, and I opened them to see that I was ascending. "Right, right," I shouted, when there was another jerk, and I began to descend again, at intervals crying out the word of safety--`Right'; and so I went down and down, with my flesh creeping, and a strange sensation, as though I was falling rapidly through space. I have no doubt there are plenty of men who would be heroes at proper time and place; but there is no heroic stuff in my composition, for I here boldly assert that I never felt so horribly frightened before in my life, as I went gliding down lower and lower past the green slimy chalk, with the bucket swinging terribly from side to side; for the well was of very large diameter. I kept on giving the signal, and have no idea how it sounded above, but it seemed to me as though it left my lips in the shape of a gasping sob.