A man was lying on a pile of coats in the middle of the by-standers,--a poor fellow crushed and torn and bruised, but lying quite quiet now, only for an occasional little moan, that was scarcely more than a quick gasp for breath. It was Surly Tim! “He's nigh th' eend o' it now!” said one of the hands pityingly. “He's nigh th' last now, poor chap! What's that he's savin', lads?” For all at once some flickering sense seemed to have caught at one of the speaker's words, and the wounded man stirred, murmuring faintly--but not to the watchers. Ah, no! to something far, far beyond their feeble human sight--to something in the broad Without. “Th' eend!” he said, “aye, this is th' eend, dear lass, an' th' path's aw shinin' or summat an--Why, lass, I can see thee plain, an' th' little chap too!” Another flutter of the breath, one slight movement of the mangled hand, and I bent down closer to the poor fellow--closer, because my eyes were so dimmed that I could not see. “Lads,” I said aloud a few seconds later, “you can do no more for him. His pain is over!” For with a sudden glow of light which shone upon the shortened path and the waiting figures of his child and its mother, Surly Tim's earthly trouble had ended. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of “Surly Tim”, by Frances Hodgson Burnett