“What’s that young rascal doing?” I said to myself, setting forth to see. I came towards the other side of the quarry: on this, the moister side, the bushes grew up against the wall, which was higher than on the other side, though piled the same with old dry stones. As I drew near I could hear the scrape and rattle of stones, and the vigorous grunting of Sam as he laboured among them. He was hidden by a great bush of sallow catkins, all yellow, and murmuring with bees, warm with spice. When he came in view I laughed to see him lugging and grunting among the great pile of stones that had fallen in a mass from the quarry-side; a pile of stones and earth and crushed vegetation. There was a great bare gap in the quarry wall. Somehow, the lad’s labouring earnestness made me anxious, and I hurried up. He heard me, and glancing round, his face red with exertion, eyes big with terror, he called, commanding me: “Pull ’em off ’im—pull ’em off!” Suddenly my heart beating in my throat nearly suffocated me. I saw the hand of the keeper lying among the stones. I set to tearing away the stones, and we worked for some time without a word. Then I seized the arm of the keeper and tried to drag him out. But I could not. “Pull it off ’im!” whined the lad, working in a frenzy. When we got him out I saw at once he was dead, and I sat down trembling with exertion. There was a great smashed wound on the side of the head. Sam put his face against his father’s and snuffed round him like a dog, to feel the life in him. The child looked at me: “He won’t get up,” he said, and his little voice was hoarse with fear and anxiety. I shook my head. Then the boy began to whimper. He tried to close the lips which were drawn with pain and death, leaving the teeth bare; then his fingers hovered round the eyes, which were wide open, glazed, and I could see he was trembling to touch them into life. “He’s not asleep,” he said, “because his eyes is open—look!” I could not bear the child’s questioning terror. I took him up to carry him away, but he struggled and fought to be free. “Ma’e ’im get up—ma’e ’im get up,” he cried in a frenzy, and I had to let the boy go. He ran to the dead man, calling “Feyther! Feyther!” and pulling his shoulder; then he sat down, fascinated by the sight of the wound; he put out his finger to touch it, and shivered. “Come away,” said I. “Is it that?” he asked, pointing to the wound. I covered the face with a big silk handkerchief. “Now,” said I, “he’ll go to sleep if you don’t touch him—so sit still while I go and fetch somebody. Will _you_ run to the Hall?” He shook his head. I knew he would not. So I told him again not to touch his father, but to let him lie still till I came back. He watched me go, but did not move from his seat on the stones beside the dead man, though I know he was full of terror at being left alone.