In one place there
were a number of disused mine-shafts; the railing which had once
protected them had rotted away, and it had been no one's business
to see that it was renewed--some few had been filled up, but many
of them were hundreds of feet deep, and entirely unguarded. The
farmer first missed the track, and after long wandering found
himself at last among the shafts. He sate down, knowing the extreme
danger of his situation, and resolved to wait till the morning; but
it became so cold that he dared stay no longer, for fear of being
frozen alive, and with infinite precautions he tried to make his
way out of the dangerous region, following the downward slope of
the ground. In spite, however, of all his care, he found suddenly,
on putting his foot down, that he was on the edge of a shaft, and
that his foot was dangling in vacancy. He threw himself backwards,
but too late, and he slid down several feet, grasping at the grass
and heather; his foot fortunately struck against a large stone,
which though precariously poised, arrested his fall; and he hung
there for some hours in mortal anguish, not daring to move,
clinging to a tuft of heather, shouting at intervals, in the hope
that, when he did not return home, a search-party might be sent out
to look for him.
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