with nettles, and in
the midst of it, sure enough, time and weather had broke open a hole as
went down into the bowels of the earth beneath. And beside this hole,
little the worse for five weeks in the open, lay Joe Gregory's billycock
hat.

Amos fetched a box of matches out of his pocket, struck one and looked at
the hat. Then he peered down into the black pit alongside, and, as he did
so, he felt a heavy push from behind, and he was gone--falling down into
darkness and death afore he knew what had happened. And in that awful
moment, such a terrible strange thing be man's mind, it weren't fear of
death and judgment, nor yet horror of the smash that must happen when he
got to the bottom, that gripped Gregory's brain: it was just a feeling of
wild anger against himself, that he'd ever been such a fool as to trust a
man with a glide in his eye!

In the fraction of time as passed, while he was falling, his wits moved
like lightning, and he saw, not only what had happened, but why it had
happened. He saw that Ernest Gregory knew all about Joe and had probably
done him in five weeks ago; and he saw likewise that now it was his turn
to be murdered. Then Vitifer and Furze Hill would both belong to the young
man. All this Amos saw; and he felt also a dreadful, conquering desire to
tell the people what had happened and be revenged; and he told himself
that his ghost should come to Merripit if he had to break out of hell to
come, and give his friends no rest till they was laid upon the track of
his nephew.

All that worked through his brain in an instant moment, like things happen
in a dream, and then he was brought up sudden and fell so light that he
knew he weren't dead yet, but heard something crack at the same moment.
And then Amos discovered he was on a rotten landing-stage of old timber,
with the shaft hole above him and a head, outlined against the stars,
looking down, and another hole extending below. He was, in fact, catched
half-way to his doom and hung there with the devil above and the unknown
deep below and hung up on the mouldering wood. He heard Ernest laugh then,
and the sound was such as none had ever heard from him before--more like a
beast's noise than a man's. Then his head disappeared and Amos was just
wondering what next, when his nephew came to the hole again and dropped a
great stone. It shot past the wretched chap where he hung, just touching
his elbow, and then Amos, seeing he was to be stoned to make