s a crowd of
hands grouped about one corner of the yard, and as I came in a man ran
against me, and showed me a terribly pale face.

"I ax pardon, Mester Doncaster," he said in a wild hurry, "but theer's
an accident happened. One o' th' weavers is hurt bad, an' I'm goin' fur
th' doctor. Th' loom caught an' crushed him afore we could stop it."

For some reason or other my heart misgave me that very moment. I pushed
forward to the group in the yard corner, and made my way through it.

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

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