I wasn't so much afeared of little Nan: she never did any harm when she was alive; and I thought God was too good to send her out of heaven just to terrify a poor lad like me.' 'But how did thee get left behind ?' asked Martha.
Then Tim told them how the horse-doctor had gone down to secure one of the ponies in a large, strong net, in order to bring it to the surface of the earth for a time; and that he had gone down with him more for his own amusement than to help him.

He had wandered a little way into the winding galleries of the pit, and came back just as the skip was going up for the last time but one.

Thompson and Davies were deep in conversation with the men who remained, and, stealing behind them, he overheard their plot, and their intention of persuading Stephen to join them.

After that he dare not for his very life come forward when the skip descended, and he watched them go up, leaving him alone for the night in that dismal place.

He had his father's lamp with him, and so made his way to the bottom of the old shaft, and waited, with what impatience and anxiety we may imagine, to hear Stephen return from his work.
'It was awfully lonesome,' he said, 'and I thought Stephen would never come, or I'd never make him hear.