Read A Dinner Of Herbs for Free Online Page B

but not right at the bottom, what she thought her eyes saw brought
    her hand to her throat and she whispered, “No! God Almighty! No!” Then with the agility of someone
    half her age, she was running back the way she had come and to the head of the quarry, and there,
    slithering down the path that had been made by the countless tracks of the horses and
    waggons, she
    came to the edge of the water. Skirting it, she stumbled over the strewn boulders and
    earth towards the
    latest fall, and when she stopped, it was to gaze upwards to where she saw once again, but more clearly
    now, what she had viewed from the top pathway, a small hand dangling from out of a
    black sleeve. But
    now she could make out the body which had been caught in the branches of a sturdy
    bush.
    “Tis the lad. Yes, ‘tis the lad.” She heard her own voice like a high cry, and as if in an unanswered
    prayer for help, her eyes now lifted to the top of the quarry to where two blackened faces were peering
    down at her.
    Throwing the basket aside, she lifted up her arms and waved them frantically, at the same time crying,
    “Help!
    “Tis a boy caught. Help!”
    For answer it seemed that both of the men leapt over the top of the quarry edge.
    Bounding from stone
    to stone and causing minor falls here and there, they were within seconds standing at her side. And they
    too looked upwards, and one of them repeated her words, saying, “God Almighty He
    must have been
    passing at the time. We heard the rumble on our way in last night.”
    “Can... can you reach him?”
    “Aye, yes, we’ll reach him, Kate, we’ll reach him.”
    She watched them clamber up to the bush and gently extricate the small body from the
    branches. Then
    one man held the limp form across his arms while the other man got behind him and
    gripped his belt,
    steadying him on his descent towards the bottom.
    When they laid the boy at Kate’s feet she knelt by his side and immediately her hand
    went into his jacket
    and stayed there. When she looked up to the men whose silent gaze was asking her the
    question, she
    answered, “Tis tickin’ slightly.”
    “Do you know him? Is he from round about?”
    “No, no,” She shook her head.
    “He came to visit me with his father... yesterday.”
    “With his father?”
    She nodded her head and looked to the side where the boulders were spread far into the water.
    The two men exchanged glances before one of them, turning to her, said, “And you think he’s ... ?”
    “No other place for him,” she answered; ‘he wouldn’t have left his boy, not like that he wouldn’t. He
    brought him to me to look after.
    They were on their way to Bill Lee’s to have a chat. Will. will you carry him back for me? “
    “Aye. Aye, Kate. But we’ll have to have help; we can’t move that lot ourselves.”
    The other man spoke now, saying, “The shift’ll be spread out, they’ll all be home by
    now.”
    “There’s the top ‘un and the pullers.”
    “Aye. But let’s get the boy back first.” And turning to Kate, he said, “We’ll get him. If he’s there, we’ll
    get him.” Then looking at his mate again, he said, “You get back and rake them up, Joe, I’ll take the wee
    ‘un along.”
    The sun was directly overhead when they carried Peter into the cottage. Bill Lee was one of the four
    men holding the canvas and his face was almost as ashen as that of the corpse, for
    although Peter’s head
    was split open at the back, his face was as clean as if it had just been scrubbed with sea water.
    After the men had left, voicing their sympathy with low mutters, there remained only Bill Lee and his wife
    Jane; and Bill, looking down on the man who although only four years older than
    himself, had been both
    his mate and mentor as a boy, he muttered, “I’m shaken. I’m real shaken. To think that this could have
    happened on his way to see us.
    And you . you say he wanted us to take the boy, Kate? “ He glanced to where the boy,
    who also
    looked