In Which Mr Headstone Performs An Astounding Feat Of Moral Wonder

A large crowd gathered at Old Hell Shaft in the expectation that the rescue of the stranger from the pit would provide some diversion from the rote of their daily lives. It had been established by a surgeon, who had been lowered down by a windlass, that the gentleman had miraculously sustained no injury in the fall, and was suffering from nothing more than a headache occasioned by the accidental displacement of a clod of earth. When all was ready, the brewer’s horse was harnessed to the rope, which was wound around the barrel of the windlass. The dray man led the beast on, and the rope tightened and strained to its utmost, and ring upon ring was coiled upon the barrel safely, and the connecting chains appeared, and finally at first the head and then the upper body of Mr. Headstone came into view. The crowd let out a loud hurrah. This had the unfortunate effect of startling the horse, which bolted, and drew the pedagogue out of the pit with the velocity that is commonly attained by a cork when released from a bottle of champagne. Mr. Headstone sailed over the heads of the astonished crowd and landed in a patch of bramble and nettles, and all agreed that not even the tumblers from Sleary’s Circus could match the feat for its daring and prestidigitation.