" Then the
kind and good-natured little tailor Shales saw me, and I thought he
must have made some signal to the others, for they all stood silent.
I felt sure now that for some reason, unknown to me, it was generally
believed that my father had perished in the landslip. Mrs. Shales
took me by the hand, and gently led me away up the gangway. When we
reached the cottage I asked her whether my father's body had been
found. She told me that it had not, and was not likely to be found,
for if he had really fallen with the landslip his body lay under tons
upon tons of earth. I shall never forget the misery of that night;
kind Mrs. Shales would not leave me, but slept in the cottage. I had
very little doubt that the Raxton people were right in their dreadful
guesses about my father. I had very little doubt that while walking
along the cliff, either to or from the cottage, he had reached the
point at the back of the church at the moment of the landslip, and
been carried down with it, and I now felt sure that the shriek you
and I both heard was his shriek of terror as he fell.
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