the cart went under. I
don't know what became of him then--he was but a lad, I was told. When I
came on the scene, a number of people were on the bridge, while many
more were down on the river banks, whence they could see the horse and
cart under the arch. A few were bawling out unheeded advice as to what
should be done; in fact, a heated altercation had arisen between the two
loudest--a chimney-sweep and a medical man--whose theories disagreed;
but it was plain to everybody that it would be a risky thing to venture
under the bridge into that swirling stream. For ten minutes or more,
while the horse remained invisible to us on the bridge, and likely to
drown, the dispute snapped angrily from bank to bank, punctuated
occasionally by excited cries, such as "He's gettin' lower!" "He's
sinkin' down!" Then, unobserved, a bricklayer's labourer came running
with a rope, which he hurriedly made into a noose and tightened under
his armpits. None of the shouters, by the way, had suggested such a
plan. The man was helped over the railings and swiftly lowered--Heaven
knows who took a hand at that--and so he disappeared for five minutes.
Then a shout: the horse came into view, staggering downstream with
harness cut, and scrambled up into the meadow; and the man, drenched and
deadly white, and too benumbed to help himself, was hauled up on to the
bridge, and carried to the nearest inn. I never heard his name--people
of his sort, as Dickens knew, are generally anonymous--but he was one of
the labourers of the locality, and only last winter I saw him shivering
at the street corners amongst other out-o'-works.

Behaviour like this is so characteristic of labouring men that we others
expect it of them as if it were especially their duty. Again and again I
have noticed it. If a horse falls in the street, ten chances to one it
is some obscure labouring fellow who gets him up again. Whether there is
danger or no, in emergencies which demand readiness and disregard of
comfort, the common unskilled labourer is always to the fore. One summer
night I had strolled out to the top of the road here which slants down,
over-arched by tall trees, past the Vicarage. At some distance down,
where there should have been such a depth of darkness under the trees, I
was surprised to see a little core of light, where five or six people
stood around a bright lamp, which one of them was holding. The scene
looked so theatrical, glowing under the trees with the s