The altar fire by A.C. Benson

There is a story of a Cornish farmer who, returning home one dark and misty night, struck across the moorland, every yard of which he knew, in order to avoid a long tramp by road. In one place there were a number of disused mine-shafts; the railing which had once protected them had rotted away, and it had been no one's business to see that it was renewed -- some few had been filled up, but many of them were hundreds of feet deep, and entirely unguarded. The farmer first missed the track, and after long wandering found himself at last among the shafts. He sate down, knowing the extreme danger of his situation, and resolved to wait till the morning; but it became so cold that he dared stay no longer, for fear of being frozen alive, and with infinite precautions he tried to make his way out of the dangerous region, following the downward slope of the ground.

In spite, however, of all his care, he found suddenly, on putting his foot down, that he was on the edge of a shaft, and that his foot was dangling in vacancy. He threw himself backwards, but too late, and he slid down several feet, grasping at the grass and heather; his foot fortunately struck against a large stone, which though precariously poised, arrested his fall; and he hung there for some hours in mortal anguish, not daring to move, clinging to a tuft of heather, shouting at intervals, in the hope that, when he did not return home, a search-party might be sent out to look for him. At last he heard, to his intense relief, the sound of voices hailing him, and presently the gleam of lanterns shot through the mist.