Before night should put an end to their labors, Jack and the young boys cut down a slender tree, resembling the pine, to make a ladder; and Margaret, with the help of Wilkins, pared off the turf, dug a large plot of ground, and planted it with potatoes. Then, worn out with a day of extreme toil, the wayfarers rested beneath a threatening sky, in the heated atmosphere which indicated an approaching storm.
A few drops of rain at daybreak roused up the whole family to prompt activity.
"It's no time to start and build to-day," said Wilkins. "Wait a bit; here's a storm ower our heads; or, if ye want work, what say ye to sinking yon bit pond a foot deeper? it holds nought, and when t' rain falls it'll overflow and half drown us, if we don't mind."
Arthur thought it was a more prudent plan to dig another pond or reservoir, rather deeper than the original one, and make a channel between the two. They should thus secure a supply of water, and prevent their potato ground from being washed away by a sudden flood.
"And, now that the ladder is finished," said Margaret, "it would be better that papa and I should descend at once into this subterranean grotto, and make it ready for our temporary abode, till you are able to build a hut; for there is certainly a prospect of rain falling to-day."
"Come along," cried Gerald, "that I may usher you into my newly-discovered dominions. Now, Ruth, we shall have you safe; you will have few opportunities of committing mischief when you are below the earth. Come and descend into the burning mountain, and take care you don't fight with my eagle."
"Oh! master, is't true—is't a burning mountain?" asked Ruth, in terror.
"It has been a volcano," answered Mr. Mayburn, "but, in all probability, exhausted, hundreds of years ago. It is now, as you see, a beautiful wilderness."
Ruth did not regard the beauty of the spot; she saw only, in her mind's eye, the red flames pouring from Mount Vesuvius, as depicted in a gaudy picture-book she had seen in her childhood.
"Oh, please, Miss Marget," she exclaimed, "stay up here! don't go down into that hole; it'll, maybe, break out again, and we'll all be burnt alive."