“Why, ma’am, ’twas the seven years, you sees, and in course when them you wot of had power to carry him off, they could not take his sword, nor his hat, not they couldn’t.”
“How about his purse, then?” put in Dr. Woodford.
“I’ll be bound you will find it yet, sir,” responded Jonadab, by no means disconcerted, “leastways unless some two-legged fairies have got it.”
At this some of the party found it impossible not to laugh, and this so upset poor Martha’s composure that she was obliged to leave the table, and Anne was not sorry for the excuse of attending her, although there were stings of pain in all her rambling lamentations and conjectures.
Very tardily, according to the feelings of the anxious women, was the dinner finished, and their companions ready to take them out again. Indeed, Madam Oakshott at last repaired to the dining-parlour, and roused her husband from his glass of Spanish wine to renew the search. She would not listen to Mrs. Fellowes’s advice not to go out again, and Anne could not abstain either from watching for what could not be other than grievous and mournful to behold.
The soldiers were called out again by their captain, and reinforced by the Rectory servant and Jonadab.
There was an interval of anxious prowling round the opening. Mr. Oakshott and the captain had gone down again, and found, what the military man was anxious about, that if there were passages to the outer air, they had been well blocked up and not re-opened.
Meantime the digging proceeded.
It was just at twilight that a voice below uttered an exclamation. Then came a pause. The old sergeant’s voice ordered care and a pause, somewhere below the opening with, “Sir, the spades have hit upon a skull.”
There was a shuddering pause. All the gentlemen except Dr. Woodford, who feared the chill, descended again. Mrs. Oakshott and Anne held each other’s hands and trembled.