“Help to break her down!” at the same instant Michael, the porter, pressing to his side armed with an ax. “Now, all together!” cried he, and whether or no, Jack was compelled to aid in the work of breaking in.
But it was short work, indeed, and the crowd surged through the opening in terror of what they might behold—only to have that terror changed into shouts of hilarious delight.
For there was Dorothy! not one whit the worse for her brief imprisonment and happily unconscious of the anxiety which that had caused to others. And there was Baal, the goat! Careering about the place, dragging behind him a board to which he had been tied and was unable to dislodge. The room was fairly lighted now by the sun streaming through the skylight, and Baal had been having a glorious time chasing Dorothy about the great room, from spot to spot, gleefully trying to butt her with his horns, leaping over piles of empty trunks, and in general making such a ridiculous—if sometimes dangerous—spectacle of himself, that Dorothy, also, had had a merry time.
“Oh! you darling, you darling!” “Dolly Doodles, how came you here!” “Why did you do it? You’ve scared us all almost to death!” “The Bishop has gone into town to start detectives on your track!” “The Lady Principal—Here she is now! you’ve made her positively ill, and as for Dawkins, they say she had completely collapsed and lies on her chair moaning all the time.”
“Oh, oh! How dreadful! And how sorry I am! I never dreamed; oh! dear Miss Muriel, do believe me—listen, listen!”
The lady sat down on a trunk and drew the girl to her. Her only feeling now was one of intensest gratitude, but she remembered how all the others had shared her anxiety and bade her recovered pupil tell the story so that all might hear. It was very simple, as has been seen, and needs no repetition here, ending with the heartfelt declaration:
“That cures me of playing detective ever again! I was so anxious to stop all that silly talk about evil spirits and after all the only such around Oak Knowe was Baal!”
“But how Baal, and why? And most of all how came he here in the house?” demanded Miss Tross-Kingdon, looking from one to another; until her eye was arrested by the expression of Jack, the boot-boy’s face. That was so funny she smiled, seeing it, and asked him:
“Can’t you explain this, Jack?”
“Uh—er—Ah! Wull—wull, yes, Ma’am, I allow ’t I might. I mean ’t I can. Er—sho!—Course, I’ll have to. Wull—wull—You see, Miss Lady Principal, how as last summer, after school was took in, I hired myself out to work for old John Gilpin an’ he had a goat. Dame didn’t hanker for it no great; said it et up things an’ got into places where ’twarn’t wanted and she adwised him, that is to say she told him, how ’t he must get rid of it. He got rid of it onto me. I hadn’t got nobody belongin’ and we’ve been first rate friends, Baal and me.”