"You're an obstinate fellow to stand out so," said the maid. "But I'll come back in five minutes and see how you get on."
The good-natured servant hastened into the kitchen with the pitcher of water in her hand; and the lad continued his delving occupation in such thorough earnest that the perspiration poured down his forehead.
By the time the maid-servant returned to the spot where he was digging, he had thrown out a great quantity of earth, and had already made a hole at least three feet deep.
"Still hard at work?" she said. "Why, you have made a place deep enough to bury that little sapling in! And what a curious shape the hole is, to be sure! Just for all the world like as if it was dug to put a dead body in! I wish you wouldn't go on digging in that way, Harry—I shall dream of nothing but graves——"
A cry of horror, bursting from the lips of the boy, interrupted the maid-servant's good-natured loquacity.
"What is it, Harry?" she demanded, peeping timidly into the hole, from which the boy hastily scrambled out.
"You talk of dead bodies," he cried, shuddering from head to foot, and with a countenance ashy pale;—"but look there—a human hand——"
The maid shrieked, and darted back into the kitchen, uttering ejaculations of horror.
Mrs. Torrens heard those sounds of alarm, and hastily descended the stairs.
"Oh! missus," cried the boy, whom she encountered in the passage leading from the hall to the back door of the house; "such a horrible sight—Oh, missus! what shall we do?—what will become of us?"