Jack longed to tell her everything on the spot, but feared she might disapprove of his going to bring home the treasure on the Sabbath. “After all’s over, then she’ll say I did right,” thought he. So he remarked, carelessly, “There’s a new minister to-day; I don’t like him very well. I guess I’ll go over and see Aunt Patsy a little while this afternoon.”
“If you do, I’ll send a loaf of bread and one of the pies we baked yesterday,” said Mrs. Chatford.
This was what Jack expected; and it gave him an excuse for carrying a basket. He took off his Sunday clothes, putting on an every-day suit in their place, lunched, and soon after started with Lion. He made a brief visit to the poor woman, and then set out for home by way of the woods.
On the edge of Aunt Patsy’s wood-lot he paused and looked carefully all about him. Not a human being was in sight. A Sabbath stillness reigned over all the sunlit fields and shadowy woods. There were Squire Peternot’s cattle feeding quietly in the pasture. A hawk was sailing silently high overhead. As he turned and walked on, two or three squirrels, gray and black, ran along the ground, disappearing around the trunks of trees to reappear in the rustling tops, and it was all he could do to keep Lion still.
“Look here, old fellow!” said he, “remember, you are not to bark to-day!”
From Aunt Patsy’s wood-lot he entered the squire’s, stepping over a dilapidated fence of poles and brush. The snapping of the decayed branches broke the silence; then, as he listened, he heard, far off, the bells for the afternoon service begin to ring. It was a strange sound, in that wildwood solitude, so shadowy and cool, and full of the fresh odors of moss and fern.
The bells were still ringing, and their faint, slow, solemn toll filled Jack’s heart with an indefinable feeling of guilt as he reached the log where his treasure was, and reflected upon the very worldly business that brought him there.
He did not reflect long,—he was too eager for the exciting work before him. Having walked on to the farther edge of the woods, to see that nobody was approaching from that direction, he returned, and began to pull out the sticks which he had stuffed into the end of the log.
“Everything’s just as I left it, so far,” thought he. “Wonder if my money-chest will dodge a fellow, like old Daddy Cobb’s!”
The opening clear, he put on an old brown frock which he had brought in the basket, laid his hat and coat on the ground, told Lion to watch them, and entered the log headforemost. The treasure, too, was where he had left it. His body stopped the cavity so that he could see nothing in its depths, but his groping hand felt the little trunk and the coin that had fallen out of its broken end.