Here when the will had been read again commotion seized them all. Hughie went out to the barn to hunt a spade, Hannah trotted about talking of wraps, Hetty found a lantern for Kenny and Kenny burned his fingers lighting it, and stepped on the cat. Joan soothed the outraged feline with a nervous laugh. There was madness in the air. In an interval of blank disgust in which he criticized the length of the cat's tail and the clarion quality of his yell, Kenny fumed off barnwards in search of Hughie. His excitement was compelling. Hannah headed a cloaked exodus from the kitchen, chirping an astonishment which she claimed was unprecedented in her quiet life.
They straggled up the orchard hill in a flutter.
It was snowing a little. The coldness of the air was soft and heavy. Hannah and Hughie held the lanterns high and with a startling attack that made the dirt fly, Kenny began to dig.
The lantern light rayed off grotesquely through the leafless orchard but the silent group, intent upon the energetic digger, watched only the spot where the fan-like rays converged upon the spade. The wind, sharp, intermittent and bringing with it now and then a flurry of snow, flapped their clothes about them. Kenny, pausing to wipe his forehead, thought the night warm. Joan's eyes, dark, solemn, frightened, spurred him on to greater effort. He dug furiously, flinging earth in all directions. Hughie marvelled at his madcap speed and the strength of his sinewy arms. His jaw was set. His face, dark and vivid in the lantern light, shone with a boy's excitement. But when the wind came he looked defiant. They could not know that to him, then, the spirit of Adam Craig seemed to come with a sigh and a rustle and hover near them.
Hughie took his turn at the spade but to Kenny his methodical competence proved an irritant. He was glad when Hughie's back gave out and forced him to surrender.
"Mr. O'Neill," said Hannah flatly after what seemed an interminable interval of digging, "you've dug a hole big enough to bury yourself. Mr. Craig's money couldn't be no further down than that. Myself I think you'd better let it go until morning. It's snowin' harder every minute and we'll all get our death of cold."
Kenny shuddered at the homely phrase. But he wiped the dirt and perspiration from his forehead and went off toward the kitchen in gloomy silence, his energy and optimism gone.