“Keep off, I say!” he cried savagely, springing from his chair. “Keep off!—keep out of my sight—I don’t know what I mid do to you.”
“There, my dears,” interposed their mother, in a tremulous aside, “best not anger him. He’s not himself, d’ye see. Run upstairs and get your things on, and see if ye can rouse up any of the neighbours to come and help look for the child.”
“I’ll not wait for nobody’s help!” growled her husband, catching at the words. “I be goin’ to look for my child myself. I’m not a-goin’ to take none o’ you wi’ me—ye don’t deserve it. Ye didn’t, none o’ ye, vally that child as ye did ought to ha’ vallyed him, and now he be lost, and ye don’t none o’ ye deserve to find en.”
The women-folk gazed at each other aghast, but before they could remonstrate he was gone.
* * * * *
Day was dawning in all the cool glamour of fine September; a milky sky, that would presently become brilliant blue, a dew-drenched landscape; trees and pasture alike silver-besprent. Robins were already singing in the boughs, and the sparrows had long been awake and busy, when a party of workmen, each with spade and pick on shoulder, sauntered across the fields to the scene of their daily labours. As they walked they could hear the stir and bustle at Shroton—no great distance away. The Fair had ended on the preceding night, and the travelling folk were busily collecting their gear, and preparing for the road. Many shows and gipsy vans had, indeed, departed long before it was light, and from time to time the clatter of a traction-engine, the shriek of a steam-whistle, a column of noisome smoke poisoning the air above the green-gold line of hedge which bordered the highway, indicated the retirement of some unusually important merry-go-round or switchback.
The men had all paid a visit to the fair on one or other of the two days previous, and were discussing with some eagerness and occasional bursts of laughter the various frolics in which each had taken part, when they arrived at their goal.
Their task, unusual enough in itself, did not seem strange to them. They were removing soil and rubbish from the recently discovered remains of a Roman villa.
Roman remains were common enough in that neighbourhood; antiquarians had even gloated over traces of still earlier times. Thigh-bones, which were recognised to be of Danish origin, skulls of ancient Britons, had been found and treasured; there were undeniable traces, not far from this particular spot, of a hamlet once occupied by some almost prehistoric race. No wonder, therefore, that the excavation of a mere Roman villa was an event comparatively unimportant!
Yet when the foremost workman reached the spot and looked down at the scene of his previous labours, he uttered a long, shrill whistle, and, turning to his comrades, exclaimed:—