_Irrepressible Outburst of Feeling from the Grand Panjandrum.--He
enlarges upon the Dignity of his Office.--Spades again.--Digging
once more.--At the old Place, my Boy.--Resumption of an unfinished
Work.--Uncovering the Money-hole.--The Iron Plate.--The Cover of the
Iron Chest--A Tremendous but restrained Excitement._
SUCH, then, was the explanation of the mystery of the discordant, the
hideous roar. To those who have heard the bray of a donkey it will be
intelligible how such a noise, sounding suddenly in the still midnight,
to inexperienced ears may have been full of terror; while to those who
have not heard it, a simple assertion of the above fact will, it
is hoped, be all that is necessary. It was the donkey’s bray which,
according to the fable, terrified the animals of the forest, after he
had put on the lion’s skin. Now, this donkey was clothed in something
more dreadful than a lion’s skin: he was clothed in the darkness and the
gloom of night, and his roar might well terrify those who heard it under
such circumstances, without knowing whence it came.
After the first surprise they all burst into a roar of laughter. It
was an immense relief to them all; but their merriment was a little
intermingled with feelings of shame, as the dark and dreadful mystery
thus resolved itself into the ridiculous form of a poor little donkey.
As for Solomon, the effect produced on him was greater than on the
others. As the first peal of the bray struck his ears, he started, his
jaw dropped, his eyes rolled up. Then, as the whole truth came to him,
he dashed his hat to the ground, threw his head back, and burst into
a perfect thunder-peal of laughter. There he stood, while the donkey
brayed, swinging his aged frame and his grizzled head backward and
forward, tossing his arms, and at last holding his aching sides.
And it was,--“O, dis sight! De jackass! O, de gracious sakes! Shades an
powers ob darkness! Sich _a_ succumstance! An’ dis nigga a gwine mad
wid feah about _dat!_ An all de blubbed breddern ob de Double bubble: de
mos’ wossfle, de patrick, de venebubble wodden, an all de ress, a flyin
on de heels ob de Granjer pander drum! wid a small jackass a chasin all
dem high an’ mighty ’ficials! Tinkin him de vengin sperrit ob a ole
Cajian slashin an swingin a pot ob gold ober our bressed heads! O, dis
erf alive! Nebber did dis nigga spec to fin out sich _a_ succumstance!
An de stonishing way we _did_ put! Gracious! how my ole heels did kick
up! Reglar ravin stracted wid terror we was; mind, I tell you! An dar
come a juvenile jackass out ob de wood to devour us up! Say, blubbed
breddern, whar’s dat ar minral rod? Spose you get dat ar stick for a
ridin whip; wonder ef ’twouldn’t make dat ar jackass gee up. Tell you
what now, Mas’r Bart, you jest get on dat ar animal’s back wid Mas’r
Bruce, an’ sing one or two ob dem dar cantations, an de rest ob you get
some magic candles an set fire to de top knot on de end ob dat ar tail.
Tell you what, dat’ll make him gee up--will so! Yah! yah! yah! yah! yah!
Ye-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-p!”
“Solomon, my son,’ said Bart, as the old fellow, after giving a wild
yell, was getting ready for another outburst.
“Yes, mos wossfle,” said Solomon, with a grin. “Would it be too much to
ask you to be kind enough to allow us to finish our rustic repast? As it
was interrupted by the noise of this quadruped, we think that it would
be very desirable to resume it, unless you prefer remaining here for the
rest of the day imitating the animal before us.”
“All right, mos possible,” said old Solomon, catching up his basket.
“Couldn’t help it. Had to let out strong. Bust if I hadn’t did so. Fust
man dat mentions de name ob a donkey to me, dis ole niggall bust. Dat’s
so!”
Saying this, Solomon kicked up one leg, then slapped one hand down hard
on his knee, and stood for a moment with his head bent down, while his
whole frame shook with internal laughter. At length he raised his head,
and presented to the view of the boys a face as grave, as demure, and
as solemn as the visage of a judge who is about to pronounce a sentence,
only there was an irrepressible twinkle in each of his small black beads
of eyes which took a little from the mask of gravity with which his face
was covered.
Then he took up the basket, and walked back towards the old French
orchard. The boys passed him, reaching the cellar first. Then they all
sat down again, and Solomon, for the third time, spread the table before
them.
“Dis heah,” said he, “chil’en, am de third and de lass time. Ef any ob
you runs away, he’ll lose his bressed dinna, now an forebbermore. Amen.
So you go ahead, an eat, fass as you can. De visions ain’t gwine to
spile your ’gestions.”
The boys were hungry, and ate in silence. Solomon stood apart
unobserved, with a broad grin on his face, occasionally muttering to
himself, and shaking all over with laughter. After each of these silent
explosions, he would suddenly recover his gravity, mutter to himself
some solemn rebuke, and look awfully grave for about half a minute, till
a new explosion came.
That discovery had been too much for him. He had seen the donkey when
it came, but he had never heard it bray. The terror over him had been
tremendous. Every night since then had been a night of fear, and it was
the violent revulsion of feeling from his former panic which brought on
this joyousness. It took him all the rest of the term to get over his
tendency to burst forth on all occasions into fits of laughter.
At length the repast was over, and Solomon at last had the satisfaction
of feeling that his efforts had been fully “’preciated.” The boys felt
like giants refreshed, and Solomon looked with great complacency upon
the bones of the fowls and the empty dishes.
“Dat’s about de ticket,” he said, as he piled the dishes into the
basket. “Didn’t want to carry back such a hebby load to de ’Cad’my.
Been tuggin at it all day. Got to hurry back now.”
“What, Solomon! you’re not going?” said Bart.
“Got to--must.”
“Nonsense! We can’t spare you yet. We want to talk to you.”
“Can’t spar de time now,--mos ’portant business. De doctor allus
specks me punct’ly. Got to get him his dinna. Dis is all very well for
_play_; but business is business, an dat’s what me’n’ de doctor’s got
to tend to. We’ve got de ’portant business ob life--de dinna
’partment.”
“O, he’ll get his dinner all right,” said Arthur.
“What dat? He--de doctor--widout me!”
Solomon rolled up his eyes till only the whites were visible, and stood
lost in wonder at the preposterous idea.
“Sich chil’en as you,” said he, loftily, “don’t ond’stan de serious
business ob life. Wait till you get to be sixty, an hab cooked as many
dinnas as me; den you may talk.”
“That’s hard for us,” said Tom, “if we have to become cooks and get to
be sixty.”
“Course it is--an I mean it to hit hard. A dinna’s a dinna, an no
mistake. Me’n’ de doctor knows dat. Why, whar’d de ’Cad’my be, ef
I wasn’t to give de doctor a rail fust-rate dinna ebery day? Me’n’ de
doctor keep de ’Cad’my goin. He’s de mas’r, an I’m de one dat keeps
him a goin, an so we bofe ob us keep de ’Cad’my goin.”
“Solomon,” said Arthur, “you ought to be one of the teachers.”
“‘Teachas!” said Solomon; “ain’t I somefin more? What’s a teacha? I’m a
pro-fessa. I’m de ’fessa ob de cool an airy ’partment.”
“Culinary,” said Bart.
“No,” said Solomon; “cool an airy. Dat’s what de doctor said. Ses he,
‘Solomon, you hab a ’portant ’sition,--you preside ober de cool an
airy _‘partment_.’ ‘What’s dat ar?’ ses I. ‘O,’ ses he, ‘it’s only de
Injin’ fur cookin.’ An I ups an tales him ef he’d ony stay down on
some broilin, hot day in Auguss in de kitchen, he’d’fess dat de Injin
langidgo didn’t spress de idee, ef it called sich a oven of a place
‘cool an airy.’ Dat’s what I tale him,--an’ now, blubbed breddern,
farewell!”
Saying this, Solomon took his basket, and retired from the scene.
“There’s a great lot of these cellars about,” said Arthur at last, after
some silence, during which they had been sprawling on the grass beside
the cellar. “There’s a great lot of them. I wonder how many there are?”
“O, two or three hundred, at least,” said Bruce; “perhaps more.”
“Well, for my part,” said Bart, “I believe that there’s money buried in
some of them; and though our adventure was awfully ridiculous, yet that
doesn’t alter the sober fact, and I think the general belief is right.”
“I go in for digging again,” said Phil. “I don’t believe in finding
money, but we may find something.”
“Bones, for instance,” said Bruce.
“Yes, bones, if you like; and then we’d give them to the museum.
Anything at all would be acceptable. It would take the edge off our
disappointment of the other night.”
“There’s a great deal in that,” said Bruce.
“I don’t like giving it up altogether,” said Bart. “We’ve begun
it--let’s finish it.”
“And there’s the hole,” said Tom, “inviting us to come along.”
“Besides,” said Bruce, “don’t you remember we struck something hard? and
I _know_ it wasn’t a stone.”
“No,” said Arthur; “that’s a fact,--all our shovels touched it. We all
heard the dull, ringing sound it gave. It was metal. Let’s go to work, I
say.”
“When?” said Bart.
“Tomorrow morning,” said Phil, “early--”
“No--I say _now_,” said Arthur.
“So say I.”
“And I.”
“All right,” said Phil; “I say so, too. But what’ll we do for shovels?”
“Do? Why, we can go and get some, I suppose,” said Bruce.
“But won’t the fellows see us?”
“What if they do?”
“Why, they’ll wonder what we’re up to.”
“What then?”
“They’ll follow us, and see.”
“Very well. We’re not going to work in secret this time. We’re working
now in broad day. We haven’t any mineral rod, nor any magic ceremonies.
We’re merely a plain, hard-working crowd; not of money-diggers, but of
archaeologists. We’re not digging for pots of gold, but for curiosities
and relics of the Acadian French. That’s our position now, my boy; and a
very much more dignified position it is than the one we occupied when we
were making fools of ourselves the other night.”
So spoke Bruce, who felt more keenly than the others the shame of that
panic, for the reason that he had been more deeply touched. Since then
he had, over and over again, vindicated his courage most nobly,
on occasions, too, when the exercise of that courage could only be
accomplished by a supreme effort of his strong spirit; yet, in spite of
this, he felt galled at the recollection of that night, and could not
allude to it without bitterness.
“Well,” said Phil, “if Jiggins, and Bogud, and the other lot are
very inquisitive, I’ll invite them up, and we can get them to do the
digging.”
“That’s a very sensible way of viewing it,” said Bart. “Yes, that’s just
what we’ll do. For my part, I’d rather have them come than not, for, if
they were to dig, our curiosity would be satisfied all the same, while
our various muscles would not have to submit to such very violent
exertion as is called forth by the unpleasant process of digging with a
spade in such abominably hard ground.”
“Well, Bart,” said Bruce, “as soon as you’ve taken breath after that
long-winded sentence, we’ll start.”
Up jumped Bart at this, and the others followed his example.
They went down to the Academy and obtained spades and a pickaxe without
any difficulty. Shouldering these they paraded about the yard, in the
hope of attracting attention. But to their great disappointment they
didn’t attract any attention whatever. The boys were all away, some in
front, some out for a walk. So they came to the conclusion that they
would have to do their own digging.
“At any rate,” said Bart, as they walked back up the hill, “one comfort
is, that we dug up the place before, and this time the ground will be
softer.”
“I’ve got the old pickaxe,” said Bruce, “all ready in case of need.”
“Whether we find anything or not, it will satisfy our minds.”
“Yes, and then, you know, we can leave the hole open, and explain to
the others why we dug it. We can induce them also to do a little more
digging, perhaps.”
“But if we find anything there’ll be a still stronger temptation to
dig.”
“O, if we find anything, all the cellars in the place will be turned
inside out.”
“David Digg will have a chance to prove himself deserving of his name.”
“What a joke it would be if Pat were to see us! He’d be wild with
curiosity, and follow us so as to see.”
“O, there’s no danger. Nobody’ll come--that’s just because we want
them,” said Phil.
Chatting in this way they marched up the hill, back again to the old
French orchard, which they reached without having attracted the smallest
attention from anybody, and at length they all stood once more with
their spades by the cellar. Very different was this occasion from the
last, and they all felt it so. The last had been one of pure fun and
nonsense, disturbed, however, by the tremors of some of their number;
this time, on the contrary, was an occasion in which business seemed to
predominate.
They paused for a little while on the edge of the cellar, before
committing themselves to their work.
Upon this Bart began to whine out through his nose a doleful ditty, to
the tune of Auld Lang Syne.
“Whene’er I take my walks abroad
How many holes I see!