"`Good job,' he says, `as Sir Francis ain't at home, for he thought a
deal of that boy.' "`Warn't my fault,' I says; but he shook his head, and took me in, and
there sat Old Brownsmith's brother's wife, with a white face and red
eyes as if she had been crying, and Old Brownsmith himself.
"Well, he gives me a long talking to, and I told him everything about
it; and when I'd done I says again as it warn't my fault, and Old
Brownsmith turns to his brother and he says, as fair as a man could
speak, `It warn't his fault, Solomon; and if it's as he says, Grant's
that sort o' boy as'll repent and be very sorry, and if he don't come
back before, you'll get a letter begging your pardon for what he's done,
or else I shall. You wait a couple of days.' "I dunno why, but I was reg'lar uncomf'table about you, my lad, and I
didn't understand Juno stopping away so, for next day she was gone
again, but next night she was back. Next day she was gone again, and
didn't come back, and on the fourth, when I was down the garden
digging--leastwise, I wasn't digging, for I was leaning on my spade
thinking, up comes Old Brownsmith's brother with his mouth open, and
before he could say a word I says to him, `Stop!' I says; `I've got
it,' for it come to me like a flash o' lightning.
"`What?' he says.
"`Them boys is in that sand-pit, covered over!' I says.
"`That's it!' he says. `I was coming to say I thought so, and that we'd
go over directly.' "Bless your heart, my boy, I was all of a shiver as I got into the light
cart alongside Old Brownsmith's brother and six shovels and four spades
in the bottom of the cart as I felt we should want, and I see as Old
Brownsmith's brother had got a flask o' something strong in his
breast-pocket. Then I just looked and saw that Juno warn't there, and
we were off.
"My hye, how that there horse did go till we got to the little public.
We stopped once to give her mouth a wash out and a mouthful of hay, and
then we were off again, never hardly saying a word, but as we got to the
public we pulls up, and Old Brownsmith's brother shouts to the landlord,
`Send half-a-dozen men up to the sand-pit directly. Boys buried.' "You see he felt that sure, my lad, that he said that, and then we drove
on up the hill, with the horse smoking, and a lot of men after us.