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:—
“What’s up?” cried another, pressing forward in his turn.
The rest hastened after him, and soon all were bending forward looking into the pit, the depth of which varied from five to six feet. What was it that had called forth their astonishment? The ancient walls, which each day’s toil exposed more fully, had now become familiar to them; they had often noticed the lines of colour traced by some alien hand so many centuries before, yet still bright and distinct where the sunshine caught them: they were not prone to marvel at these things at any time, and certainly not now when the modern wonders at the Fair were still fresh in their memory.
“Why, how ever did he get there?” cried the first speaker, pointing downwards with his thumb as the long-dead proprietor of those ancient walls might once have pointed at some doomed gladiator.
There, amid the relics of a bygone civilisation, lay the chubby form of a little nineteenth-century child—an extremely modern little Briton in a sailor-suit, with a mop of yellow curls tumbling over his sleeping face.
Yes, there lay Johnny! While his distracted father was scouring the roads; while his mother and sisters, frantic with grief, had passed the night in wandering from house to house beating up search-parties, Johnny was sleeping the sweet, sound sleep of the tired child, on a heap of soft earth at the bottom of the Roman villa.