in, that they could not justly tell where it
was; that I begun heartily to sweat, and be angry, that they should not
agree better upon the place, and at last to fear that it was gone but by
and by poking with a spit, we found it, and then begun with a spudd to
lift up the ground. But, good God! to see how sillily they did it, not
half a foot under ground, and in the sight of the world from a hundred
places, if any body by accident were near hand, and within sight of
a neighbour's window, and their hearing also, being close by: only my
father says that he saw them all gone to church before he begun the
work, when he laid the money, but that do not excuse it to me. But I was
out of my wits almost, and the more from that, upon my lifting up the
earth with the spudd, I did discern that I had scattered the pieces of
gold round about the ground among the grass and loose earth; and taking
up the iron head-pieces wherein they were put, I perceive the earth was
got among the gold, and wet, so that the bags were all rotten, and all
the notes, that I could not tell what in the world to say to it, not
knowing how to judge what was wanting, or what had been lost by Gibson
in his coming down: which, all put together, did make me mad; and at
last was forced to take up the head-pieces, dirt and all, and as many
of the scattered pieces as I could with the dirt discern by the
candlelight, and carry them up into my brother's chamber, and there
locke them up till I had eat a little supper: and then, all people going
to bed, W. Hewer and I did all alone, with several pails of water and
basins, at last wash the dirt off of the pieces, and parted the pieces
and the dirt, and then begun to tell [them]; and by a note which I had
of the value of the whole in my pocket, do find that there was short
above a hundred pieces, which did make me mad; and considering that the
neighbour's house was so near that we could not suppose we could speak
one to another in the garden at the place where the gold lay--especially
my father being deaf--but they must know what we had been doing on,
I feared that they might in the night come and gather some pieces and
prevent us the next morning; so W. Hewer and I out again about midnight,
for it was now grown so late, and there by candlelight did make shift
to gather forty-five pieces more. And so in, and to cleanse them: and
by this time it was past two in the morning; and so to bed, with my mind
pretty quiet to think