Get it done before I get back." "Yes, father," cried Dick.

"Come along, Tom." The task was now undertaken with alacrity, for there was somehow a suggestion to both of the lads of something in the nature of fun, in connection with getting the ass to drag that great root.
The companions ran along by the boggy field toward the farm buildings on the Toft, to seek out the old grey donkey, who was at that moment contemplatively munching some hay in a corner of the big yard, in whose stone walls, were traces of carving and pillar with groin and arch.
Now some people once started the idea that a donkey is a very stupid animal; and, like many more such theories, that one has been handed down to posterity, and believed in as a natural history fact, while donkey or ass has become a term of reproach for those not blessed with too much brain.
Winthorpe's donkey was by no means a stupid beast, and being thoroughly imbued with the idea that it was a slave's duty to do as little work as he possibly could for those who held him in bonds, he made a point of getting out of the way whenever he scented work upon the wind.
He was a grey old gentleman, whose years were looked upon as tremendous; and as he stood in the corner of the yard munching hay, he now and then scratched his head against an elaborately carved stone bracket in the wall which took the form of a grotesque face.
Then his jaws stopped, and it was evident that he scented something, for he raised his head slightly.

Then he swung one great ear round, and then brought up the other with a sharp swing till they were both cocked forward and he listened attentively.
A minute before, and he was a very statue of a donkey, but after a few moments' attentive listening he suddenly became full of action, and setting up his tail he trotted round the yard over the rotten peat and ling that had been cut and tossed in, to be well trampled before mixing with straw and ploughing into the ground.

He changed his pace to a gallop, and then, still growing more excited, he made straight for the rough gate so as to escape.
But the gate was fastened, though not so securely but that it entered into a donkey's brain that he might undo that fastening, as he had often undone it before, and then deliberately walked off into the fen, where succulent thistles grew.
This time, however, in spite of the earnest way in which he applied his teeth, he could not get that fastening undone; and, after striking at it viciously with his unshod hoof, he reared up, as if to leap over, but contented himself with resting his fore-legs on the rough top rail, and looking over at the free land he could not reach; and he was in this attitude when the two lads came up.
"Hullo, Solomon!" cried Dick.

"Poor old fellow, then! Did you know we'd come for you ?" The donkey uttered a discordant bray which sounded like the blowing badly of a trumpet of defiance, and backing away, he trotted to the far end of the yard, and thrust his head into a corner.
"Where's the harness ?" said Tom.
"In the stone barn," was the reply; and together the lads fetched the rough harness of old leather and rope, with an extra piece for fastening about the root.
"I say, Dick, he won't kick that root to pieces like he did the little tumbril," said Tom, who for convenience had placed the collar over his own head.
"Nor yet knock one side off like he did with the sled," replied Dick with a very vivid recollection of one of Solomon's feats.