That Little Beggar Part 16

CHAPTER VIII.

"I'M A SOLDIER NOW."

Some two hours later Briggs faced Granny and myself with a countenance expressive of the deepest despair.

"He's gone, mum!" she exclaimed, tragically, throwing up her hands as she spoke.

"Gone! Gone! Who is gone?" Granny asked with bewilderment and surprise at Briggs' sudden announcement. Then, as Chris's absence struck her, she inquired fearfully:

"Has anything happened to Master Chris? Where is the child? Why is he not with you?"

"He's lost, mum!" she said, breathlessly. "Everywhere have I looked for him, high and low, up and down, but nowhere is he to be found!"

At this startling piece of intelligence Granny half rose in her chair as if to go without delay and search for the wanderer; but, recollecting the necessity for further information, she sunk back again, and asked with agitation:

"Where, then, did you leave him? When did you last see him? How long ago is it, Briggs? I must beg of you to be as accurate as possible, most accurate."

"I left him in the garden about an hour ago," she answered, on the point of tears. "I had just taken him out for a short walk, having some work to do; and thinking he'd be better for a little more air I left him in the garden when we came back. When I went for him half an hour after, not a trace of him was there to be seen!"

"But how careless, how very careless of you, Briggs!" Granny said in a reprimanding yet trembling voice. "You should not have left him out of your sight for so long. At his age! Most inconsiderate!"

"Have you looked along the road?" I suggested. "He may have wandered out there. He did so the day I arrived."

"I've walked half a mile along each way," she answered, with a hopeless sigh.

"But the garden, Briggs!" Granny exclaimed, in her anxiety hardly knowing what to say. "How could you be so thoughtless, so forgetful as not to search the garden before you went into the road?"

"But I did, mum; it was the very first thing I did do," she replied tearfully, and with something of an injured expression at this unnecessary censure.

"Have you looked over the house? He may be hiding there," I said.

"Everywhere in the house and out of it," she answered with gloomy conviction. "Not a stone have I left unturned."

We glanced from one to the other with perplexity. What could have become of the little beggar? Where could he have hidden himself, thus to escape this vigilant search?

"Wouldn't it be as well to let Mr. Wyndham know?" I said. "I think I hear him practising billiards."

"Of course, of course!" Granny answered with relief. "Why didn't I think of that at once? Briggs, go at once and ask Mr. Wyndham to speak to me."

"Well, what is it?" he said cheerfully, when he arrived upon the scene.

"The youngster disappeared? There is no need for worry. Depend upon it he is hiding somewhere not very far off, and we'll soon unearth him."

"You say you have looked carefully in the garden?" he continued to Briggs.

"All over it, sir; in every corner," she replied.

"All the same, we had better do it again," he said. "It is just possible that he may have escaped you the first time. No, mother, you stay here,"

he said decidedly, as Granny rose with the evident intention of accompanying him. "You will only tire yourself for no purpose. If he is to be found in the garden, you may rest a.s.sured that I shall find him and bring him to you as soon as possible. Just stay here quietly with Miss Baggerley, and don't worry yourself."

Undoubtedly a very good piece of advice, this last, but one that poor Granny in her nervous state of mind found very difficult to follow.

"It is so strange, so very strange!" she said, unhappily. "I cannot understand it at all; I only pray that no accident may have happened to the child. I should have thought Briggs would have taken greater precautions if she intended to leave him alone for that time. I had a higher opinion of her, I had indeed.

"She is much to blame," she added, smoothing with a nervous little movement the curls she wore in the old fas.h.i.+on on each side of her face.

After this she continued her knitting, but she was plainly too restless and ill at ease to fix her attention on her work.

"My dear," she said in a minute, "it has just struck me that it would be a good thing if we were together to look upstairs; Briggs may not have searched there thoroughly. Do you not think that it would be a good plan if we were to go?"

I should have liked to answer in the negative, for she was not strong, and a little exertion soon fatigued her. But I saw that it would be a real relief to her in her anxiety to be doing something. So I did not follow my inclination, and together we went slowly upstairs, Granny leaning on my arm, in a sweet, clinging way,--a way that was all her own.

Arrived upstairs, we went conscientiously from room to room, but in vain. No success attended our efforts.

We would go into a room, when Granny, opening the door of a cupboard and peering in in a short-sighted way, would call out in a gentle, slightly quavering voice:

"Is my darling hiding here from his Granny?"

No answer coming, her face would become still more anxious-looking, and she would request me to see if he were under the bed.

"Will you look under the bed, my dear, and see if he is there?" she would whisper, as if fearful that he might overhear and escape us. Then as I did so, she would cry coaxingly:

"Are you hiding there, my pet, trying to frighten poor Granny? Come out, my darling, come out."

And so on from room to room till we had exhausted all those not only on the first floor but on the next also, after which she proposed exploring the attics. By this time, however, she was so tired that I persuaded her to send one of the servants instead, whilst she returned with me to the library.

Here we found Briggs waiting for us, with a face the expression of which told its tidings without words. Ill-success was so plainly written upon it, that our anxious question, "Have you found him?" seemed almost superfluous.

"Did you look everywhere, Briggs,--everywhere?" poor Granny asked anxiously, and with grievous disappointment.

"In every single nook and corner, mum," Briggs replied, with a heavy sigh. "He ain't in the garden--that's sure and certain."

"Where is Mr. Wyndham?" Granny inquired, as she sat down wearily in her arm-chair.

"He's gone round to the stables," she said. "He's going to drive into Marston. He says that Master Chris this morning was talking about the recruiting-sergeant staying there, and he thinks it may be possible he has taken it into his head to go to him, fancying he can enlist."

"I really think that that is possible," I remarked.

"Dear me! dear me! What if anything should happen to the child on the way?" exclaimed Granny, with fresh care.

"I should not think of that; nothing will happen. Someone will find him and bring him back," I replied, speaking more cheerfully than I altogether felt.

As I spoke I turned to the window, more from a restless feeling of not knowing what to do with myself than for any other reason.

Certainly the last thing in the world I expected to see at that particular moment was the little beggar.

Yet--to my utter astonishment--that was exactly what I did see!