“Now let us return,” said Tom; “there is no use in remaining here. It is growing quite dark, and beginning to rain. We can continue our search in the morning.”
“But if poor little Johnny should be somewhere in this wood, only think what he would suffer left out all night. It would kill him with fright, if not with the weather. Remember, Tom, that no one else is likely to have looked for him here; a place which he could never have reached by himself.”
Tom muttered something between his teeth, which, perhaps, it was as well that Minnie did not hear; but he certainly looked around him more carefully.
Minnie had wandered a few steps from her brother, and was slowly walking round the greensward surrounding the well—a clear space which was almost inclosed by the wood, only open on the side by which they had approached it, and from which two dark narrow paths, scarce wide enough to permit two persons to pass each other, led into the depths of the forest. On a sudden she stopped, stooped down, then eagerly cried out, “Oh, look what I have here!—he must be near!—he must be near!” Tom hastened to the spot, and beheld in Minnie’s hand a little dusty shoe, with its strap and round black button, which both felt certain had belonged to the lost child.
“Well, he could not walk far without his shoe,” observed Tom. “I daresay that he is near enough to hear me. Halloo, Johnny!” he shouted, “halloo!” There was no reply but the echo.
“He must have gone down one of those little paths,” said Minnie; “we had better search one of them at once.”
“Better search both of them, as there are two of us,” said Tom; “if we took but one, we should be sure to choose the wrong one.”
Poor Minnie gave a woful look at the dark walks; however tempting they might, have looked when nuts were on the boughs, and the sunbeams struggled through their green shade, to the eye of the little girl they looked anything but tempting now, when approaching night was wrapping them in deepest gloom.
“Why, you are not afraid!” cried Tom, with his rude coarse laugh; for now that he was relieved from his fear that the child was actually dead, the thought of what he might be suffering weighed little upon his mind.
“If it be right for me to go alone, I will go,” faltered Minnie, “whether I am afraid or not.”