As time passed and the boys did not return, Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer became very uneasy. Being fully aware of their son’s recklessness, they did not know what danger he and Will might, even at that moment, be incurring. All day the two had been whispering mysteriously together, as though contriving some dark scheme; and perhaps, like Don Quixote and his squire, they had set out in quest of adventures.
“Why couldn’t they have said where they were going, anyway?” Mr. Mortimer growled impatiently.
Mrs. Mortimer was a woman who permitted her son to do very much as he pleased, never interfering with his plans of amusement as long as he kept within proper bounds.
“Henry said he would tell me all about it when he came back; and he seemed, to be in such a hurry that I didn’t like to question him,” she said mildly. “I—I think it must be all right.”
“Let us go up to the boys’ room,” Mr. Mortimer said; “perhaps we can find a clue to their whereabouts.”
They went up-stairs immediately. The cousins had not shut the drawer, and a single glance into it told that they had been loading pistols.
“Oh! this is horrible!” groaned Mr. Mortimer. “Wasn’t that boy Will sent here because he got into disgrace about gunpowder?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Mortimer said faintly.
“Yes; and now, after trying to destroy the boys in his own village, he has come here, to put an end to our Henry!” he continued fiercely. “Till he came, Henry’s balloons were all right, and I was proud of them; but see how he tampered with his model! Henry never dreamed of loading his pistols, and going out with them. Henry is full of life, I know; but this is all that boy’s doings.”