"He must have gone up to the house.
"Oh, here comes nurse. Nurse, have you seen Master Tom? He has just run away," she called.
"No, ma'am, I have seen nothing of him."
"He must be about the garden then, somewhere. Look about, nurse. Where can the child have hidden itself?"
Nurse and mother ran about, calling loudly the name of the missing child. Five minutes later Mrs. Ripon ran into the study, where her husband was going through his farm accounts.
"Oh, Robert," she said, "I can't find Tom!" and she burst into tears.
"Not find Tom?" her husband said, rising in surprise. "Why, how long have you missed him?"
"He was out in the garden with me. I was picking flowers for the dinner table and, when I looked round, he was gone. Nurse and I have been looking everywhere, and calling, but we cannot find him."
"Oh, he is all right," Captain Ripon said, cheerfully. "Do not alarm yourself, little woman. He must have wandered into the shrubbery. We shall hear him howling, directly. But I will come and look for him."
No better success attended Captain Ripon's search than that which his wife had met with. He looked anxious, now. The gardeners and servants were called, and soon every place in the garden was ransacked.