For it was only when he was in mischief that the continual flow of Edmund's conversation ceased, and he was traced by his silences rather than by his sounds.
Warily did Robina search through every nook and corner of that garden: behind raspberry canes, between gooseberry bushes, even among the cabbages, but nowhere was there any sign of either child or dog. The girl's heart sank. Edmund had probably gone back to the house and Elsa had just kept him that she might the better come down on his young nurse for her carelessness. Robina well knew the awful "radgin" that awaited her if this were the case. It was just possible that the baby had toddled round to the front and was playing among the flower beds, doing damage in exactly inverse ratio to his size and weight. As she passed the open kitchen window Robina looked in: a great gust of hot air laden with the clean, good smell of newly made scones met her. Elsa was over at the fire giving the scones, still on the griddle, an occasional poke with her gnarled old finger. Edmund most certainly was not there. Robina's spirits rose. She might escape the "radgin" after all. She ran round to the front, but there was no baby here either; the tidy little garden with its gay flower beds on either side of the broad central path lay peaceful and deserted in the cool shadow thrown by the house itself. She noticed that the green gate was unlatched and she began to feel anxious, and not wholly on her own account. Where could that baby have got to, and where in all the world was Mause?
Robina hurried to the back garden again and went over every inch of ground, with no more success than the first time.
She was now very frightened indeed. She hunted in the stable, she looked in the loft, she even took all the tools out of the tool-house lest Edmund might be secreted behind them; but it was all useless, baby and dog had completely vanished.
All this searching had taken some time. The afternoon began to wane, it would soon be tea time. Miss Esperance would return from her sewing meeting, and even as it was, Robina heard Mr. Wycherly and Montagu come into the house.
She rushed to Elsa in the kitchen, where that worthy woman was arranging her last batch of scones round the top of the wire seive to cool.
"The wee boy's lost!" cried Robina desperately. "I can find him nowhere and no place, and the dug's awa' too."
Mr. Wycherly and Montagu heard the loud excited voices in the kitchen, and for the first time in all the years he had spent with Miss Esperance Mr. Wycherly entered the domain sacred to Elsa. He questioned Robina very gently and quietly, but could obtain no information that threw any light upon Edmund's mysterious disappearance.
They searched the house thoroughly, but with no success, and all four had gone out to look once more in the garden when Montagu exclaimed, "Why Mause is here, in her kennel, and she's not chained up."
The kennel was a large one, but Mause also was large and effectually blocked the doorway.