“I had nothing to do with it. I just left him for five minutes, and where he’s gone off to Heaven only knows.”
“Where—who’s gone—what are you talking about?”
“The child, little Piers, he slipped off yesterday in the darkness. I was with him and had just given him his supper, and I said I’d come back in a few minutes, and when I did there wasn’t a sight of him. Mother and me and all the village have been looking for him, and we ain’t seen him, none of us.”
“You get out of my house this minute,” said Mrs. Ives. “A nice girl you are to have the care of a little gentleman.”
The girl disappeared. There was something awful at that moment in the little woman’s flashing eyes. She walked to the door, locked it, then she lit her lamp and sat down to think. The boy was gone—but where? What could be the matter? Had any misfortune befallen him?
Amid all her wild dreams the possibility that the boy might himself try to get back to his old home had never once occurred to her, but now it did. She nodded her head several times.
“Deary me! there seems likely to be no rest for me this blessed night,” she said. “I must try to take the next train to Haversham. I wonder if there’s one to-night; most likely not, but anyhow, back I must go to Falmouth to find out.”
She did not wait even to get herself a cup of tea. When she reached the town she was greeted with the information that by no possible means could she get across country to Haversham that night. There would be a train at eight o’clock on the following morning. She must wait until then.
“But what is the matter, ma’am?” said the old clerk, who knew her well, having seen her often before.
“It’s a bad job,” she answered, “and I want to hurry as fast as I can. There’s a little gentleman missing, and more hangs on him than words can say. You didn’t see a pretty little gentleman, dressed common enough, but with the air of the nobility, asking for a ticket here yesterday evening, sir?”