"What's the matter?" he said. "Are the children ill?"
"Oh, sir!" she exclaimed, "oh, my dear master, I only wish I knew!" and then she told him of our strange disappearance.
He listened, but for some time he could not believe it was quite as she said.
"They are hiding somewhere to trick you, you may be sure," he said.
"But they'd never keep it up so long, sir," she replied. "Nine o'clock at night—their bedtime, and had nothing to eat since their dinner at one. Oh no, sir—I wish I could think it—but it's not in the nature of children to keep it up so long. And not of those dear children: they'd have come out wherever they were, on hearing poor nurse and me a-praying and a-begging of them to come out."
Grandpapa did not speak, but Mrs. Munt saw that he began to take it seriously. He would not go into the house till every corner of the grounds had again been searched under his own eye. And not the grounds only, but the house; and when at last there was nowhere else to look, and grandpapa had shouted to us in every tone—scolding, appealing, entreating—fancy him entreating—us to give some sign of life, promising not to be angry, never again to be vexed with us whatever we did, if we would but answer: when everywhere had been searched, and everything said and done that could be thought of, poor grandpapa, looking quite old and shaky all of a sudden, sat down by the table in the dining-room, where his dinner was so neatly set out, and buried his face in his hands.
It was terrible, both nurse and the old housekeeper told us—terrible to see the cold, strong man so overcome, and to hear what he murmured to himself.
"All that I had left—all," he said. "My own children, for she was as my daughter to me, and my poor boy—one gone, one to have deceived me. And now, in my old age, these little creatures whom I was learning to love! Is it my fault? Was I too harsh to them? Did I neglect them? Why is it that all belonging to me seem doomed in some way?"
And then he raised his poor white face, and told what he was thinking.
"Munt," he said, abruptly, "I have refused to allow the idea in my mind—but it must be the truth. I have tried not to entertain it, for I knew if it were the case, there was nothing to be done. It is so dreadfully deep——" and he gave a little shudder. "They must have fallen into the pits at the corner of the Old House fields. I had a presentiment of it from their first coming here. Tell the man to fetch the ropes—there must be the right thing in the village, for cows have fallen in before now; those pools must be dragged."