The Carters, Sammy and Cissy, had run straight home, and were at that moment undoubtedly smelling of arnica and slimy with vaseline. But there was no trace of the Commander-in-Chief anywhere. General-Field-Marshal Napoleon Smith had vanished from the face of the earth.
"OH, THE BONNY LADDIE!"
Tea-time came and went. He had been known to be absent from tea. Supper-time arrived and overpassed, and then the whole house grew anxious. Ten o'clock came, and in the clear northern twilight all the household were scattered over the countryside seeking for him. Midnight, and no Hugh John! Where could he be? Drowned in the Edam Water—killed by a chance blow in the great battle—or simply hiding from fear of punishment and afraid to venture home? It must have been some stranger entirely unacquainted with General Napoleon Smith who advocated the last explanation. The inmates of Windy Standard cherished no such foolish hopes.
The sun rose soon after two on as glorious a summer morning as ever shone upon the hills of the Border. As his beams overshot Brown Gattonside to the east they fell on Janet Sheepshanks. Her decent white cap was green-moulded with the moss of the woods; the drip of waterside caves had grimed it, the cobwebs of murky outhouses festooned it. Her abundant grey hair hung down in untended witch locks. She had not shut an eye nor lain down all night.
Now she leaned her head on her hands and sobbed aloud.
"Oh, the bonny laddie! Whatever will I say to his faither when he comes hame? His auldest son and the aipple o' his e'e! My certie, if the ill-set loon were to come up the road the noo, I wad thresh the very skin aff his banes! To think that he should bide awa' like this. Oh, the dear, dear lamb that he is; and will thae auld e'en never mair rest on his bonnie face? Cauld, cauld noo it looks up frae the bottom o' some pool in the Edam Water!"
And Janet Sheepshanks, like one of the mothers in Ramah, lifted up her voice and wept with the weeping which will not be comforted; for oft-times bairns' play brings that which is not bairns' play to those who love them.
