"No, no; I'll just go at once," Mrs. McDougall returned, setting down her baskets.
She tramped off quickly along the dusty road in the direction of Dunster. Presently some great drops of rain began to fall, and in a few minutes it came down in a perfect torrent. Still she trudged on, her heart filled with dim foreboding fears. Such a thing had never happened before. It would soon be getting dark. Could it be possible they had kept the children at school as a punishment? If so, it was shameful to leave them to come along that lonely road at such an hour, and she would not use mild words in telling them so.
At last she arrived at the school-house. It was closed and dark. She knocked at the mistress's cottage, and then learnt, to her horror and dismay, that the children had never been to school at all that day.
The poor creature stood for a moment in utter bewilderment.
What was the next thing to be done? Ah! that was a difficulty indeed.
It was not far to the village. She would go there, and inquire of her few acquaintances if they could help her. So she turned away and started off again in the rain, quite forgetting now that she was tired, and hungry, and wet.
It was dark by the time she reached the village shop. Her friend who kept it had not seen the children since yesterday, when she gave them a piece of pudding. There was nothing for it but to tramp home, in the hope that they had returned.
But only disappointment awaited her. They were not there. Then she went up into their little rooms, and found that they had worn their best clothes, and had taken all their pennies out of their money-boxes. For the first time then the dreadful suspicion entered her head that they had run away.
But for what purpose? That was what she could not make out. The only thing that occurred to her was that they might have wanted to go and see the market, and spend their money—that they had walked there, and perhaps—who could tell?—lost their way.
The more she thought of it, the more she felt sure that this could be the only solution to the mystery.