Part 2 (1/2)

Nowhere was Tom to be seen. She called loudly, and searched in the bushes.

”He must have gone up to the house.

”Oh, here comes nurse. Nurse, have you seen Master Tom? He has just run away,” she called.

”No, ma'am, I have seen nothing of him.”

”He must be about the garden then, somewhere. Look about, nurse.

Where can the child have hidden itself?”

Nurse and mother ran about, calling loudly the name of the missing child. Five minutes later Mrs. Ripon ran into the study, where her husband was going through his farm accounts.

”Oh, Robert,” she said, ”I can't find Tom!” and she burst into tears.

”Not find Tom?” her husband said, rising in surprise. ”Why, how long have you missed him?”

”He was out in the garden with me. I was picking flowers for the dinner table and, when I looked round, he was gone. Nurse and I have been looking everywhere, and calling, but we cannot find him.”

”Oh, he is all right,” Captain Ripon said, cheerfully. ”Do not alarm yourself, little woman. He must have wandered into the shrubbery. We shall hear him howling, directly. But I will come and look for him.”

No better success attended Captain Ripon's search than that which his wife had met with. He looked anxious, now. The gardeners and servants were called, and soon every place in the garden was ransacked.

”He must have got through the gate, somehow, into the park,”

Captain Ripon said, hurrying in that direction. ”He certainly is not in the garden, or in any of the hothouses.”

Some of the men had already gone in that direction. Presently Captain Ripon met one, running back.

”I have been down to the gate, sir, and can see nothing of Master Tom; but in the middle of the drive, just by the clump of laurels by the gate, this boot was lying--just as if it had been put there on purpose, to be seen.”

”Nonsense!” Captain Ripon said. ”What can that have to do with it?”

Nevertheless he took the boot, and looked at it. It was a roughly-made, heavy boot, such as would be worn by a laboring man.

He was about to throw it carelessly aside, and to proceed on his search, when he happened to turn it over. Then he started, as if struck.

”Good Heaven!” he exclaimed, ”it is the gypsy's.”

Yes, he remembered it now. The man had pleaded not guilty, when brought up at the a.s.sizes, and the boot had been produced as evidence. He remembered it particularly because, after the man was sentenced, his wife had provoked a smile by asking that the boots might be given up to her; in exchange for a better pair for her husband to put on, when discharged from prison.

Yes, it was clear. The gypsy woman had kept her word, and had taken her revenge. She had stolen the child, and had placed the boot where it would attract attention, in order that the parents might know the hand that struck them.

Instantly Captain Ripon ran to the stable, ordered the groom to mount at once, and scour every road and lane; while he himself rode off to Hunston to give notice to the police, and offer a large reward for the child's recovery. He charged the man who had brought the boot to carry it away, and put it in a place of safety till it was required; and on no account to mention to a soul where he put it.

Before riding off he ran in to his wife, who was half wild with grief, to tell her that he was going to search outside the park; and that she must keep up her spirits for, no doubt, Tom would turn up all right, in no time.

He admitted to himself, however, as he galloped away, that he was not altogether sure that Tom would be so speedily recovered. The woman would never have dared to place the boot on the road, and so give a clue against herself, unless she felt very confident that she could get away, or conceal herself.

”She has probably some hiding place, close by the park,” he said to himself, ”where she will lie hid till night, and will then make across country.”

He paused at the village, and set the whole population at work, by telling them that his child was missing--and had, he believed, been carried off by a gypsy woman--and that he would give fifty pounds to anyone who would find him. She could not be far off, as it was only about half an hour since the child had been missed.