Part 78 (1/2)

”Somebody has been gathering a nosegay here to-day,” said he; ”now, mamma, there's only two ways put of this field--let us go straight to that gate; that is the likeliest.”

Near the gate was some clay, and Reginald showed her several prints of small feet.

”Look,” said he, ”here's the track of two--one's a gal; how I know, here's a sole to this shoe no wider nor a knife. Come on.”

In the next field he was baffled for a long time; but at last he found a place in a dead hedge where they had gone through.

”See,” said he, ”these twigs are fresh broken, and here's a bit of the gal's frock. Oh! won't she catch it?”:

”Oh, you brave, clever boy!” cried Lady Ba.s.sett.

”Come on!” shouted the urchin.

He hunted like a beagle, and saw like a bird, with his savage, glittering eye. He was on fire with the ardor of the chase; and, not to dwell too long on what has been so often and so well written by others, in about an hour and a half he brought the anxious, palpitating, but now hopeful mother, to the neighborhood of Ba.s.sett's wood. Here he trusted to his own instinct. ”They have gone into the wood,” said he, ”and I don't blame 'em. I found my way here long before his age. I say, don't you tell; I've snared plenty of the governor's hares in that wood.”

He got to the edge of the wood and ran down the side. At last he found the marks of small feet on a low bank, and, darting over it, discovered the fainter traces on some decaying leaves inside the wood.

”There,” said he; ”now it is just as if you had got them in your pocket, for they'll never find their way out of this wood. Bless your heart, why _I_ used to get lost in it at first.”

”Lost in the wood!” cried Lady Ba.s.sett; ”but he will die of fear, or be eaten by wild beasts; and it is getting so dark.”

”What about that? Night or day is all one to me. What will you give me if I find him before midnight?”

”Anything I've got in the world.”

”Give me a sovereign?”

”A thousand!”

”Give me a kiss?”

”A hundred!”

”Then I'll tell you what I'll do--I don't mind a little trouble, to stop your crying, mamma, because you are the right sort. I'll get the village out, and we will tread the wood with torches, an' all for them as can't see by night; I can see all one; and you shall have your kid home to supper. You see, there's a heavy dew, and he is not like me, that would rather sleep in this wood than the best bed in London city; a night in a wood would about settle his hash. So here goes. I can run a mile in six minutes and a half.”

With these words, the strange boy was off like an arrow from a bow.

Lady Ba.s.sett, exhausted by anxiety and excitement, was glad to sit down; her trembling heart would not let her leave the place that she now began to hope contained her child. She sat down and waited patiently.

The sun set, the moon rose, the stars glittered; the infinite leaves stood out dark and solid, as if cut out of black marble; all was dismal silence and dread suspense to the solitary watcher.

Yet the lady of Huntercombe Hall sat on, sick at heart, but patient, beneath that solemn sky.

She shuddered a little as the cold dews gathered on her, for she was a woman nursed in luxury's lap; but she never moved.

The silence was dismal. Had that wild boy forgotten his promise, or were there no parents in the village, that their feet lagged so?

It was nearly ten o'clock, when her keen ears, strained to the utmost, discovered a faint buzzing of voices; but where she could not tell.