CHAPTER XV

AN UNSUCCESSFUL SEARCH

ON Monday we put up a notice on our signpost. It was this—

"LOST, STRAYED, OR STOLEN

"A BLACK DONKEY. WHEN LAST SEEN HE WAS WEARING DARK BLUE COAT, BLACK-AND-WHITE CHECK TROUSERS, AND WHITE NIGHT-CAP. ANSWERS TO THE NAME OF ANDY. WHOEVER BRINGS THE SAME TO WARLINGTON RECTORY WILL BE SUITABLY REWARDED."

Father told Denys he would pass the policeman's house on his way to school, and he had better tell him about it. After our lessons were over, Aunt Mildred took Lynette and me out, and we went along the roads, asking every one we met if they had seen Andy. The strange part was that no one had. Aunt Mildred said she thought that the heavy rain must have kept people indoors, and Andy must have had the roads to himself. We felt very down-hearted when we came home, and when the boys arrived from school they were just as miserable as we were.

"That policeman will get his head punched if he doesn't look-out!" said Aylwin wrathfully. "He is too cheeky by half!"

"What did he do?" I asked.

"Oh, he began chaffing; asked if Andy had any rings on, and whether his pocket-handkerchiefs were scented, and who his barber was. Denys told him to mind his own business, which was to find him, and if he didn't, he wasn't worth his salt!"

"I'm afraid," I said sorrowfully, "Andy has come to a bad end. His cloak may have got round his throat and choked him, or tripped him up, and he may have tumbled into a quarry or a pond. I don't believe he is alive, or some one would have seen him."

"Well, his body must be somewhere, stupid! It isn't so small that it would be overlooked!"

"I expect," said Lynette tragically, "he must have hurt himself, and crept sadly away into the bushes and laid down to die. Poor Andy, he's wondering we haven't found him."

"How can he wonder if he is dead?"

"He may have gone into a wood somewhere," I said.

But the boys laughed at Lynette and me. We were all very unhappy; and the days passed, and we didn't find him.

On Wednesday I met Captain Rogers in his chair, and I told him about it.

"Cheer up!" he said. "Donkeys and dogs generally turn up again."

"Ah, but," I said, "to-morrow is Thursday, and Annie is expecting her drive. I've never disappointed her yet, and I don't know what I shall say. And if Andy is lost for ever, she'll never be able to drive out again. It makes me miserable." I tried to keep my tears back, but they would come.

"Look here, little woman," said Captain Rogers. "I am going away next Monday. How would you like to take your little cripple out in my chair? It is quite light, and you could push her along in it yourself. I would send it to the Rectory, and you could trundle it round every Thursday instead of the donkey-cart, if you liked."

I simply screamed with delight, and thanked him over and over again.

"I was so afraid she would never go out-of-doors again, and now I can tell her she will be able to, on Monday. It is most awfully kind, Captain Rogers—only I wish you weren't going. We do like you so very much."

"Thank you," he said, laughing, "and I can say the same. I think you'll have to write to me, Grisel—a letter a month, say, with an account of all your doings. Or—aren't you writing a wonderful book? Couldn't you send it to me when it is finished? Is it a kind of thing that goes on for ever, like a diary?"

"No," I said. "I have been thinking of finishing it off very soon. And then I shall begin Volume Two. Would you really like to see it?"

"Immensely."

"I'm afraid," I said, feeling very doleful, "that it will be a book with a sad ending, for everything seems going wrong. You're going away, and Andy is lost, and the winter is coming, and it does nothing but rain. We love the summer so! You see, we're so fond of being out-of-doors! When we're shut in the house we get cross, and then get into scrapes. Even Aunt Mildred doesn't play with us so much as she used to do; she says she has so much to do in the parish."

"Well, I'll hold you to your promise to send me your book."

"Yes, I will. And, Captain Rogers, would you mind if I used your chair on Thursday for a few things beside Annie? You see, I take some parcels from the villagers to Cross Glen sometimes. I'm a kind of carrier."

"Now why on earth do you bother yourself about such things?"

"I like it." Then I added, "You see, father says you ought never to leave off anything you have begun, unless you have a very good reason for it. It isn't being faithful, is it?"

"What made you begin such a thing?"

I didn't like to tell him at first; and then I thought that was cowardly, so I said:

"I want to be a servant of Jesus Christ, and He says, 'Go and help others,' and then I have to go. It's what I call one of my go's."

Captain Rogers didn't laugh.

"Tell me more, little Grisel," he said.

"I think," I said more cheerfully, "I like my 'go's' better than my 'do's.' It's doing things at home I don't like—mending stockings, and helping Aunt Mildred about the house. But of course I ought to like them. Didn't I tell you about the motto father said to me—the one in our church at the knight's feet? 'Semper fidelis, semper paratus.' That's a perfect servant, and that's what I'm trying to be!"

"Yes," he said, looking at me very steadily, "and that's what you will succeed in being. Good-bye, child; I must be moving on. I'll send you the chair—I won't forget. And you'll all have to come to a farewell party of mine on Saturday. I'll send you a proper invitation."

"That will be lovely!" I cried excitedly. And then I ran straight off, and told Annie all about our lost donkey and the chair. She had heard about Andy, so didn't expect a drive, but I promised to go and sit with her instead, and so I did. And first we had a reading-lesson, and then I read her a story-book.

On Saturday morning, we all set off for another good hunt for Andy. Puff didn't come with us, as Aunt Mildred thought he would be tired for our party. Captain Rogers had asked us to come at three o'clock in the afternoon, and we never came home as a rule till eight o'clock. We liked to stay at the farm as long as we possibly could.

Well, Denys said when we got to the cross-roads that we had better each take a different road, and go along as far as ever we could, but I didn't think that at all a good plan. Lynette never walked out alone very far, and father didn't like me to do it either. So then Denys got out a map.

"Look here!" he said. "I've been thinking that each of these roads leads to villages and towns, and those are the places to get to. Now we'll see from this map the nearest one that we haven't been to, and we'll walk to that."

So we all looked, and after a great deal of talking we found that there was a village or town called Rockwell about five miles off.

Well, we started off. We were very good walkers, and Lynette had walked ten miles before this. Denys said that the following Saturday we must take another road in the same way. I suppose we had gone about three miles, when Aylwin suddenly climbed up into a hedge to get some specially fine-looking blackberries. And then he gave a yell, which sent us all rushing to him. There in the ditch, almost hidden by dead bracken, was a piece of black-and-white shawl! We scraped it all out, and found the four trousers with my big stitches in them. We looked at each other, not knowing whether to be filled with joy or horror.

"We're on his track at last!" said Denys.

"Just let us sit down and think it out," I suggested, for I knew Lynette wanted a rest now and then, and so did I. The boys always walk so very fast when they first set out.

"The question is, how did they come there?" said Aylwin.

"Perhaps," said Lynette, looking fearfully round her, though it was broad daylight, "a murderer and robber met him, and wanted his clothes, and so he killed him, and buried him just here!"

"Yes, and Andy kicked his trousers off in his last dying effort," said Denys mockingly, "and the robber went on his way, dressed in a night-cap and blue cloak! That's a very likely thing to have happened!"

"I don't think Andy could have taken his trousers off himself," I said. "I sewed them on so very tight. Besides, look at this—it is cut."

I showed them a great slit right across one piece. Denys looked at it with screwed-up eyes like a detective.

"Yes," he said, "this is one other bit of evidence we have collected. I was thinking that Andy might have torn them off with his teeth, but this is clearly the work of a knife."

"And a knife means," said Aylwin solemnly, "that a man is in the plot."

"He has been stolen!" I cried excitedly. "Now let us track the thief."

I got up from the ground and was eager to walk on, but the boys wouldn't move yet. They turned up all the ditch, they climbed over the hedge, and then they came upon something else—a piece of orange-peel.

"Now," Denys said, "this makes us quite sure that a tramp has been here and taken Andy off. Only tramps eat oranges; country people can't buy oranges to eat, and they're always too busy."

[Illustration: THERE IN THE DITCH WAS A PIECE OF BLACK-AND-WHITE SHAWL.]

"On market days they could buy oranges," I said. You see I knew all about the country markets; the boys did not.

"Well, let's move on!" said Aylwin. "We know that Andy came along this road and no other. I dare say we shall find him in Rockwell."

So we went on in very good spirits. Three miles had shown us a good deal; the other two might show us Andy himself. We were all a little tired when we got to Rockwell. It was a big village, and had about ten shops in a little High Street. We went into a sweet-shop and had some ginger-beer, and then we asked the woman if any one kept donkeys in the neighbourhood.

She was rather a stupid woman, but after a lot of thinking, she said the vicar had a very old one, and that was the only donkey she had ever seen, and she had been there forty years. So then we knew she was no good, and we left her. And then Denys found out the police-station, and then we had a long talk to a police-sergeant there, who wrote out all particulars and didn't chaff us, and we gave our names and addresses and came away.

But we were determined to find out anything that was to be found out, so we all separated for a quarter of an hour, and then we met at the sweet-shop again, and walked home. Denys settled this. We each took a different street, and asked every person we met, man, woman, boy, and girl, whether they had seen a black donkey. I was rather shy at first, but I never altered my way of putting it, which I thought was very polite.

"Please excuse me, but have you seen a black donkey lately? We lost him a week ago, and he has come along this way."

Sometimes they stared, sometimes they laughed, and once a very rude boy said to me:

"Yes, if 'ee goes home an' looks in glass, 'ee 'll see a black donkey with red 'air."

That was me, because I'm wearing black for granny! But not one of us got the answer we wanted, and when we met again we confessed to each other that Andy could never have got as far as Rockwell.

So we very sadly and sorrowfully went home; and when we spread out on the dining-room table the four black-and-white trousers, Aunt Mildred quite vexed us by going into a fit of laughter, and Denys said to her crossly:

"It may be comedy to you; it is tragedy to us!"

And then she begged our pardons.

It was tragedy; and though we went to Captain Rogers's farewell tea-party, and had no end of fun, the loss of Andy hung like a black cloud over us.

As Aylwin said:

"It's worse than a death, for it goes on all the time."

And I suppose the bit that brought no comfort to us was that it was all our own fault. Poor Andy had been patient and long-suffering ever since we had had him. If we kept him on the trot all day, he never complained. But when it came to dressing him up in an old woman's night-cap, and expecting him to dance on his hind legs, he had had enough of us, and he went off, and I believe he fully intended to leave us altogether, and never come back to us again.

We were dreadfully sorry when Captain and Mrs. Rogers left us. There were no other grown-ups that we really liked, but I mean to send Captain Rogers this book when I have finished it, and he says that perhaps he will get it printed for me. I must go on writing it till I get to a happy ending, because a proper book always ends nicely. I hate books with miserable endings. If I read them through once, I never do again, because however happy the children are at the beginning, I know everything is no good if one of them—and generally the nicest one—is going to die.

And that is a strange thing, because the Bible tells us that it isn't a miserable thing to die; it is "far better." And heaven is a lovely place—all our hymns tell us that—and it ought to be a happy ending when children die. But it isn't; it makes me roar with crying to read about it. And I know, from how I felt when Denys was ill, that I should be perfectly miserable if any of us were to die, even if we were quite ready for it. I suppose mother would be glad to see us. It's all right for those who go, but it's those who stay behind that feel it.

I went to Annie on Monday and took her out in the chair. She was very delighted; and we took a few parcels for Mrs. Ribbon as well, because Tom was laid up with a bad foot—and she didn't know how to get them sent.

But I was rather unhappy about Annie; she seems to feel the cold so much, and I'm sure she hasn't warm enough clothes. I think her grandparents are very poor. I spoke to Aunt Mildred about it, and she said it would be nice if Lynette and I made her a warm frock and some warm petticoats for a Christmas present. I didn't feel quite pleased at the idea, for I do hate work so, but when I thought of Annie, I was disgusted with myself, and I got Aunt Mildred to start us at it at once. She said if we worked in the evening after tea, she would work with us and tell us a story at the same time. So that sounded delicious, and even Lynette said she would like to do it.

We began yesterday evening. We sat in the schoolroom, and the boys listened too. They roasted some chestnuts on the bars of the grate.

"I don't see why boys should never be made to sew," said Lynette. "If I had boys of my own, I should make them do their own mending. Why should their aunts and mothers and sisters do it for them?"

"When I have girls of my own," said Aylwin, who always loved arguing, "I shall make them go out and earn their bread. Why should their uncles and fathers and brothers make money to keep them idle at home?"

"Well," said Aunt Mildred, "the world is altering strangely. Girls do earn money nowadays, and no mending gets done at all. But I think your father likes old-fashioned ways best, so we women will continue to sit at home and sew, and the boys must be prepared to earn money for us. Now, what kind of story shall I tell you?"

"Something about fairies," said Puff.

"Battles and hairbreadth escapes," said Denys and Aylwin.

"Princesses in a tower, and secret passages," said Lynette.

"Could you tell us about the knight and his motto in the church chancel?" I said.

"'Semper fidelis, semper paratus,'" said Aunt Mildred slowly. "Yes, I think I could do that."

Everybody wanted to hear about the knight. But Aunt Mildred said she must have five minutes to think about it before we began. So Lynette and I said we must have five minutes' rest from our needlework. And we got down on the hearth-rug and ate some of the boys' chestnuts. The fire was blazing up, and we all felt so cosy and comfortable that we began to think of poor Andy again, who might be dragging a heavy coster cart out in the dark and cold, and getting beaten by a drunken coster.

"If he was only with us!" sighed Lynette.

"He couldn't be here," Aylwin said. "It's a rotten affair altogether; we've got a saddle and harness and cart, and no animal to use them. And if the police did their duty properly, they would have found him long ago."

"God knows where he is," said Puff suddenly. "I'm especking him home very soon. God seemed to tell me this morning He would send him nex' week if I was a good boy!"

We never laughed at Puff now. He had got one answer to his prayers, why should he not get another? And I knew he had bigger faith than we had, though we were praying too as hard as we could.

We were all looking rather solemn as we munched our chestnuts, and then Aunt Mildred said she was ready, and Lynette and I went back to the table and took up our work again. I was making Annie's frock—it was a warm dark blue serge—and Lynette was making a thick flannel petticoat for her. I was very glad that Aunt Mildred was going to tell us about the knight, because I wanted to be kept faithful to Annie, and not think it a hardship to make her a frock. And it would remind me of the motto.

Aunt Mildred was mending some of the boys' stockings. She looked up at us with a smile, and then began.