CHAPTER XXIX.

“WHERE’S GASTON?”

“Faith, Faith! Phoena! Marygold! Oh! Somebody come and release me, I can’t, I can’t bear this any longer! Oh! oh! how can you all leave me here alone? How can you, how can you?”

These dolorous plaints, repeated at very short intervals and interlarded with despairing howls, were kept up by Andrew, with praiseworthy persistency.

But so far as any visible result was concerned, he might as well have held his peace. His cries fell apparently only on the apple trees around him, and the grass at his feet.

“Oh! do somebody help me, do somebody help me,” he implored afresh, as the clock struck twelve, “I’ve been here for such hours.”

He had been there for nearly two whole ones. For it was a little past ten when Mr. Busson, with his assistant Ned--who had thoroughly enjoyed the job--had completed the new sort of bee-hive, and gone in search of spectators.

This time, Andrew bellowed so loudly that he did bring Mr. Busson on to the scene.

“Now look here, sonny,” he said, “I told you to keep quiet, didn’t I? What do you mean then by carrying on this way? Chances are I’d have let you out, if you’d behaved yourself, but I shan’t now, you’ll have to bide there, till sun-down or moon-rise, may be, if I hear any more of that hollering.”

Nevertheless, when he had turned his back on the orchard, Busson went straight to the back-door, and called for Libbie.

“She ain’t here, Master,” said Polly, the odd girl.

“Well, you’ll do. Just you tell her that I’ve gone to the sale over at Warren’s, but say that I leave it to her to look after that young master down in the orchard. If he keeps pretty quiet, she can let him out in another hour, but not any sooner, mind you that.”

“All right, Master,” said Polly, “I don’t expect that Libbie will be in much of a hurry about it, the longer he is kept out of mischief the better, she will think.”

“Well, remember to tell her, any way.”

“Oh! I’ll remember,” said Polly, and straightway forgot all about it.

And little wonder! Presently no one in the household--not even Mrs. Busson who had wept over Andrew’s punishment; not even Nanny, who had so carefully planned it--had a thought to bestow on the culprit in the orchard.

For Dr. Forbes had paid his visit, and his verdict on Diana’s condition had filled everyone with grief and dismay. She was so much worse after her restless, suffering night, and her temperature was so high, that it was impossible to say if she would recover from the effect of the terrible shock that her whole system had sustained.

At any rate, Mrs. Durand must be summoned at once.

“Lose no time in wiring for her,” the doctor had said, as he left, promising to return towards evening.

“Poor lady, poor Miss Agatha,” sighed Mrs. Busson, “to think of all the trouble she has had already, losing the Colonel when Miss Marygold wasn’t out of long clothes, and then for this to happen now, and to think that she’s away in Edinburgh, and that she can’t get here before to-morrow morning at earliest.”

Thus it happened that it was not till after the doctor had paid his evening visit, in the course of which, he chanced to ask if Andrew had been much stung, that Mrs. Busson remembered the latter’s existence.

“That child has never been left all this time in the orchard,” she cried, rushing back into the house. “Surely someone has seen to him.”

“Oh! good me!” exclaimed conscience-stricken Polly, “I clean forgot to tell Libbie to let him go, and now it’s past six.”

“Why the poor lad must be half dead,” cried Mrs. Busson, “fly to him Polly, do.”

Polly’s flight was a short one. In the backyard she met Ned.

“No need to trouble about he,” said Ned, “the master let him out I believe before he started. He’s down in the strawberry beds, as you can see for yourself,” added Ned, putting aside some thick growing privet bushes, and pointing in the direction of the kitchen garden.

There sure enough was Andrew, cowering under the shelter of a big fir tree, which grew against the wall in a corner of the strawberry beds.

“He’s mighty ashamed of himself, for he’s doing his best to hide,” laughed Polly, as she ran back to relieve Mrs. Busson’s fears.

“Well, that is a comfort to be sure,” sighed the poor old lady, “and now, mind Polly when the other children come home, don’t say one word about poor Miss Di. The doctor says that there won’t be much change to be looked for till to-morrow, and there’ll be no good done by telling the poor dears the worst till one’s obliged. They needn’t know till to-morrow that we’ve sent for Miss Di’s mamma.”

And so, little guessing the dread shadow that was hanging over the Farm, the picnic party came merrily home; and though, as they entered the house, they lowered their tones lest they should disturb Diana, they never guessed that she was far too ill to heed sounds of any sort.

“What has become of Andrew?” they asked, after their first questions about Di had been answered with suitable vagueness.

“Oh! he’s all right,” said Libbie, “I saw him an hour ago, he came to the larder and helped himself to a meat pasty and a bun. He didn’t think that anyone saw him, but I let him go, for it was natural enough that he should feel shame-faced.”

“Beastly mean of him though, to steal from the larder,” said Phil.

“Poor beggar, I expect he was hungry,” said the more merciful Jack.

“I wonder if he’ll come to supper,” speculated Hubert.

“Here he comes,” said Phoena, as Andrew, emboldened by a call from Libbie, stole out from his hiding place, and came rather sheepishly to take his place at the supper-table.

“Where’s Gaston?” asked Faith, “where has he been all day, Libbie?”

“Why, surely,” answered Libbie, who was coming in with a dish, “he has been along with you all? He started with you.”

“Yes, but he very soon ran home again,” said Faith.

“He didn’t run back here,” said Libbie, “we’ve seen nothing of him all day.”

“But then where did he have his dinner and tea?” asked Phil, in consternation. “Mrs. Busson,” as the latter came into the room, “What has become of Gaston, no one has seen him since this morning?”

“Gracious alive, you don’t mean to say that anything has happened to _him_?” cried poor Mrs. Busson; “what will come next?”

“Why, Andrew, how red you’ve got!” cried Jack, suddenly.

“Yes, you _are_ red,” echoed several voices, whilst all eyes were turned on Andrew’s guilty face. “Oh! _you_ know something about Gaston, that’s quite clear.”

“I asked--no--he wanted,” faltered Andrew, “at least I went to look through the bushes, a long, long time ago and _it_ was gone, he must--”

“Oh! I guess,” cried Phoena, and in another minute she had dashed out of doors, across the garden, and on to the orchard, with all the others following her.

Yes, Andrew was right! _It_ had gone! There was no monster bee-hive to be seen on the empty chair in the middle of the table mountain.

Only a cry of great dismay rang out on the still evening air, as Phoena was seen to sink on her knees and half disappear in the high grass.

For there at the foot of the hillock, a heap of straw lay motionless, whilst from under the straw, Gaston’s little face, ghastly and drawn with suffering, looked out.

“Gaston! dear, dear little Gaston, do speak,” implored Phoena.

The lips moved, but no sound came from them.

“Do you see,” cried Phoena, her eyes flashing indignantly through her tears, as she turned to follow Ruth and Libbie, who between them were tenderly carrying Gaston indoors, “do you see Andrew must have put him up there and got off himself.”

“Did you, Andrew, did you?” asked the boys, closing round their cousin, who was making an attempt to run away.

“He--he heard me calling out, and he--he offered and--and--I only meant him to stand there just a minute whilst I rested, but--but I found that I couldn’t get back again--and then--then I thought that he must have broken his promise to me and got away, because when I peeped through the bushes, ever so long ago, I--I didn’t see the straw thing any more. Oh! don’t--oh! don’t, it wasn’t my fault, it--oh! don’t--oh! _don’t_.”

For Mr. Busson had seized Andrew by the arm and was brandishing his stick over his head.

“Well if ever I saw such a poor mean-spirited creature,” he cried. “There, take him you boys and give him a sound thrashing between you,” and with a rough shake, the farmer pushed Andrew towards his cousins.

But both Jack and Phil fell back from Andrew, as if by common consent.

“Touch him,” they cried, in tones of unfeigned disgust, as if he were something loathsome, and unconsciously echoing poor Gaston’s own words, “_Touch him!_ ugh! licking’s too good for him,” and without another word they followed the girls into the house.