LOST—AND FOUND AGAIN
PETER PERRY was blind! Tom, startled and immeasurably shocked,
could scarcely credit it till his mother had added her testimony
to Nellie's, and explained that the afflicted boy had been blind
from birth.
"Isn't it dreadfully sad?" said Nellie, surprised at the silence
with which her brother had taken the information she had given him,
and little guessing the tumult of emotions which were stirring in his
breast.
"Yes," he assented, adding, "Oh, I wish I'd known this before!"
"I didn't tell him you believed he had kept on cutting you," Nellie
remarked; "I thought there was no need to do that. Everything's
explained now that we know he's blind."
During tea the conversation was mostly about Miss Perry and her
nephew, but Tom took little part in it. By listening he learnt all
he desired to know. Mrs. Burford had returned shortly after he had
left the house, it appeared, and Nellie had talked to Peter whilst
her mother answered the questions Miss Perry had put concerning Jane.
"I never spoke to anyone who was blind before," Nellie observed
by and by; "I'm sure Peter Perry doesn't look blind, does he,
Mother?"
"No, my dear," Mrs. Burford replied; "his eyes are not disfigured
in any way."
"What's wrong with them?" asked Tom.
"There is something amiss with the nerves at the back of them,"
Mrs. Burford answered; "I don't quite understand what it is, but
whatever it is, is incurable."
"He will never be able to see as long as he lives," said Nellie,
very solemnly; "he told me so himself."
"Did he seem much cut up about it?" inquired Tom.
Nellie shook her head. "He seemed quite bright and happy," she said.
"I like him ever so much. He made me promise to speak to him when we
meet out of doors, and, of course, I shall."
Later, when Tom was alone with his sister, he began, with a note
of severity in his voice, "Now tell me all you said to Peter Perry,
Nellie. Did you mention that shilling?"
"Yes," she admitted, "I did, because I wanted to hear what he had
to say. I told him how upset you had been about it, and he was
awfully, awfully sorry—you thought he was, didn't you? Of course,
if he had seen you it wouldn't have happened—he wouldn't have dreamed
of giving you money, I mean. He said he'd like to be friends with us,
if we didn't mind, and I promised to speak to you about it. The next
time you meet him do tell him you're willing to be friends!"
"Perhaps I will. What else did he talk about?"
"Oh, about dogs, and motor-cars, and—and I told him I'd never ridden
in a motor-car in my life, and I believe he's going to ask his aunt
to take me for a drive in hers one day—he said he would. Then he told
me about himself. He has no sisters or brothers, and his mother's
dead, but he has a father who's coming to fetch him at the end
of September. He says it's dull visiting at Halcyon Villa, though his
aunt is very, very kind to him, but she's so afraid some harm will
come to him that she will hardly let him out of her sight. So it was
just as I guessed, you see, though of course I didn't think he was
blind."
Tom made no response to this, nor did he ask any more questions.
The next morning, after going with his father to the bank, he decided
he would take Tim for a stroll past Halcyon Villa, and then, if he
should happen to see Peter Perry, he would speak to him. "Bounce
ought to have had a good thrashing when he got home last night,"
he reflected, as, on nearing Miss Perry's pretty, creeper-covered
house, he motioned Tim to keep to heel, "but I don't expect he did.
If I see his master I shall tell him where he went and what he was
doing."
But he did not carry out this intention. Peter Perry was in the
garden, as it happened; he heard Tom's footsteps halt at the gate,
and quickly made his way to it. "Who is it?" he inquired.
"Tom Burford," was the response.
Peter promptly opened the gate and asked Tom to come in; but the
invitation was politely declined. "I'm afraid you're still angry
with me!" Peter remarked, regretfully.
"No, indeed I'm not," Tom assured him. "But I won't come in, thank
you, for I've Tim with me, and he'd be sure to fight with Bounce."
"Bounce is not here," Peter said, sadly; "we don't know what has
become of him. He's lost."
"Lost?" gasped Tom.
"Yes, lost," Peter replied. "He was left chained to his kennel in the
yard yesterday afternoon, so that he shouldn't follow Aunt Harriet
and me," he quickly explained, "and somehow he managed to get his
head out of his collar—it couldn't have been tight enough, I suppose—
and went off by himself. He hasn't come back yet, and I'm afraid that
either he's been stolen or trapped—"
"Oh, don't think that he's been trapped!" Tom broke in; "that would
be too awful! I—I—oh, dear, what can I do?" His voice was tremulous
and full of distress.
"There isn't anything you can do, thank you," Peter answered
gratefully; "Aunt Harriet has sent a description of Bounce to the
police and told them he's lost, and she's ordered bills to be
printed, offering a pound reward to any one who finds him—they are
to be posted out over the town. You'll come in now, won't you?"
But Tom declined again. "I'll go on to the woods," he said;
"if Bounce is anywhere there it's just possible Tim may find him."
Nothing of the kind happened, however, and two hours later found Tom,
who had searched the woods in vain, in the high road by Hatwell
Green. He was feeling very unhappy, oppressed as he was with the
guilty knowledge that he was, in a manner, responsible for the loss
of the blind boy's dog.
"I ought to have taken him home to his master yesterday," he thought;
"I could have if I'd liked. I knew he might get shot by a gamekeeper
or caught in a trap, and I left him to take his chance out of spite."
Tom had been taught the golden rule—to do unto others as he would
they should do unto him, but yesterday, alas! he had disregarded it,
and now he was bitterly ashamed of himself. Oh, what a mean spirit
he had shown.
The gipsies were still encamped at Hatwell Green; and to-day Moses
Lee was at home, seated on the steps of his caravan, making
clothes-pegs. Tom entered into conversation with him, and told him
all about Bounce, even confessing that he had allowed the dog
to remain in the woods to follow his own devices.
"Do you think you could find the rabbit hole where you left him?"
Moses inquired, after the boy had finished his tale.
"Oh, yes!" Tom answered; "it's close to that big beech tree by the
gate at the entrance to the woods, in a bit of old hedge full of
rabbit holes. I've been there to-day—not that I thought I should find
him there, of course. I dare say after he'd grown tired of digging
he wandered miles away."
"My wife and little maid have gone into Chilaton," the gipsy
remarked, changing the conversation; "we're off to-morrow, all of us.
Zingra won't forget that dog of yours'—nodding at Tim; you'd best
keep an eye on him or he will be lost, too!"
This was meant as a joke, of course, and Tom laughed, but only
half-heartedly. He was moving on, when the gipsy called after him:
"A pound reward, I think you said, young gentleman?"
"Yes," Tom assented, "and the address is Halcyon Villa."
"I wish I could earn that pound!" exclaimed the man, looking
thoughtful.
"I wish you could!" Tom answered, fervently.
He saw no one as he passed Halcyon Villa on his backward journey,
which he made as quickly as possible. On his arrival at home Nellie
met him at the front door, a flush of excitement on her cheeks:
"Oh, Tom, here you are at last!" she cried; "where have you been all
the morning? I've been out with Mother, and what do you think? Peter
Perry has lost his dog. There are notices in a lot of shop windows
saying so, and offering a pound reward to any one who finds him, and—
oh, you know all about it."
"I've seen Peter Perry, and he told me," Tom replied, gloomily;
"he's awfully cut up."
"Oh, he would be. What do you think can have become of Bounce?"
Tom shook his head. "I've spent the morning in searching for him
in the woods," he said; "but I've come across no sign of him."
"But he mayn't have gone to the woods."
"Oh, yes—that is, I feel sure he would. I'm afraid something must
have happened to him, or he wouldn't have stayed out all night."
"I'm afraid so, too. Oh, it's dreadful! Poor Peter Perry! Oh, what
should we feel if we'd lost our Tim!"
Tom was so miserably unhappy thinking of Bounce that he had not the
heart to go out again that day. He stayed indoors, not doing
anything, and looking so altogether out of sorts that by and by his
mother inquired if he was feeling unwell; whereupon he said that he
was well enough, but that he was sick of the holidays and everything,
an answer which brought a grieved look to her face. A short while
later he spoke so sharply to Nellie because she kept on asking what
was the matter with him, that he made her cry, after which his
conscience pricked him for his unkindness to his little sister,
and he finally went to bed in such a state of nervous irritability
and remorse that it was hours before he could get to sleep.
The following morning he awoke early with the feeling that something
of a disastrous nature had occurred; and immediately his thoughts
flew to the blind boy and his dog. Then a brilliant idea occurred
to him. He would get up and go to Halcyon Villa before breakfast,
and ascertain if Bounce had returned. In another moment he was out
of bed.
It was nearly seven o'clock by the time Tom reached Halcyon Villa,
but every blind in the house was down. He was panting, for he had run
all the way from Ladysmith Terrace, so he stood waiting at the front
door, before ringing, to regain his breath. Whilst he stood thus he
heard the wheels of a heavy vehicle rumbling in the road, and then a
red and yellow caravan came in sight, which he recognised as the
Lees'. To his amazement it drew up to the gate.
"Why is it stopping here, I wonder?" muttered Tom. "Oh!" The "oh" was
a cry of mingled joy and relief, and the next moment he was running
across the lawn to meet Moses Lee, who had entered the garden leading
an Irish terrier at the end of a piece of rope. The gipsy had found
the wanderer and brought him home.