There was no going back through the village in such a plight, so he climbed the first five-barred gate he saw and started on a long cross-country journey that was to bring him home by unfrequented ways. He found the unfrequented ways, for he didn’t meet a soul, but he lost his bearings altogether. The wind got up and there followed cold, gusty showers of rain and hail. He felt chilled and miserable and dreadfully tired. Field after field he traversed and yet found no familiar landmarks, till, having toiled uphill over a heavy ploughed field, he reached a road that stood fairly high, and below him on the far horizon he recognized the square tower of his own church. He plodded on and on till at last he trotted wearily up his own drive, and there he saw that not only Miss Radley but the three maids were all gathered on the steps of the front door. The moment Miss Radley saw him she ran toward him, exclaiming:
“Oh, Chris! Where _have_ you been? We were getting so anxious. Do you know it’s half-past five? My dear boy, how wet you are! Come in and get changed at once.”
The maids went back into the house when they saw Chris, and Miss Radley hurried him in and upstairs, not even waiting to make him wipe his feet.
“We’ve been so anxious,” she repeated. “I went to Easter’s, and she said you’d parted ever so long ago. Why did you go off by yourself like that?”
Chris was half in, half out of his sailor blouse by this time, and mumbled something about having got tired of Easter.
Miss Radley didn’t worry him much with questions, nor did she comment severely upon his dirty state. She was extraordinarily kind and got her hands all over mud in helping him to take off his boots; and it was not until he was lying luxuriously in a hot bath that it struck him as odd that his mother didn’t come to him. All the time, too, he had the feeling that Miss Radley wanted to tell him something and yet she couldn’t seem to begin.
“Where’s mummy?” he asked at last. “Isn’t she back yet? I wish she’d come and talk to me.”
Miss Radley looked queerly at him, almost as though she were going to cry. “Chris dear,” she said, and waited for quite a long time, “mummy has had to go away....”
“Chris dear”--again Miss Radley seemed to find it difficult to go on--“she had a telegram, just after you went out, from the War Office, asking her to go at once. Your father is in a hospital at Boulogne, very ill ... wounded.”