I found him walking up and
down, looking very highly displeased.
"'Tell your mother I have flogged Peter, and that he richly
deserved it.'
"I durst not ask any more questions. When I told my mother, she
sat down, quite faint, for a minute. I remember, a few days after,
I saw the poor, withered cowslip flowers thrown out to the leaf
heap, to decay and die there. There was no making of cowslip wine
that year at the rectory--nor, indeed, ever after.
"Presently my mother went to my father. I know I thought of Queen
Esther and King Ahasuerus; for my mother was very pretty and
delicate-looking, and my father looked as terrible as King
Ahasuerus. Some time after they came out together; and then my
mother told me what had happened, and that she was going up to
Peter's room at my father's desire--though she was not to tell
Peter this--to talk the matter over with him. But no Peter was
there. We looked over the house; no Peter was there! Even my
father, who had not liked to join in the search at first, helped us
before long. The rectory was a very old house--steps up into a
room, steps down into a room, all through. At first, my mother
went calling low and soft, as if to reassure the poor boy, 'Peter!
Peter, dear! it's only me;' but, by-and-by, as the servants came
back from the errands my father had sent them, in different
directions, to find where Peter was--as we found he was not in the
garden, nor the hayloft, nor anywhere about--my mother's cry grew
louder and wilder, Peter! Peter, my darling! where are you?' for
then she felt and understood that that long kiss meant some sad
kind of 'good-bye.
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