Roy dashed out into the hall.  He heard the rector’s voice in the distance, but was too excited to wait to see him, and after impatiently tugging on his objectionable coat, he limped off as quickly as he could, joining Dudley at the garden gate.  They heard the news on the way to old Principle’s.  It appeared that the old man had gone out the afternoon before, and had never come home.  His shop was shut up exactly as he had left it, and the woman who went in every day to do his cleaning and cooking for him, was the first one to notice his absence.  The group of idle women round his door were busily discussing the question when the boys arrived.

“I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if as how he has made away with hisself,” suggested one, knowingly.  “I always did say as he were queer in the head, a makin’ out of a pack o’ stones such amazin’ stories!  And a mutterin’ to hisself like no ordinary creetur, and a walkin’ through the woods and fields as if he seed nothin’ but what other folks couldn’t see at all!”

“Ah, now!  To think of it!  And Bill is a goin’ down the river to find his body; for him and Walter Hitchcock have searched the whole place since seven o’clock this mornin’!”

“May be there’s a murder in it,” said a young woman, cheerfully.  “He were an old man to wander off alone, and there’s allays evil-doers round about for the unprotected.”

The boys listened to these and similar conjectures with frightened eyes; then Dudley whispered,

“I believe he is in his cave, Roy; we’ll go and look for him.  Only don’t tell these women about it, because he hasn’t told anybody but us where it is.”

They left the shop and started for the hills, but Roy’s lameness made progress very slow.

At last he stopped, and struggling to hide his disappointment said, “You’ll have to go on without me, Dudley.  I only keep you back.  This old leg of mine always comes in the way.”

Dudley stopped to consider.  “It’s a very long way, but we must get there somehow.  Hulloo, here’s just the thing.”

They had stopped at a small inn at the outskirts of the village; and tied to the drinking trough outside, was a rough pony and cart whose owner was enjoying himself in the tap room with his friends.

“Jump in, Roy.  It’s to save old Principle, and anybody would be glad to lend his cart for that.”

Roy was not long in acting upon this advice.  The pony trotted forward briskly, and the boys would have thoroughly enjoyed this escapade, except for the fears of their friend’s safety.

“If anything has happened to him, the village will go to the dogs!” Roy asserted, emphatically; “old Hal said the other day he was worth a couple of parsons.  When I grow up, I think I shall try and be like him.  I shall give good advice to everybody without ever scolding them, that is what he does.”

“Do you think he is dead?” asked Dudley, “I don’t think he can be.  Why it was only the day before yesterday we saw him, and he was as well as we are.”