Little boy lost - and found

One night as we were sitting by the fire, the phone rang and a neighbor told us that a 2 year old boy was missing and feared wandering out in the bogs alone. She asked us to call other neighbors and meet at the Laird's cottage to form a search party. When we arrived at the house we found about 40 very concerned people gathered to begin the search.

The police had been called, and the Assynt Mountain Rescue Team along with the RAF (who had a helicopter) were at standby. The parents told us that the child had been put to bed upstairs, but when they went to check on him around 10:00 he was gone! The adults had been playing cards in the lounge - within sight of the outside door - but no one had heard anything or seen the boy leave the house. The frantic parents had searched the house from top to bottom and hadn't found him, so they called the police.

When the police arrived they organized people to go out to search the moor around the house. But I got to talking to our neighbor, Peter Drake, and we both felt sure that the child had to be in the house - it just didn't make sense that he could have left it unseen. So Peter and I and one of the policemen decided to make a thorough search - in cupboards, under beds, in drawers and suitcases - any space that might be possible for a little boy to creep into without being seen. We started at the top and were working our way through the second floor when Peter called out "Here he is!" And there inside a suitcase - a trunk really - was a sleepy, yawning, confused toddler. He'd been sound asleep through it all and his parents must have passed that way many times - but had never imagined that he could be sleeping in a suitcase!

All's well that ends well! So we had a cup of tea and walked back to Castlehill enjoying the warm, still, moonlit night and feeling that all was right with the world.