meaning of (verb stem)＋ませぬな

Question

I'm reading a manga, and in it one of the characters uses grammar that I've never seen before. The sentence is as follows:

小姓さんが見当たりませぬな。是非お会いしたかったのですが。

I understand pretty much everything else in the sentence:

[小姓]{こしょう}さん = page

見当たる = find

是非 = certainly

お会いしたかった = (humbly) wanted to meet

But because of this conjugation that I'm not familiar with, I'm not sure how it all fits together. What does +ませぬな mean?

Answer 1

• ぬ indicates the negative (as in Classical Japanese) and ~ませぬ is in fact the precursor of the modern ~ません.

• な is a variant of ね
  _{(see also What nuance does "ですな" bring? and 「ね」 vs 「な」 in 「そうだね」 /「そうね」/ 「そうですね」)}

Since Manga often indicate the end of a sentence by a line (or column) break, rather than a period, I would bet that the sentence is

小姓さんが見当たりませぬな
是非お会いしたかったのですが。

In any case,

小姓さんが見当たりませぬな = 小姓さんが見当たりませんね (modulo nuances)