Long before the afternoon was over the father's unconcern had given place to serious alarm. He was not greatly surprised that he had failed to find Marian in the house of any of their friends; but he wondered that she had not yet come home of her own accord. While he would not, even now, believe that Marian had run away, he was compelled to admit that she was lost.

But what was that? He had turned once more towards home, and had entered his own street, and there was Marian, playing with some other children, on the pavement, just in front. Her back was towards him, as she bent down over her play. But there was no mistaking that thick, night-black hair, and the little plump brown legs which peeped out beneath the small frock.

With the prompt.i.tude of absolute certainty, he put out his strong hands and lifted the child from the ground. Then he uttered a cry. It was not Marian after all! He put her down--he almost let her drop, and the startled child began to cry. "Cobbler" Horn hastily pushed a penny into her hand, and strode on. He staggered like one who has received a blow.

It seemed almost as if he had actually had his little one in his arms, and she had slipped away again.

When he reached home, his sister was still sitting in grim silence, before the now fireless grate. On her brother's entrance, she looked up as aforetime. "Cobbler" Horn sank despondently into a chair.

"Nowhere to be found!" he said, with a deep sigh.

"We must have the tea ready," he added, as though at the dictate of a sudden thought.

"Ah, you are tired, and hungry."

Aunt Jemima hesitated on the last word. Could her brother be hungry? She thought she would never wish to taste food again.

"No," he said quickly; "but Marian will want her tea. Put the dinner away.

It is cold, Jemima."

"I put her plate in the oven," said Aunt Jemima, in a hollow voice, as she rose from her seat.

"Ah!" gasped the father. The little plate had become hot and cold again, and its contents were quite dried up. Aunt Jemima put the plate upon the oven-top; and then turned, and looked conscience-stricken into her brother's face. Severe towards herself, as towards others, she unflinchingly acknowledged her great fault.

"Brother, your child is gone; and I have driven her away."

She lifted her hands on either side of her head, and gently swayed herself to and fro once--a grim gesture of despair.

"I do not ask you to forgive me. It is not to be expected of you--unless she comes back again. If she does not, I shall never forgive myself."

"Jemima," said "Cobbler" Horn, rising from his seat, and placing his hand lightly on her shoulder, "You are too severe with yourself. That the child is lost is evident enough; but surely she may be found! I will go to the police authorities: they will help us."

He turned to the door, but paused with his hand on the latch.

"Jemima," he said, gently, "you must not talk about my not forgiving you.

I would try to forgive my greatest enemy, much more my own sister, who has but done what she believed to be best."

The authorities at the police-station did what they could. Messages were sent to every police centre in the town; and very soon every policeman on his beat was on the look-out for the missing child. At the same time, an officer was told off to accompany the anxious father on a personal search for his little girl. First of all, they visited the casual ward at the workhouse, and astonished its motley and dilapidated occupants by waking them to ask if they had fallen in with a strayed child on any of the roads by which they had severally approached the town. When they had recovered from their first alarm beneath the gleam of the policeman's bulls-eye, these waifs of humanity, one and all, declared their inability to supply the desired information. The officer next conducted his companion into the courts and bye-ways of the town. Many a den of infamy was filled with a quiver of alarm, and many a haunt of poverty was made to uncover its wretchedness before the horrified gaze of "Cobbler" Horn. But the missing child was not in any of these. Next they went a little way out on one or two of the country roads. But here all was dark: and they soon retraced their steps.

Having ascertained that nothing had been heard at the police-station of his child, "Cobbler" Horn at length turned homeward, in the early morning, with a weary heart. Miss Jemima was still sitting where he had left her, and he sadly shook his head in response to the appeal of her dark hollow eyes. During the hour or so which remained before dawn, "Cobbler" Horn restlessly paced the house, pausing, now and then, to open the front-door and step out into the street, that he might listen for the returning patter of the two little feet that had wandered away.

Before it was fairly light, he left his sister, still distraught and rigid in her chair, and went into the streets once more. What could he do which he had not already done? From the first his heart had turned to G.o.d in prayer, and this seemed now his sole remaining resource. Yes, he could still pray; and, as he did so now, his belief grew stronger and stronger that, if not now, yet sometime, he would surely find his child again.

Not many streets from his own he met a woman whom he knew. She lived, with her husband, in a solitary cottage on the London Road--the road into which "Cobbler" Horn's street directly led, and she was astir thus early, she explained, to catch the first train to a place some miles away. But what had brought Mr. Horn out so soon? "Cobbler" Horn told his sorrowful story, and the woman gave a sudden start.

"Why," she said, "that reminds me. I saw the child yesterday morning. She pa.s.sed our house, trotting at a great rate. It was washing day, and, besides, I had my husband's dinner in the oven, or I think I should have gone after her."

"Cobbler" Horn regarded the woman with strange, wide-open eyes.

"If you had only stopped her!" he cried. "But of course you didn't know."

With that, he left the woman standing in the street, and hurried away.

Very soon he was walking swiftly along the London Road. The one thought in his mind was that he was on the track of his child at last. He pa.s.sed the wayside cottage where the woman lived who had seen Marian go by, and went on until, moved by a sudden impulse, he paused to rest his arms upon the top of a five-barred gate, and look upon the field into which it led. Then he uttered a cry, and, tearing open the gate, strode into the field. Lying amidst the gra.s.s was a little shoe. It was one of Marian's without a doubt. Had he not made it himself? He picked it up and hid it away in the pocket of his coat. Marian had evidently wandered that way, and was lost in the large wood which lay on the other side of the field. To reach the wood was the work of a few moments. Plunging amongst the trees, he soon came upon a pool, near the margin of which were some prostrate tree trunks. Near one of these the ground was littered with shreds of what might have been articles of clothing; and amongst them was a long strip of print, which had a familiar look. He picked it up and examined it closely.

Then the truth flashed upon him. It was one of the strings of Marian's sun-bonnet! Holding it loosely between his finger and thumb, he gazed upon the foul green waters of the pond. Did they cover the body of his child?

He had no further thought of searching the wood. With a shudder he turned away, and hurried home.

Aunt Jemima had bestirred herself, and was moving listlessly about the house.

"Jemima, do you know this?" She took the strip of print into her hand.

"Yes," she said, "it is----"

He finished her sentence. "----the string of her bonnet."

"Yes."

He told her where he had found it, and showed her the shoe.

The pond was dragged, but nothing was discovered. They searched the wood, and scoured the country for miles around; but they came upon no further trace of the missing child.

CHAPTER VII.

WHAT HAD BECOME OF THE CHILD?

When Marian left her father's house, she had but one idea in her mind. Her sole desire was to escape from Aunt Jemima; and it seemed to her that the most effectual method of doing so was to get into the country as fast as she could. It was not likely, she thought, that there would be any Aunt Jemimas in so pleasant a region as she had always understood the country to be. She knew vaguely which direction to take, and supposed that if she kept on long enough, she would ultimately reach her destination. What she would do when she got there she had not paused to think. At present she was simply thrilling with the sweet consciousness of liberty, and enjoying her scamper in the fresh spring morning air. It was not likely, perhaps, that Marian would run right away from home, and stay away. Like any other little chick, she would make for home at roosting time, if hunger did not constrain her to turn her steps thitherward at a much earlier hour.

Marian's surmise that the way she had taken led into the country proved to be correct. The street widened out into a road, the houses became fewer and brighter till they ceased altogether; and the child realized, with a little tremor, that, at last, she was out in the country all alone. Her feeling was one of timid joy. All around her were the green fields and waving trees; and the only house in sight was a little white-washed cottage far on in front. It cost Marian an effort to pa.s.s a man with a coal cart who presently loomed in view; but when she found that he slouched by without taking any notice of her, she took heart again and tripped blithely on.

Presently she found herself opposite to the little white-washed cottage; and she remembered that she had been there once or twice with her father.

She would have been better pleased, just now, if the cottage had been on some other road. How could she pa.s.s it without being seen? This was plainly impossible; for there was the woman of the house--being the same whom Marian's father met the following morning--hanging out the clothes in the garden, close to the hedge. Marian trotted on, pretending not to know that there was any one near. Then she felt hot all over, as she became aware the woman had seen her, and was calling across the road. But she just gave her dusky little head a determined shake, and pursued her way.

The woman, being weighted with an acc.u.mulation of domestic cares, without a second thought, and much to her subsequent regret, let the little runaway go by.

When Marian had left the cottage out of sight behind, she began to feel lonely, and to be very much afraid. There was not a human being in sight, except herself; and the only dwelling she could see was a farm-house, perched on the top of a hill, away across the fields. She slackened her pace, and looked furtively around. Then she went on more quickly again; but, in a few moments, a slight bend in the road brought before her a sight at which she stopped short and uttered a cry of alarm. An exceedingly ill-favoured man, and a no more prepossessing woman, were sitting upon the bank, by the road-side, discussing a dinner of broken victuals. They were thorough-going tramps, of middle age. Marian would have fled; but their evil eyes held her to the spot.

"What a pretty little lady!" said the man, holding out a very dirty hand.

"Come here, missy!"

But Marian shrank back with a smothered cry.

"I've finished my dinner, I have," said the man, getting up.

"So have I," echoed the woman, following his example; "and we'll go for a walk with little miss."

"What a precious lonely road!" she remarked, when she had glanced this way and that, to make sure that no prying eyes were near. "Catch hold o' the little 'un, Jake; and we'll take a stroll in the fields."

There was a perfect understanding between this precious pair; and Marian was promptly lifted over a five-barred gate, and led by the woman across a gra.s.s field, towards a wood on the other side, while the man followed stolidly in the rear. A few paces from the gate Marian's shoe came off; but she was as much too frightened to say anything about it, as she was to ask any questions of her captors, or to resist their will. Having reached the wood, they plunged into its recesses, and at length halted before a large pool, at the edge of which there lay upon the ground the trunks of some trees which had been cut down. Taking her seat on one of these, the woman drew Marian to her side, and, while the man stood by with an evil smile, proceeded to strip off some of the child's clothes. Marian began to cry, but was silenced with a rough shake and a threat of being thrown into the pond. Having divested the child of most of her garments, the woman took from a dirty bundle which she carried a draggled grey wool shawl, which she wrapped tightly, crosswise, around Marian's body, and tied in a hard knot behind her back.

Perceiving that Marian had lost one of her shoes, the hag sent her husband back to look for it, while she proceeded with the metamorphosis of the hapless infant who had fallen into her hands. She smeared the little face with muddy water from the margin of the pool; she jerked out the semi-circular comb which held back Marian's cloud of dusky hair, and let the thick locks fall in disorder about her head and face; she dragged the little sun bonnet in the green slime at the margin of the pool, and, on pretence of tying it on the child's head, wrenched off one of the strings, which she heedlessly left lying on the ground.