Mrs. MacDougall and Elsie had some time to wait before the night train
started. They spent it in the waiting-room, Mrs. MacDougall having first
procured for Elsie as comfortable a tea as her means would allow. To
Elsie it seemed a perfect feast.
While they are waiting I must take the opportunity of telling all that
had been found out about the Murdochs, and how they came to take charge
of the children. Lucy Murdoch had been, as Meg said, quite a poor girl,
living in one of the miserable closes in which the old town of Edinburgh
abounds. She was very pretty and clever, but naturally inclined to
deceit and cunning. When she was about seventeen she went to service,
but could never keep a place, because she was impertinent, and so fond
of dressing herself up in fine clothes that she at last began to steal
things from the ladies she lived with in order to gratify her vanity.
Her friends said she looked like any lady, and this so pleased the vain
creature that she tried to pass for one wherever she could, giving
herself great airs in shops she was sent to and when walking out of
doors. At last it was found that she had been to a shop in Edinburgh and
ordered some things in the name of a young lady, in whose mother's house
she had been a servant. After this she disappeared from Edinburgh, and
her friends saw nothing of her for many years.
When they heard of her again, she was married. She came back dressed as
a smart lady, and looking and speaking very much like one. She had been
in London, and had picked up all sorts of fine ways. Her husband was
just such another as herself: they both disliked honest work, but lived
by their cunning.
One of their tricks was to go to a grand hotel where there were rich
people, make the acquaintance of some wealthy lady or gentleman,
skilfully manage to rob the unsuspicious individuals of any money they
might have with them, and then depart, letting the suspicion fall on
some unfortunate servant.
Just before they had met Elsie and Duncan they had been staying at a
very fashionable resort in the Highlands, where Lucy Murdoch, by her
dashing manner and profuse liberality, made a great many friends and was
much admired. There happened to be among the company an Australian
gentleman just arrived in England, who had brought with him a
pocket-book full of notes, which he perhaps intended to pay into an
English bank. The gentleman, being boastful and proud of his money, gave
broad hints of the wealth he carried with him to Lucy Murdoch and her
husband, whom he thought very nice people, and so much more friendly to
a foreigner than the cold, proud English folk usually are. One morning
the gentleman found his pocket-book gone, notes and all. He came into
luncheon full of it, pouring out his indignant wrath to his genial
friends, the Murdochs, who commiserated him, and were as indignant as
he. One of the waiters was suspected. The wretched man declared that he
had seen the gentleman, Mr. Halliwell (the name under which the Murdochs
were then going), coming out of the Australian gentleman's bedroom, that
he had spoken to him, and that Mr. Halliwell had said that he had made a
mistake and just gone inside, but had seen directly his error. The man
was not believed, for there were the Halliwells still staying in the
hotel, going and coming as freely as could be. The next day they paid
their bill (a good long one) and went away, bidding their acquaintances
good-bye, and hoping they should meet in Edinburgh.
After they had gone some way on their journey, Lucy discovered that she
had lost a letter from one of her bad companions in Edinburgh--no other
than the man Andrew, who was one of their accomplices. Fearing she might
have dropped it in the hotel, they made all haste to get to London, but
their journey was delayed at a certain point by the stupidity of a
driver, who had undertaken to drive them to Killochrie, but could not
find the way, the consequence being that they lost their train, and
would be delayed eight hours.
Now Lucy Murdoch had heard of the missing children, and when she stopped
Elsie and Duncan to ask them the way, she immediately supposed, from
what Elsie said, that these were the very ones. Being very clever and
quick-witted, she saw in a moment she could make use of them to forward
her own escape. Driving to the nearest town, she purchased black
ready-made garments, retired to a lonely spot, and dressed herself as a
widow, smoothing back her curled locks under the close round bonnet.
Then she went to the children, dressed them in the clothes she had
bought, walked back to the station, and went on by train to a little
town some twenty miles off, where she spent the night, her husband
having gone first to secure a lodging. On the next day they went on to
Edinburgh under the new name of Donaldson, John Murdoch passing as her
brother, and the children as her fatherless little ones on their way
home from school.
Duncan's illness interfered with her plans, and necessitated her seeking
the help of the man Andrew, while she and her husband went to a
fashionable hotel. But Lucy Murdoch was not to be daunted. It would do
just as well to travel to London with one child as two, and even serve
still further to destroy her identity. So she would have cast Duncan off
like an old shoe. Elsie's determination made this difficult, but she
soon devised a plan to get Elsie off by cunning, and leave Duncan
behind. Although she promised Elsie that Duncan should go to the
hospital, she had left instructions with Meg that he was to be taken
back to Andrew's house. Meg, however, took him to the hospital, and said
(poor ignorant thing) that she had found him ill in the street. When she
got home she put on her most stupid air, and declared that she didn't
rightly know what Mrs. Murdoch meant her to do, that she was very sorry
if she'd done wrong, and hadn't she better go and fetch him back? Andrew
abused her, but at the hospital the child was left. Poor Meg! she had in
her a kind heart, and might have been a good, happy girl but for bad
companions.
The police, however, were on the track of the Murdochs. They had been
watched from place to place, and evidence collected. When they least
thought of danger they found themselves lodged in a prison.
Elsie's account greatly helped to prove their guilt. Meg was examined,
and was found to have known a great deal about their doings; but as she
was not found guilty of any crime, she was allowed to go free, and
advised by the magistrate to forsake her old companions, and endeavour
to live honestly and respectably. A charitable lady afterwards took her
into a home, being much touched by the account she gave of Duncan's
illness, and the way she had done what she could to save his life.
John and Lucy Murdoch were sentenced to be imprisoned for a great many
years. The man Andrew was also severely punished.
What they intended, to do with Elsie was not clear. Duncan they had left
dangerously ill, without nursing or medical advice. The magistrate
pointed out to him that they ought to be grateful to Meg, for if the
child had died they would certainly have been charged with causing his
death.
Probably they would have left Elsie to a similar fate: unless, indeed,
they had succeeded in making her one of themselves, in which case she
would, perhaps, have been tempted to join them in some hideous crime,
and have ended her days in a prison.