THE FATHER'S QUEST.
When Aunt Jemima came home, she was surprised, in no small degree, at the
absence of Marian. With gathering indignation she called up the stairs,
then searched the house, and finally presented herself before her brother,
who was quite alone in his workshop, and sat calmly working on his stool.
"Then she is not here?"
"Who? Marian?" responded "Cobbler" Horn in no accent of concern, looking
up for a moment from his work. "No, I thought she was with you."
"No; I left her in the room for a moment, and now she is nowhere to be
found."
There seemed to "Cobbler" Horn no reason for alarm, and, as his sister
returned to the kitchen, he quietly went on with his work. But Aunt
Jemima's mind was ill at ease. Once more she searched the house, and
called and called again. There was no response, and the silence which
followed was profound and ominous. Swiftly she passed, with growing
alarm, through her brother's workshop, and out into the yard. A glance
around, and then a closer search; but still no sign of the missing child.
The perturbed woman re-entered her brother's presence, and stood before
him, erect and rigid, and with outstretched hands.
"The child's gone!" was her gloomy exclamation.
"Gone!" echoed "Cobbler" Horn blankly, looking up. "Where?"
"I don't know; but she's gone quite away, and may never come back."
Then "Cobbler" Horn perceived that his sister was alarmed; and,
notwithstanding the occasion, he was comforted by the unwonted tenderness
she had expressed. As for Marian, he knew her for a born rambler; and it
was not the first time she had strayed from home.
"Perhaps," he said placidly, "she has gone to the little shop over the
way."
Then he resumed his work, as though he had simply told his sister where
she would be likely to find her spectacles.
Aunt Jemima took the hint, as a drowning person catches at a straw. She
made her way to the front-door, and having opened it, was on the point of
crossing the street, when Tommy Dudgeon emerged from the shop, and came
over towards where she stood.
"Good morning, ma-am," he said, halting at a respectful distance. "You are
looking for little miss?"
"Well," snapped Aunt Jemima, "and if I am, what then? Do you know where
she is?"
"No, ma-am; but I saw her go away."
Miss Jemima seized the arm of the little man with an iron grip.
"Man! you saw her go away, and you let her go?"
With difficulty Tommy freed his arm.
"Well, ma-am, perhaps I ought----"
"Of course you ought," rapped out the lady, sharply. "You must be a
gabey."
"No doubt, ma-am. But little miss will come back. She knows her way about.
She will be home to dinner."
Having spoken, Tommy was turning to recross the street.
"Stop, man!"
Tommy stopped and faced around once more.
"Which way did she go?"
"That way, ma-am," replied Tommy, pointing along the street, to Aunt
Jemima's left-hand, and his own right.
The troubled lady instantly marched, in the direction indicated, to the
end of the street; but, finding that five ways branched off therefrom, she
returned baffled to her brother's house, and sought his presence once
more.
"Thomas," she cried, almost fiercely, "the child has certainly run away!"
Still "Cobbler" Horn was not alarmed.
"Well," he said calmly, "never mind, Jemima. She has a habit of going off
by herself. She knows her way about, and will not stray far. She will be
back by dinner-time, no doubt."
Though by no means satisfied, Miss Jemima was fain to accept this view of
the case for the time. With a troubled mind, she resumed her suspended
domestic duties. Unlikely as it might seem, she could not banish the dread
that Marian had actually run away; and, as the morning passed, the fear
grew stronger and stronger in the troubled lady's breast that she would
see her little niece no more. Accordingly when dinner-time arrived, Aunt
Jemima was not surprised that Marian did not appear. The dinner consisted
of Irish stew--Marian's favourite dish. On the stroke of twelve it was
smoking on the table. For the twentieth time the perturbed lady went to
the door, and gazed wistfully up and down the street. Then, with a sigh,
she re-entered the house, and called her brother to dinner.
"Cobbler" Horn, feeling sure that Marian would soon return, had dismissed
the fact of her disappearance from his mind; and when, on coming in to
dinner, he found that she was still absent, he was taken by surprise.
In reply to his inquiry, Aunt Jemima jerked out the opinion that the child
would not come back at all.
"Why shouldn't she?" he asked. "I've known her stay away longer than this,
and there's no occasion for alarm."
So saying, he addressed himself to his dinner with his usual gusto; but
Miss Jemima had no appetite, and the show of eating that she made was but
a poor pretence.
"Don't be so much alarmed, Jemima," said her brother, making progress with
his dinner. "I've no doubt the child is amongst her friends. By and bye
I'll go out and hunt her up."
He still had no fear that his little daughter would not soon return. He
accordingly finished his dinner with his usual deliberation; and it was
not until he had completed one or two urgent pieces of work, that he, at
last, put on his hat and coat, and taking his stout blackthorn stick, set
out in search of his missing child.
All the weary afternoon, he went from house to house, amongst friends and
friendly neighbours; but no one had seen Marian, or knew anything as to
her whereabouts. Every now and then he returned home, to see if the child
had come back. But each time he found only Aunt Jemima, sitting before the
fire like an image of grim despair. She would look up with fierce
eagerness, on his entrance, and drop her gaze again with a gasp when she
saw that he was alone.
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 promptitude 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 God 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
passed 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 passed 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 grass 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.