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 pass 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 pass 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 accumulation 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 grass 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.
At this point the man returned without the missing shoe.
"It doesn't matter," said his spouse. "Lend me your knife."
She then proceeded to cut and slash Marian's remaining shoe in a most
remorseless manner, after which she replaced it on the child's foot, and
wrapped around the other foot a piece of dirty rag.
"Come now," said the woman, having rolled up Marian's clothes with the
rubbish in her bundle; "we wanted a little girl, and you'll just do." So
saying, she took tight hold of the child's hand.
"I want my daddy!" cried Marian, finding her voice at last.
"That's your daddy now," said the woman, pointing to the man: "and I'm
your mammy. Come along!" and, with the word, she set off at a vigorous
pace, dragging the child, and, followed heavily by her husband, through
the wood, and across the field, and then out upon the road, away and away,
with their backs turned towards Marian's home.