University of Virginia Library

14. CHAPTER XIV.
The Stolen Child.

MR. ACTON and Edith Irving had just
returned home, and it was upon their
ears that first fell the cries of Mrs. Barnes—

`Robert is lost! Robert is lost!'

In a minute the whole house was in alarm
Mrs. Acton, pale from the effects of her
recent agitation, rushed forward to know
the truth of the report.

`Who says Robert is lost?' she cried.

`I say so,' replied Mrs. Barnes, dragging
the trembling Kate into the room. `This
poor girl has been hunting for him, she says,
for the last half hour, thinking he had gone
but a little way, and not wishing to give you
any needless alarm. But the boy ain't to
be found, she says; and she is frightened to
death about it, poor thing! Robert! poor
Robert! he is lost!'

Inquiries and immediate search were
made, but Robert was no where to be
found, and none could throw any light upon
his fate.

Leaving his friends maddened with anxiety
to know what had become of him, and
harassed by forebodings that something terrible
had happened to him, let us follow the
boy himself, and watch him in the dangers
through which he may pass.

The child screamed lustily when he saw
a strange dark female approaching, issuing
from the bushes among which Kate had disappeared.
He ran but a step when she
caught him up, and placing her hand upon
his mouth, hurried away.

Margaret kept in by-places, where none
would observe her, until it was quite dark,
when she sought the open road, and hurried
on towards Boston. Robert struggled at
first with all his might, but he was soon worn
out and exhausted, and lay like an infant at
repose in the arms of the old woman.

At last she set him upon his feet, and told
him gruffly that he must walk; for she was
tired of carrying him, she said.

`I'm glad of it,' said Robert, `I didn't
want you carry me at all.'

`But you must walk now!'

`Who are you to talk to me so?' he asked
proudly.

`Never mind who I am,' replied Mag,
`but take my hand and come along.'

`I want to go home!' said the child suddenly;
`and I won't stir a step unless you
take me there. You had no right to carry
me away; indeed, it was very wrong, and
mother will tell you so.'

`Let us go to your mother, and see what
she will say.'

`I'll go to her, but I'll walk alone,' said
Robert. `I won't be seen taking your
hand!'

`You won't? Why, you little imp?'

`Because I don't like you.'

`And why not?'

`Because you don't look good. You was
n't kind to me either when you put your
hand over my mouth and squeezed me so!'

Seeing that he was determined not to
walk, Mag Munson dragged the child along
by the wrist; and then when he screamed
with pain, she caught him up angrily in her
arms, and struck him on the cheek.

`I'll teach you, you saucy imp!' she muttered,
stopping his cries with her brawny
hand. `Now, be still, or I'll kill you!'

`You may,' screamed the boy, `but I
won't be still!'

Once more the heavy hand was upon his
mouth, and he was borne powerless away.

In a little while they came to where the
houses stood more closely together, and carriages
were more frequent, and the way was
thronged by many men on foot. Here Robert
screamed and struggled again, but nobody
noticed him, and Margaret still carried
him on.

Several times the old woman tried, by
promises and threats to induce him to walk,
but he obstinately refused, telling her she
might kill him if she liked, but that he would
not take one step to please her. So she was
obliged to carry him in her arms through the
town which she did putting him down to
rest but four times before she reached her
home in the centre of the city.

`Put me down! I want to go home!'
screamed Robert, terrified at the sight of the
filthy localities through which he was carried.

`This is your home,' said Mag, as she
dragged him up the dilapidated stair case to
her abode in Centre street. `This is your
home now.'

`This ain't my home!' retorted Robert,
`I never lived in such a nasty place as this,
and never will.'

`Not with me?' sneered Mag.

`With you!' exclaimed the child contemptuously.
`I wouldn't live with you in
a palace, you ugly old monster!'

Mag laughed disdainfully, and dragged
the child into her room on the second floor.
Gordon was there, and by the flickering light
of a dim lamp, the boy could take a fair
survey of his new home, and of those who
were to be his tyrants.

`It's too bad!' he muttered, bursting into
tears of rage. `To take me away from my
pretty home and all kindred friends, and to
bring me here to shut me up in this ugly
hole! You old monster!' he continued, his
eyes flashing through his tears at Mag, `I
wish I was a man, big enough to tear you
into pieces!'

And he stamped the floor with his little
foot, spitefully, as if he imagined he had the
old woman beneath his heel, and was crushing
her to atoms.

But as yet he had suffered only the commencement
of the indignities that were to be
heaped upon him. After sitting down and
laughing heartily at the child's rage, Mag
dragged him towards her, and began to take
off his clothes. Resistance would have been
vain, so Robert suffered the indignity in sullen

silence. His embroidered collar, his
pretty velvet coat and figured vest were taken
away, and then the remainder of his clothing
even to his stockings and shoes. Spitefully
then did he clench his little fists and grind
his teeth as he saw his garments rolled together
in a heap, tossed upon a pile of dirty
rags in one corner of the room.

But this was not all! Oh! that such an
indignity should be thrust upon a proud spirited
fiery boy like Master Robert Acton! he
was not allowed even the common habiliments
of the male sex, of which he flattered
himself he was no mean specimen; but a
ragged, faded calico frock that had been
worn out by some ugly, dirty faced girl; a
clumsy pair of shoes that gaped open at the
toes as if they were laughing at his sorry
plight; and a colorless, tattered cotton bonnet,
were the only garments in which he, his
father's only son, was shamefully attired.

`This is your home, and these are your
clothes,' said Mag, when she had finished
dressing him.

Robert made no reply, but having cast
one angry glance at the unseemly rags that
hung so loosely about his slender, delicate
limbs, clutched his little fingers in the unworthy
dress, and rent it asunder as if it had
been made of paper.

`Very good, said Mag, laughing. `You
shall wear it now as it is.'

In a fit of passion Robert threw himself
upon the floor, where, except that his bitter
frowns at long intervals convulsed with heart
breaking sobs, he lay as motionless as a
corpse

Meanwhile Gordon and Mag disputed with
each other, about what should be done with
the child until a convenient time arrived for
claiming the reward that would be offered
for his restoration; which dispute—as was
often the case with disputes between that
amiable pair—ended in a quarrel. Gordon,
who had contended that it was dangerous to
keep the boy in the house that night, owing
to the possibility of his being traced thither,
suddenly snatched him up as he lay upon the
floor, and without informing Mag what he
intended doing with him, rushed with him
from the house.

`Oh!' exclaimed Robert, gratefully, `you
will carry me home, won't you?'

`I'll carry you away from her,' muttered
Gordon.

`Thank you!' said Robert. `She is a
monster! I hate her; don't you?'

Gordon didn't know what to say, nor hardly
what he said; but answered—

`Yes!'

`I thought you must. But what do you
live with her for?'

This time Gordon didn't see fit to answer
him at all, but hurried along.

`I'll walk now, if you want me to,' said
the boy. `I wouldn't walk for her, because
she wasn't kind to me, but since you are
going to take me home, I'll do as you say.'

Gordon put down his burden, and Robert
trotted along by his side as fast as he could
in the awakward dress he wore.

`You are very good to me,' said the child,
as Gordon led him along a brilliantly lighted
street. `I wish you'd tell me what that monster
is going to do with my clothes.'

`Sell them, of course,' replied Gordon.
`That is what she carried you off for: To
get your clothes.'

`And you will take me home now?'

`I don't know where your home is. I'll
take you to a house where you can stop to-night
and in the morning I'll find out where
your father lives and take you to him.'

Thus the burglar went on to fill the heart
of the poor child with vain hopes, as he conducted
him along many different streets, until
he came to a disagreeable court, leading out
of Purchase street, near the Sailor's Home.
This place is known to the citizens in that
quarter of the town as Spear's Alley, and it
is one of those by-places in the midst of a
great city, where poor families huddled together
on account of the cheapness of the
rents.

`You ain't going to leave me in any of
these houses?' said the boy, shuddering.

`For a day or two, perhaps,' replied Gordon,
leading him into a small yard, through
which he was obliged to pass to gain entrance
to the house it was his purpose to
visit.

Mrs. Craft was a widow woman, residing
at No. 5, who managed to support herself
and children—she had two—by doing any
little jobs, it mattered little what, that fell
in her way. Professionally, she was a washerwoman,
but we have no hesitation in saying
she did a better business by dealing with
such men as Gordon, than at her legitimate
trade. She was a small, crooked, sharp featured
woman, with a cast in her eye that
gave to her the appearance of looking at you
and your shadow at the same time.

Gordon took Mrs. Craft aside and talked
to her confidentially for some time, when,
returning to Robert, he said to him:—

`This is a good woman who has promised
to take care of you until I can find where
your father lives and carry you to him.'

Robert looked first at Gorden, then at the
woman, and finally glancing, at his torn and
faded garments burst into tears.

`I hope you'll find him soon,' he said,
`but I'd thank you to bring my own clothes
first, for I'm ashamed to be seen in such a
mean, nasty dress as this! Will you bring
my own clothes soon?'

Gordon made no reply, but hurried away,
leaving Robert alone with his new acquaintance.