CHILD HEROISM.
"Mother, just look what I've come upon! I found the small board at the back loose, and beneath it, this."
Thus spoke Julia White, who was engaged in scrubbing out the single cupboard of their one room, and as she uttered the words she held up a paper with two sovereigns wrapped in it.
"Why are you so prying, child?" said the mother. "You would have been so much better without the knowledge of my secret. Now, if your father should come home tipsy to-night, you will be forced to tell him where the money is, and I shall lose the whole of it. Wherever to hide it away from you, I don't know."
Poor Julia looked frightened enough, for she was only eleven years of age, and her dread of her father, who frequently showed himself a ferocious ruffian, was extreme; but there was no help for the case now. The mother had to leave in little more than an hour to watch a patient to whom she was night nurse, and there was no time to find another hiding-place. To carry the money with her where she was going would scarcely have been safe, so, after seeing little Nancy, with the baby, safely returned, and giving the latter its meal at her breast, the good, hard-working woman departed to fulfil her engagement.
The children left alone, the terror of the elder one could not escape the notice of the younger, although she was only a little over seven; and she at length said—
"What can be the matter with you, Julia?"
"I know where mother's money is, and am afraid father will come home and want it."
"Tell him you know nothing about it. He always believes you."
"Nancy!"
She had been rightly taught by a good mother, and young as she was, realized that this was not the course to take, so, kneeling by the side of her child sister, she offered the following simple, but heartfelt, prayer—
"Dear Jesus, please don't let father come home to-night and want mother's money; but if he should do so, please help me not to tell him where it is."
The strength she had thus gained was soon put to a cruel test, for into the neat, cleanly room there quickly rushed the brute who represented all that she had ever known of father. The scene that ensued was of a character not unfrequent in low London districts, but none the less worthy of record. Poor little Nancy, dreading what might follow, caught up the baby, and fled with it into a corner of the room, as the safest place of refuge, for we ought to have stated that the ruffian had locked the door upon his entrance. Catching his eldest daughter's arm, he said, in not an over loud voice—
"Get me your mother's money."
Meeting with no reply from the white-faced girl, he next said—
"Do you know where it is?"
But still there was no answer. What followed seems dreadful to relate, suiting better with the nature of South Sea or African cannibals than with the natives of Christian England. First twisting the girl's arm round, and causing her dreadful pain, he next bestowed upon her with his brute strength a succession of awful blows; but, though she could not keep back her cries, she did not yield to him in the least.
Wearied at length, he flung her from him on to the wall, and during the ensuing five minutes, with bursts of terrible oaths, threatened that, if she did not acquaint him with her secret, he would kill her; but, mercifully, the neighbours were enabled at the end of this time to break into the room, or there is no telling what mischief might have followed.
But we cannot finish without describing the heroism of poor little Nancy, which almost equalled that of her sister. Dodging from side to side during the struggle, now in this corner and now in that, and shielding the baby with her youthful person, she, with wonderful activity and courage, kept it from harm.
It seems something like divine retribution that this dreadful father this very evening received a terrible beating in the public-house, and his system being unhealthy, as the result of drinking habits, he died in hospital of his injuries.
S. Dennis.
There is a pre-established harmony between the voice of the Shepherd and the heart of the sheep. "If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you."