“I was very sorry for the poor little child; she had a most wretched home,” replied Mrs. Holdich.
“Is it true that her father was of such a very violent temper?”
“So violent when he had been drinking,” said Rebekah, “that I have seen the poor child disfigured for weeks from blows received from her father; and as for her unhappy mother, there is not a doubt that she would have been actually killed by Abner Stone in one of his drunken fits, had not Mr. Madden nobly saved her life at the peril of his own. The ruffian was going to dash out her brains with a poker.”
“And Mr. Lionel came forward——”
“Oh, not Mr. Lionel,” said Mrs. Holdich with a smile; “I am not aware that he ever entered a cottage; it was his younger brother, who is now labouring for God in the Holy Land, he who built the pretty school-house at Wildwaste, who saved poor Deborah’s life. The beautiful carvings from Bethlehem which you saw in our cottage were sent to me by him.”
“What has become of Lottie’s father?” asked Isa, after having walked on for some minutes in silence.
“No one knows,” replied Rebekah. “Abner Stone suddenly disappeared from this part of the country, after a gentleman had been found lying on the road, having been knocked off his horse by a highwayman. It is more than suspected that Stone did the deed, but fled on hearing some one come up to the spot.”
“It is strange,” observed Isa, “that Lottie could speak with tenderness of such a parent; her eyes filled with tears when she expressed her hopes that God would one day bring him back.”
“Her mother will never hear a word spoken against him,” said Rebekah. “Poor Deborah Stone is a true, faithful wife, and I believe prays night and day for the return of a husband whom she has loved through such trials as few but herself could have borne. I cannot help thinking,” pursued the steward’s gentle wife, “that there must have been some good even in Abner when he was sober; it is the fatal habit of drinking which makes a savage even of a kind-hearted man.”
“Lottie was looking sad yesterday evening at the lecture,” observed Isa.