“Ay, but I shall not go alone,” replied Mr. Ewart, striking the table with his hand. At the signal, in rushed Jones and the two countrymen, followed by the magistrate; and after a short but furious struggle, they succeeded in securing their prisoner.
Ann attempted to make her escape by the back-door; Mr. Ewart laid his hand upon her arm.
“You are our prisoner also,” he said, “unhappy woman! nothing remains to you now but to make all the reparation in your power, by a frank and full confession.”
Ann wrung her hands in despair.
“What is to be done with the children?” said Mr. Ewart to the magistrate, looking round on the frightened, miserable family.
“Their proper home is the workhouse—I will see to them; and these prisoners must be sent to the jail.”
The clergyman gazed on the children with strong compassion. “We must consider if nothing better can be done for them,” thought he. “Poor inheritors of misery in this world, Heaven grant that they may have been taken from evil influence in time to preserve them, through God’s grace, from misery in that which is to come!”