“Never mind the buts, youngster. You’ll have to be sent back to your sorrowing friends, my absconding young sloper.”
“No, no, no?” I cried wildly, as he took hold of my cuff. “Don’t send me back, pray don’t send me back.”
“None o’ that ’ere now,” he said, giving me a rough shake. “You just come along quietly.”
“Oh, I will, sir, indeed I will!” I cried, “but don’t, pray don’t send me back.”
“Why not? How do you know but it won’t be best for yer? You come along o’ me sharp, and we’ll soon physic your constitution into a right state.”
The agony of dread that seized me at that moment was more than I could bear. In imagination I saw myself dragged back to Mr Blakeford, and saw the smile of triumph on his black-looking face, as he had me again in his power, and, boy as I was then, and full of young life and hopefulness, I believe that I would gladly have jumped into the river sooner than have had to trust to his tender mercies again.
In my horror, then, I flung myself on my knees before the policeman, and clasped his leg as I appealed wildly to him to let me go.
“If you sent me back, sir,” I cried piteously, “he’d kill me.”
“And then we should kill him,” he said, laughing. “Not as that would be much comfort to you. Here, get up.”
“You don’t know what I suffered, sir, after poor papa and mamma died. He used me so cruelly, and he beat me, too, dreadfully. And now, after I have run away, if he gets me back he will be more cruel than before.”