"Yes, and I have heard of Mr. Phillips; go on."
"I should have said he has an office in Newburgh, but he lives on a fine place up the river, out of town, a couple of miles or so. You see, when ill-luck sent me over from Ireland, where I lived in ease and plenty, never taking up a spade but for devarsion, after a hard day following the hounds or riding steeple-chases, I lived with Mr. Phillips as gardener. But he and I niver could agree, and so parted; and soon after my Biddy, who was the cook, was discharged for taking a drop too much just. You see she fell down stairs with the tea-tray. So she had a spite against the master on my account, and against the mistress on her own account, and vowed by all the saints she 'd be aven with them. After we settled in New York, many's the trip she took up the river to prowl about the place (women is quare cratures, yer honor) for a chance to balance accounts. But she never got a shy at them till one afternoon, just before dark, she found little Miss Mary, Mistress Phillips's one child, playing alone on the river-bank, out of sight of the house; it's likely she 'd run away from a lazy nurse. My Biddy wasn't one of the kind that dilly-dallies or shilly-shallies: she pounces on the child like a hawk on a chicken, stops its mouth so it could n't as much as peep, and carries it into a wood near by and hides till dark. Then she takes it over to Fishkill, where she has friends, who lend her proper clothes for the child, and give it a drink that hushes its crying like magic just. Then she takes the night-boat for New York, and in the big, crowded city the child was as completely lost as the small chicken I likened her to would be if the hawk should drop it in a wide sea-marsh. There was a great hue and cry about 'the mysterious disappearance of the only child of John Phillips, Esq.,' (just as if no poor, hard-working man ever lost an only child!) but most of the newspapers drowned her, I believe. Biddy kept her mighty close for a time, and sheared off her curls, but niver a hound of a detective smelt at our door.
"I always told Biddy that trouble would come of this same matter sooner or later, and sure had n't we a power of trouble with Molly herself,—what with her pining and crying, (though Biddy soon learned her to cry silent,) and her sickly turn, and her ungrateful disposition? And didn't she forsake us at last,—me a lone widower, and the poor motherless boys?"
"Ah, Magee, what an awful hypocrite you are!" exclaimed Mr. Raeburn; "but go on."
"What more do you want to know, thin?"
"How old was the child when your wife stole it?"
"I should say that the child was a trifle over three years old when Mrs. Magee adopted her," replied Patrick, with imposing dignity.
"Are Mr. and Mrs. Phillips both living?"
"It 's not ten days since I was towld they were, yer honor."
"I start for Newburgh to-morrow morning, with Molly—Miss Phillips," resumed Mr. Raeburn; "but you must remain where you are, in close confinement, at least until we have ascertained if your statement be true. If it be found so, I will do my best to effect your release. Meanwhile, I hope you will improve the time in repenting of your past life, and resolving to begin a better, for you are a great sinner, Patrick."