The Golden Shoemaker / or 'Cobbler' Horn

by J. W. Keyworth

“Well, can you tell me in what year, and at what time of the year, you found the child?”

“It was on the 2nd of June, 18—” said Mrs. Burton, promptly.

“Cobbler” Horn and Miss Jemima exchanged glances. It was the very year in which, on that bright May morning, little Marian had vanished, like a flash of departing sunshine, from their lives.

“About what age would you suppose the child to have been at the time?”

“She told us her age,” said Mr. Burton.

“Yes,” pursued his wife, “she was a very indistinct talker, and her age was almost the only thing we could actually make out. She said she was five; and that was about what she looked.”

“Do you think, now,” continued “Cobbler” Horn, with another glance at his sister, “that you could give us anything like a description of the child?”

“My wife can do that very well,” said Mr. Burton. “She has often told Miss Owen what she looked like when we found her crying in the road.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Burton, “I remember exactly what she was like. She had black hair—as she has now, and her eyes were very dark; her skin was even browner than it is now, being so dirty; and she had very rosy cheeks. It was evident that some of her clothes had been stolen. Indeed they were almost all gone, and she had scarcely anything on but an old, and very dirty shawl, which was wrapped round her body so tightly that it must have hurt her very much. She had lost one of her shoes, and her foot was bound up with a filthy piece of rag. She had both her socks on, but they were in dreadful holes. She was wearing a torn sun-bonnet, which was covered with mud; and—let me see—one of its strings was missing. And, yes, her one shoe was cut about over the top, as if it had been done on purpose with a knife. She had evidently been in very bad hands, poor little mite!” and the honest, kindly face was darkened with a frown, as Mrs. Burton clenched her plump fist in her lap.

Miss Jemima had been listening with intense interest, from her position on the other side of the bed; and now interposed with a question, in her own quick way.