The idea of this unfortunate child of ten years old, her husband’s son, wandering from haunt to haunt of iniquity, was a source of perpetual anxiety to Lady Manvers. She drove from one magistrate’s house to another, trying to discover the little recreant. She dreaded compromising her husband, yet was resolved on doing her duty. She met with nothing but courtesy and kindness, but all seemed unavailing; and she was beginning to despair, when, on the eve of departing for Scotland, where Sir John’s regiment was quartered, her attention was riveted by a paragraph in the newspaper, which she could not help connecting with the object of her search.
It was an extract from the minutes of a magistrate’s court. A little boy, “apparently between ten and eleven years,” had been brought before a magistrate, having been found among thieves and pickpockets in some disorderly meeting.
The evidence presented a sorry picture.
There stood the child in the dock.
The magistrate, a man esteemed for his benevolence, examined the little prisoner attentively ere he questioned him. At length the good man said,—“How old are you, my boy?” The child did not answer. The magistrate put the question again. No reply.
“Do you know,” said Mr M—, “how old you are?”
“No,” said the boy, his head bent down.
“Have you been brought here before?”
“No.” Here a constable intimated that this was not true.
“It seems,” said Mr M—, “that you have been brought here before. Why do you say no? Do you know that is a falsehood?”