The cries of little Jacobini reached the ears of her brother, who was amusing himself in the garden. Although generally a quiet, he was a bold and passionate boy. He rushed towards the house—he burst into the room where his stepmother was gratifying her cruelty and hatred on his helpless sister—he rushed forward.
“Woman!” he cried, in the manner of one whose reason has left him, “if you strike my sister, I will strike you!”
“Boy!” she exclaimed, in a frenzy; and struck not only his sister again, but him too, and applied epithets to both, which, for the sake of human nature, it is as well not to repeat.
I have said that he was bold and passionate—he was also a tall and strong boy for his years. He grasped her more fiercely, and as she continued to vent her rage on both, and to strike at both, he dashed her to the floor, and exclaimed again—
“Woman! if you strike my sister, I will strike you!”
At that moment his father entered the house. Hysterics again came to plead the cause of Mrs Kerr. Walter had seen enough. He seized hold upon his son. He chastised him—unmercifully he did so; for he also, on occasions, was a man of violent passions; but, as with augmented rage he struck his son, the boy, while he submitted patiently to his chastisement, gazed in his face with a tearless and stern eye, and when he had exhausted his rage and strength, the boy turned on him and said—“Are you done, sir? I shall tell my mother this!—MY mother!”
When Walter Kerr heard the words—“I shall tell my mother,” and especially the words—“MY mother”—pronounced by his son, and the emphatic manner in which they were pronounced, he trembled—his heart filled—he burst into tears, and, stretching out his hand, he said—“Francis!”
But the boy exclaimed—“No!” refused the offered hand, and rushed out of the room.
Throughout the day he was not again seen; and after many days of diligent search after him had been made, it was ascertained that he had entered on board of a foreign trading vessel from Newcastle. Twelve months passed, and the vessel again arrived in Newcastle; but the captain stated that the astonishing boy (as he termed Francis) had left him, he knew not for why, nor for where, while they were upon the coast of Africa, where many vessels were.
The tidings fell sadly on the heart of Walter Kerr; but he had other evils to contend with. He had lost his son; and with his villa, his grounds, his carriage, and his visiters, he had lost the half of his fortune. But the ambition of Mrs Kerr was not yet satisfied. Her husband did not possess landed property sufficient to think of being a Justice of the Peace for the county; yet she thought it would give her additional importance were he chief magistrate in the town of H——. I will not say that Mr Kerr had not a sprinkling of ambition in his composition himself, and he more readily agreed that he should aspire to the honour of being elevated to the bench, than to any other whim that she had proposed to him. Therefore, after bestowing the necessary and customary (though illegal) fees on the corporators, which made another fearful inroad on his monied property, Mr Kerr had the honour and gratification of being elected chief magistrate of the town of H——.