By the Author of "Pen's Perplexities," "Margaret's Enemy," "Maid Marjory," &c.
CHAPTER XX.—MRS. MACDOUGALL FINDS DUNCAN.
A whole week elapsed, in which Mrs. MacDougall received no tidings of the children. Every day she trudged to the market-town and back, not able to bear the suspense without doing something. Every day she received the same answer, and turned away with a weary sigh. The men who answered her questions noticed her change from day to day, and shrank from giving her the same hopeless replies time after time. They were puzzled and astonished, but still confident that the children would ultimately be found. In their own minds they believed the children had fallen in with some wandering gipsies or other vagrants, and were being closely guarded. They knew well enough that there were plenty of ways of stealing children, and keeping them out of sight in barges, colliers, or gipsies' vans, and that the time that had elapsed made the probability of finding the children much less; but this they kept to themselves.
Mrs. MacDougall, however, was not so easily blinded. She knew the dangers that were waiting to engulf them. She called to mind having read, some years ago in the newspapers, of a little fair, delicate boy, who was stolen away and never found. She remembered distinctly enough the agonised appeal of his parents that every man and woman would join in the search for the child by keeping their eyes open wherever they went.
She had been deeply interested, and wondered how such a thing could happen. She remembered that, in spite of all, little Charlie (that was the child's name), had never been discovered, and that his fate had remained shrouded in mystery, the supposition being that the child had been stolen by cruel, wicked people, and perhaps died of fright.
Could such a fate have overtaken her children? A hundred times a day she cried to God that He would save them from a life of sin and degradation, even if by death, and there is no doubt that the mother's prayers had the reward of keeping them out of the dangers she feared for them.
The Sabbath came round. Mrs. MacDougall put on her best clothes, dressed her mother and Robbie, and went off to the kirk as usual.
"The Lord will not ill-requite me for keeping His day holy," she said solemnly, when her mother suggested that news might come in her absence. "The Lord knows I am in His kirk, and He will no seek me in the cottage."
Her simple faith was destined to receive its verification. Early the next morning a messenger arrived, bringing news. He spread out an official document on the table, and began with much unnecessary and tiresome questioning.
"If ye're wanting to send me crazy, you may just take your own time, but if not, will ye tell me right out are they found?" she asked sharply.