THE FATHER’S QUEST.

When Aunt Jemima came home, she was surprised, in no small degree, at the absence of Marian. With gathering indignation she called up the stairs, then searched the house, and finally presented herself before her brother, who was quite alone in his workshop, and sat calmly working on his stool.

“Then she is not here?”

“Who? Marian?” responded “Cobbler” Horn in no accent of concern, looking up for a moment from his work. “No, I thought she was with you.”

“No; I left her in the room for a moment, and now she is nowhere to be found.”

There seemed to “Cobbler” Horn no reason for alarm, and, as his sister returned to the kitchen, he quietly went on with his work. But Aunt Jemima’s mind was ill at ease. Once more she searched the house, and called and called again. There was no response, and the silence which followed was profound and ominous. Swiftly she passed, with growing alarm, through her brother’s workshop, and out into the yard. A glance around, and then a closer search; but still no sign of the missing child. The perturbed woman re-entered her brother’s presence, and stood before him, erect and rigid, and with outstretched hands.

“The child’s gone!” was her gloomy exclamation.

“Gone!” echoed “Cobbler” Horn blankly, looking up. “Where?”

“I don’t know; but she’s gone quite away, and may never come back.”

Then “Cobbler” Horn perceived that his sister was alarmed; and, notwithstanding the occasion, he was comforted by the unwonted tenderness she had expressed. As for Marian, he knew her for a born rambler; and it was not the first time she had strayed from home.

“Perhaps,” he said placidly, “she has gone to the little shop over the way.”

Then he resumed his work, as though he had simply told his sister where she would be likely to find her spectacles.

Aunt Jemima took the hint, as a drowning person catches at a straw. She made her way to the front-door, and having opened it, was on the point of crossing the street, when Tommy Dudgeon emerged from the shop, and came over towards where she stood.

“Good morning, ma-am,” he said, halting at a respectful distance. “You are looking for little miss?”

“Well,” snapped Aunt Jemima, “and if I am, what then? Do you know where she is?”

“No, ma-am; but I saw her go away.”

Miss Jemima seized the arm of the little man with an iron grip.

“Man! you saw her go away, and you let her go?”

With difficulty Tommy freed his arm.

“Well, ma-am, perhaps I ought——”

“Of course you ought,” rapped out the lady, sharply. “You must be a gabey.”

“No doubt, ma-am. But little miss will come back. She knows her way about. She will be home to dinner.”

Having spoken, Tommy was turning to recross the street.

“Stop, man!”

Tommy stopped and faced around once more.

“Which way did she go?”

“That way, ma-am,” replied Tommy, pointing along the street, to Aunt Jemima’s left-hand, and his own right.

The troubled lady instantly marched, in the direction indicated, to the end of the street; but, finding that five ways branched off therefrom, she returned baffled to her brother’s house, and sought his presence once more.

“Thomas,” she cried, almost fiercely, “the child has certainly run away!”

Still “Cobbler” Horn was not alarmed.

“Well,” he said calmly, “never mind, Jemima. She has a habit of going off by herself. She knows her way about, and will not stray far. She will be back by dinner-time, no doubt.”

Though by no means satisfied, Miss Jemima was fain to accept this view of the case for the time. With a troubled mind, she resumed her suspended domestic duties. Unlikely as it might seem, she could not banish the dread that Marian had actually run away; and, as the morning passed, the fear grew stronger and stronger in the troubled lady’s breast that she would see her little niece no more. Accordingly when dinner-time arrived, Aunt Jemima was not surprised that Marian did not appear. The dinner consisted of Irish stew—Marian’s favourite dish. On the stroke of twelve it was smoking on the table. For the twentieth time the perturbed lady went to the door, and gazed wistfully up and down the street. Then, with a sigh, she re-entered the house, and called her brother to dinner.

“Cobbler” Horn, feeling sure that Marian would soon return, had dismissed the fact of her disappearance from his mind; and when, on coming in to dinner, he found that she was still absent, he was taken by surprise.

In reply to his inquiry, Aunt Jemima jerked out the opinion that the child would not come back at all.

“Why shouldn’t she?” he asked. “I’ve known her stay away longer than this, and there’s no occasion for alarm.”

So saying, he addressed himself to his dinner with his usual gusto; but Miss Jemima had no appetite, and the show of eating that she made was but a poor pretence.

“Don’t be so much alarmed, Jemima,” said her brother, making progress with his dinner. “I’ve no doubt the child is amongst her friends. By and bye I’ll go out and hunt her up.”

He still had no fear that his little daughter would not soon return. He accordingly finished his dinner with his usual deliberation; and it was not until he had completed one or two urgent pieces of work, that he, at last, put on his hat and coat, and taking his stout blackthorn stick, set out in search of his missing child.

All the weary afternoon, he went from house to house, amongst friends and friendly neighbours; but no one had seen Marian, or knew anything as to her whereabouts. Every now and then he returned home, to see if the child had come back. But each time he found only Aunt Jemima, sitting before the fire like an image of grim despair. She would look up with fierce eagerness, on his entrance, and drop her gaze again with a gasp when she saw that he was alone.

Long before the afternoon was over the father’s unconcern had given place to serious alarm. He was not greatly surprised that he had failed to find Marian in the house of any of their friends; but he wondered that she had not yet come home of her own accord. While he would not, even now, believe that Marian had run away, he was compelled to admit that she was lost. But what was that? He had turned once more towards home, and had entered his own street, and there was Marian, playing with some other children, on the pavement, just in front. Her back was towards him, as she bent down over her play. But there was no mistaking that thick, night-black hair, and the little plump brown legs which peeped out beneath the small frock. With the promptitude of absolute certainty, he put out his strong hands and lifted the child from the ground. Then he uttered a cry. It was not Marian after all! He put her down—he almost let her drop, and the startled child began to cry. “Cobbler” Horn hastily pushed a penny into her hand, and strode on. He staggered like one who has received a blow. It seemed almost as if he had actually had his little one in his arms, and she had slipped away again.

When he reached home, his sister was still sitting in grim silence, before the now fireless grate. On her brother’s entrance, she looked up as aforetime. “Cobbler” Horn sank despondently into a chair.

“Nowhere to be found!” he said, with a deep sigh.

“We must have the tea ready,” he added, as though at the dictate of a sudden thought.

“Ah, you are tired, and hungry.”

Aunt Jemima hesitated on the last word. Could her brother be hungry? She thought she would never wish to taste food again.

“No,” he said quickly; “but Marian will want her tea. Put the dinner away. It is cold, Jemima.”

“I put her plate in the oven,” said Aunt Jemima, in a hollow voice, as she rose from her seat.

“Ah!” gasped the father. The little plate had become hot and cold again, and its contents were quite dried up. Aunt Jemima put the plate upon the oven-top; and then turned, and looked conscience-stricken into her brother’s face. Severe towards herself, as towards others, she unflinchingly acknowledged her great fault.

“Brother, your child is gone; and I have driven her away.”

She lifted her hands on either side of her head, and gently swayed herself to and fro once—a grim gesture of despair.

“I do not ask you to forgive me. It is not to be expected of you—unless she comes back again. If she does not, I shall never forgive myself.”

“Jemima,” said “Cobbler” Horn, rising from his seat, and placing his hand lightly on her shoulder, “You are too severe with yourself. That the child is lost is evident enough; but surely she may be found! I will go to the police authorities: they will help us.”

He turned to the door, but paused with his hand on the latch.

“Jemima,” he said, gently, “you must not talk about my not forgiving you. I would try to forgive my greatest enemy, much more my own sister, who has but done what she believed to be best.”

The authorities at the police-station did what they could. Messages were sent to every police centre in the town; and very soon every policeman on his beat was on the look-out for the missing child. At the same time, an officer was told off to accompany the anxious father on a personal search for his little girl. First of all, they visited the casual ward at the workhouse, and astonished its motley and dilapidated occupants by waking them to ask if they had fallen in with a strayed child on any of the roads by which they had severally approached the town. When they had recovered from their first alarm beneath the gleam of the policeman’s bulls-eye, these waifs of humanity, one and all, declared their inability to supply the desired information. The officer next conducted his companion into the courts and bye-ways of the town. Many a den of infamy was filled with a quiver of alarm, and many a haunt of poverty was made to uncover its wretchedness before the horrified gaze of “Cobbler” Horn. But the missing child was not in any of these. Next they went a little way out on one or two of the country roads. But here all was dark: and they soon retraced their steps.

Having ascertained that nothing had been heard at the police-station of his child, “Cobbler” Horn at length turned homeward, in the early morning, with a weary heart. Miss Jemima was still sitting where he had left her, and he sadly shook his head in response to the appeal of her dark hollow eyes. During the hour or so which remained before dawn, “Cobbler” Horn restlessly paced the house, pausing, now and then, to open the front-door and step out into the street, that he might listen for the returning patter of the two little feet that had wandered away.

Before it was fairly light, he left his sister, still distraught and rigid in her chair, and went into the streets once more. What could he do which he had not already done? From the first his heart had turned to God in prayer, and this seemed now his sole remaining resource. Yes, he could still pray; and, as he did so now, his belief grew stronger and stronger that, if not now, yet sometime, he would surely find his child again.

Not many streets from his own he met a woman whom he knew. She lived, with her husband, in a solitary cottage on the London Road—the road into which “Cobbler” Horn’s street directly led, and she was astir thus early, she explained, to catch the first train to a place some miles away. But what had brought Mr. Horn out so soon? “Cobbler” Horn told his sorrowful story, and the woman gave a sudden start.

“Why,” she said, “that reminds me. I saw the child yesterday morning. She passed our house, trotting at a great rate. It was washing day, and, besides, I had my husband’s dinner in the oven, or I think I should have gone after her.”

“Cobbler” Horn regarded the woman with strange, wide-open eyes.

“If you had only stopped her!” he cried. “But of course you didn’t know.”

With that, he left the woman standing in the street, and hurried away. Very soon he was walking swiftly along the London Road. The one thought in his mind was that he was on the track of his child at last. He passed the wayside cottage where the woman lived who had seen Marian go by, and went on until, moved by a sudden impulse, he paused to rest his arms upon the top of a five-barred gate, and look upon the field into which it led. Then he uttered a cry, and, tearing open the gate, strode into the field. Lying amidst the grass was a little shoe. It was one of Marian’s without a doubt. Had he not made it himself? He picked it up and hid it away in the pocket of his coat. Marian had evidently wandered that way, and was lost in the large wood which lay on the other side of the field. To reach the wood was the work of a few moments. Plunging amongst the trees, he soon came upon a pool, near the margin of which were some prostrate tree trunks. Near one of these the ground was littered with shreds of what might have been articles of clothing; and amongst them was a long strip of print, which had a familiar look. He picked it up and examined it closely. Then the truth flashed upon him. It was one of the strings of Marian’s sun-bonnet! Holding it loosely between his finger and thumb, he gazed upon the foul green waters of the pond. Did they cover the body of his child? He had no further thought of searching the wood. With a shudder he turned away, and hurried home.

Aunt Jemima had bestirred herself, and was moving listlessly about the house.

“Jemima, do you know this?” She took the strip of print into her hand.

“Yes,” she said, “it is——”

He finished her sentence. “——the string of her bonnet.”

“Yes.”

He told her where he had found it, and showed her the shoe.

The pond was dragged, but nothing was discovered. They searched the wood, and scoured the country for miles around; but they came upon no further trace of the missing child.