gh the kindness of a benevolent lady in
the neighbourhood, and placed in the care of humble but honest villagers
at some distance from them. The child improved in health and, it is
unnecessary to add, in morals. No enquiry or application was made for her
by the pair until she had entered her fifth year, and then suddenly the
prisoner demanded her instant restoration. The charitable lady was
alarmed for the safety of her _protegee_, and, with a liberal price,
bought off the father's natural desire. He duly gave a receipt for the
sum thus paid him, and engaged to see the child no more. The next morning
he stole the girl from the labourer's cottage. He was seen loitering
about the hut before day-break, and the shrieks of the victim were heard
plainly at a considerable distance from the spot where he had first
seized her. Constables were dispatched to his den. It was shut up, and,
being forced open, was found deserted, and stripped of every thing. He
was hunted over the county, but not discovered. He had retired to haunts
which baffled the detective skill of the most experienced and alert. This
is the first act of the tragedy. It will be necessary to stain these
pages by a description of the last. The child became more and more
unhappy under the roof of her persecutors, as they soon proved themselves
to be. She was taught to beg and to steal, and was taken into the
highways by her mother, who watched near her, whilst, with streaming
eyes, the unhappy creature now lied for alms, now pilfered from the
village. Constant tramping, ill treatment, and the wear and tear of
spirit which the new mode of existence effected, soon reduced the child
to its former state of ill health and helplessness. She pined, and with
her sickness came want and hunger to the hut. The father, affecting to
disbelieve, and not listening to the sad creature's complaint, still
dismissed her abroad, and when she could not walk, compelled the mother
to carry her to the public road, and there to leave her in her agony, the
more effectually to secure the sympathy of passengers. Even this
opportunity was not long afforded him. The child grew weaker, and was at
length unable to move. He plied her with menaces and oaths, and, last of
all, deliberately threatened to murder her, if she did not rise and
procure bread for all of them. She had, alas! no longer power to comply
with his request, and--merciful Heaven!--the fiend, in a moment of
unbridled passion, made good