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'No, said Anthea bravely, but her heart beat so that it nearly choked her. Then one of the men pushed forward. 'Swelp me if it ain't! he cried, 'my own long-lost cheild! Have he a strawberry mark on his left ear? No? Then he's my own babby, stolen from me in hinnocent hinfancy. 'And 'im over and we'll not 'ave the law on yer this time.
"A cheild was amang them takin' notes," and every one involuntarily dreaded those clear eyes and that frank tongue, so innocently observing and criticising all that went on. Cicely had already been reminded of a neglected duty by Rosy's reading to Miss Penny, and tried to be more faithful in that, as in other services which she owed the old lady.
"No," said Anthea bravely, but her heart beat so that it nearly choked her. Then one of the men pushed forward. "Swelp me if it ain't!" he cried, "my own long-lost cheild! Have he a strawberry mark on his left ear? No? Then he's my own babby, stolen from me in hinnocent hinfancy. 'And 'im over and we'll not 'ave the law on yer this time."
Any lapse of the kind meant that Tom was not in a mood to be trifled with, and Annie turned suddenly to Archelaus. "Where's the cheild?" she asked. "I set'n to gather bullock's glows for th' fire we shall want more'n furze for to-night," replied Archelaus. "Give I a light to take overstairs; 'tes time I was cleanen' of myself. I'm gwain to run with the Neck to-night."
A piercing scream rends the atmosphere, as if a thousand school children drew a thousand slate pencils down a thousand slates simultaneously. "Me cheild! Me cheild! Me long-lost Algy!" It did not take long to convince Algy that he would be better off as a son to a wealthy lady than as a jockey, subject to the fiendish caprices of Blinky Bill. "All right, mother," he said.
'Hm! said Halbert, considering; 'he looked like a trusty cheild: maybe he'd guide my lord here to a wiser wit, and a good lance on the way to Dunbar is not to be scorned.
"Gwain to put my own cheild auver my head and the head of my first-born, is 'ee?" cried Annie. "Eh, that passon! Sim'me he's lacken' his senses! Sim'me that when the law lets a man like that come shoven' and meddlen' in a woman's house that the law's lacken' its senses too!" "Don't fret about the law," advised Tom; "I've heard tell the law can be turned any way a clever chap has a mind.
Our Muskegon builders he pronounced a pack of cormorants; and the congenial subject, together with my knowledge of architectural terms, the theory of strains, and the prices of materials in the States, formed a strong bond of union between what might have been otherwise an ill-assorted pair, and led my grandfather to pronounce me, with emphasis, "a real intalligent kind of a cheild."
Ye see, sir, there was a king's sloop down in Wigton Bay, and Frank Kennedy, he behoved to have her up to chase Dirk Hatteraick's lugger. He was a daring cheild, and fought his ship till she blew up like peelings of ingans." "And Mr. Bertram's child," said the stranger, "what is all this to him?"
Penticost frankly; "but he'm like all men, naught but a cheild that cries for the moon, and a woman as has a heart would sooner see a man getten' what he wants, even when 'tes bad for 'en, than see him eaten' his soul away with longing. There's a deal of satisfaction in maken' our own unhappiness, and a man has that to console him."
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