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And the mother, now a little calmer, thought she saw what she ought to say. "It ain't your soul, it's only your body, Moxy, they put in the hole," she said. "I don't want to be put in the hole," Moxy almost screamed. "I don't want my head cut off!" The poor mother was at her wits' end.
"'Tain't a bad place, I don't think, only I broken one o' my two legs; it won't move to fetch of me up again." "Thank God in heaven, the child's alive!" cried the mother. " You ain't much hurt, are you, Moxy?" "Rather, mother!" By this time the steps of the policeman, to which the father had been listening with more anxiety than to the words of wife or child, were almost beyond hearing.
They all followed her. "I can't! I can't!" she said. "I can't leave my Moxy lyin' here all alone! He ain't used to it. He's never once slep' alone since he was born. I can't bear to think o' that lovely look o' his lost on the dark night not a soul to look down an' see it! Oh, Moxy! was your mother a-leavin' of you all alone!"
An' they'd take Moxy from us, an' put him in the hole he was so afeared of!" "You don't think I would leave my own flesh and blood in the cellar!" answered Hester. "I will go and make arrangement for you above and be back presently." "Oh thank you, miss!" said the woman, as Hester sat down the candle beside them. "I do want to look on the face of my blessed boy as long as I can!
Many of Hester's own thoughts were revealed to her that night by the side of the dead Moxy. It became clear to her that she had been led astray, in part by the desire to rescue one to whom God had not sent her, in part by the pleasure of being loved and worshipped, and in part by worldly ambition. Surer sign would God have sent her had he intended she should give herself to Gartley!
"Come," she said, and led the way. She looked first into the low room to see that it was properly prepared, and was leaving it again, when she heard a strange sound behind the wainscot as it seemed. "There, miss!" said Sarah. Hester made up her mind at once that little Moxy should not be left alone.
So saying he gave Moxy to his bigger brother and went to learn what kind of a place they had got to. Ready as he had been a moment before for the grave, he was careful in stepping into the unknown dark. Feeling with foot and hand, he went in. He trod upon an earthen floor, and the place had a musty smell: it might be a church vault, he thought.
"Oh, God!" she gasped, and could say no more. But with the prayer for what is a prayer but a calling on the name of the Lord? came to her a little calm, and she was able to speak. She bent over him and kissed his forehead. "My darling Moxy, mother loves you," she said. What that had to do with it she did not ask herself. The child looked up in her face with dim eyes.
He and the boys would creep out before it was light, and return after dark. She must not put even a finger out of the cellar-door all day. He laid Moxy down beside her, woke the two elder boys, and went out with them. They were so careful that for many days they continued undiscovered.
They managed to get some straw, and with two or three old sacks made a bed for the mother and the baby and Moxy on the packing-case. They got also some pieces of matting, and contrived to put up a screen betwixt it and the rickety door. By the exercise of their art they had gained enough to keep them in food, but never enough to pay for the poorest lodging.
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