Chapter 3

Our little friend Molly spent five peaceful, happy years in her home among the grand old hills of Berkshire, with Farmer Morton and his kind, good wife. She was treated in every respect as a daughter, well instructed in religious duties and moral obligations, and in all useful housewifely arts. Nor was school education withheld. As soon as she had acquired the first rudiments of knowledge, she was sent to the excellent village academy, where she proved an apt and diligent scholar. In return for all this generous, fostering care, Molly (or _Mary Morton_ as she was usually called) gave to the kind pair who had so generously adopted her, all the affection, respect, and obedience due to parents; added to a gratitude inexpressibly deep and tender. Her life as a beggar-girl, half fed, half clad, and always abused, had been so terribly sad that she could never forget it; and her present life seemed one of heavenly serenity and security in contrast.

She did not see her "_dream_-father and mother" as often as formerly. She did not need them. But when they did come to her in her slumbers, they looked happy, and smiled over her.

Molly was now in her fifteenth summer,--a tall, graceful girl, with a sweet, delicate face. She was still pale and slender, for she had not quite outgrown the effects of the old sorrow, starvation, and exposure. Her face often wore an expression of pensive sadness, unsuited to her years,--a faint shadow of her unhappy childhood still lingering about her,--but it was always ready to brighten into cheerful smiles at a kind word or look.

Molly had made more than one visit to her friends in New York, and now the Raeburns were spending some weeks in the pretty village which was scarcely a mile from the farm-house of Mr. Morton. They were as kind as ever to Molly, and quite proud of her. They took her with them on all their drives among the hills, or rows upon the lakes. Bessie always spoke of her friend as "My Molly," seeming to think she had in her "certain inalienable rights," chief of which was the right of discovery. Molly never thought of disputing those rights. She looked up to pretty, wayward, impulsive Bessie Raeburn as to a superior being,--an angelic deliverer. In her half-adoring gratitude and love, she could have "kissed the hem of her garment," or the lower flounce of her pretty organdie dress. She would often say, "O, where would I have been now, if it had not been for _you_, dear Bessie? In a pauper's grave,--or worse, in prison,--or worse still, on the streets, a wicked, lost girl, loving nobody, and only knowing of God and Jesus by hearing their names in dreadful oaths."

"But, Molly dear," replied Bessie,--"I _must_ always call you Molly,--I have done so little, after all. In thanking me, don't forget papa and your father Morton."

"I don't forget them, nor my Father in heaven either; but you, Bessie, were the first to pity me and try to help me, though I had done you wrong."

"Well, as for that, Molly," said Bessie, seriously, "perhaps God had more to do with that wild Christmas expedition of mine than anybody thought at the time. It seemed so rash and foolish. I have always thought that good policeman an angel, an Irish angel, in the rough, though he did not know it. I don't believe that angels and saints ever have a very high opinion of themselves, do you?"

This was the happiest summer of Molly's life,--it was also to prove the most memorable.

One afternoon, as she was returning from the village, down a quiet, shady lane, which led through her father's farm, she was suddenly confronted by the tyrant of her unhappy childhood, Patrick Magee. He was even a more wretched looking creature than of old,--shabbier, dirtier, with every mark of the most degrading vice. As he stepped from behind a hazel-bush, where he had been skulking, into her path, Molly gave an involuntary shriek, and shrank back from him in fear and aversion.

"Whist, darling!" he exclaimed in a wheedling tone. "Be aisy, just; it's not meself that will harm a hair of yer head. And sure this is not the way you should meet yer poor ould unfortunate father. Is this the kind of filial piety you 've larned from your grand friends?"

"I do not believe you _are_ my father," replied Molly, looking directly into his bleared eyes, that quailed under her gaze.

"Now, now, whoever heard the likes o' that?" began Patrick, with a shocked expression. "Denies her own father, that tiled and spint for her! Why, Molly dear, you are the image of me, barring the color of the hair, mine being a trifle foxy, while yourn is a darkish brown; and barring the lines of care and trouble on my brow,--the hard lines I 've had no child's hand to smooth away, the saints pity me!"

Hero Molly's soft heart was touched, and she asked, gently, "Where do you come from now? and what do you want of me?"

"Well, I came last from New York, when, after a power of trouble, I found out your whereabouts. My heart so cried out for my daughter and my darling boys. You see, for the five years past I 've been, so to speak, in retirement on the Hudson."

"Where?" asked Molly, bewildered.

"Why, in a quiet town called Sing Sing; but; faith! it's little singing I did there."

"Do you mean that you have been in the penitentiary?" said Molly, startled.

"Well, not to put too fine a point on it, yes. But you see it's a hard word to pronounce, that same. I got into what gintlemen call 'difficulties,' pretty soon after my Biddy died, and my poor children was torn from my arms. Somehow, I had no heart to keep up a good character. I was what they call _desperate_; so I went into a gintleman's house one avening, without ringing the bell and sending up my card, as in my better days I should have done, you know. I went in head foremost, through a back window, and when I was coming out with a trifle of silver, the police nabbed me, and it was all up for a while with poor Pat Magee. Now what do I want with you? I want to know about my darling boys, of course. Are they living and respectable?"

"Yes," replied Molly; "they are well and doing well. I hear from them twice a year, and write to them oftener."

"Doing well, are they! but doing nothing for their poor ould father. Ah, this is a hard world."

Molly could not refrain from saying, "They _used_ to think it so, but they don't now. They have good friends, comfortable homes, and are happy and industrious."

"_Industrious!_ and isn't it myself that taught them to be that same? Niver did I spare the rod when they came home empty-handed from a day on the streets."

Molly made no reply, but tried to pass on. Again Patrick stopped her, and said, with a strange, cunning smile, "And so, miss, you don't believe I 'm your rale father."

"No," answered Molly, firmly. "I have always had indistinct recollections of a very different home from that wretched cellar in the Five Points, and of other parents than you and Mrs. Magee. _I believe you stole me when I was very young._"

"No, indade. I had nothing to do with it," replied Patrick, hastily.

"Then your wife did it?"

"Well, yes. You see, my dear, when I 'm fairly cornered, I scorns to lie. That same _was_ one of the little thaving operations of the late Mrs. Magee, Heaven rest her sowl!" said Patrick, rolling his eyes.

"O, then, for mercy's sake, tell me who and where are my parents!" cried Molly, clasping her hands in an agony of entreaty.

"Softly, softly; bide a bit, my darling. Nothing is sold for nothing. I can niver consint to blacken the memory of my poor departed Biddy without a consideration."

"What do you mean?"

"Pay me fifty dollars, and I 'll make a clane breast of it, and tell you all you want to know."

"But, Mr. Magee," cried Molly, in distress, "I have not so much money. I have only a very few dollars of my own in the world; but I will promise to give it to you, and more too, as soon as I can earn it. Only tell me."

"No, miss, I must be paid down. 'A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.' If you have n't the money, belike your new governor, Mr. Morton, would pay a trifle like that for the sake of getting rid of you."

"He _might_ advance it for me; though he is not rich, he is so good," rejoined Molly. "I would ask you to come up to the house and see, only he is away from home, and is not expected back till late in the evening. Please, _please_ tell me now, and trust me for your reward. Indeed, indeed, I will pay you some time, and be your friend always."

"Your servant, miss," replied Patrick, with a mocking bow, "but I 'd rather not trust a fine lady as has just scorned an ould friend in reduced circumstances, who, if he is n't her father, sure it's no fault of his. Tell your Mr. Morton that I 'll call to-morrow morning, ready to arrange matters in a business-like, gintlemanly way. But mind, _no money, no sacret_. I 'll not have my family affairs paraded in the newspapers for nothing, and all Mrs. Magee's little wakenesses exposed, after she's left this wicked world, and the _crowner_ has set on her, and she's been dacently buried at the city's expinse, hard on to six years."

Molly reached home in a state of intense excitement, but, on relating her strange story, was soothed and cheered by Mrs. Morton's tender, motherly sympathy. Mr. Morton came home earlier than he was looked for, and was at once informed of the important revelation which Mr. Magee proposed to make for a "consideration." Doubtful what course to pursue, he hurried into the village to consult with Molly's first friends, the Raeburns. The consequence of this consultation was, that the next morning, when Patrick Magee appeared at the farm-house, he was confronted, not alone by Mr. Morton, but by Mr. Raeburn and the sheriff of the county. Taking these as mere witnesses, however, he was not abashed, but greeted all with a jaunty air, and the old Irish expression, "The top of the morning to ye, gintlemen."

On Mr. Morton referring to the secret he had to reveal, he said, with the utmost assurance, "Well, Mr. Morton, I 've slept on that same matter, and I 've concluded that I can't in conscience consint to blacken the memory of the late Mrs. Magee for less nor a _hundred dollars_. And sure, your honors, a rale live father and mother, rich and respectable, are chape at that, to say nothing of the reputation of a poor, hard-working woman, that's dead and gone, and can't defind herself."

"These, Mr. Magee, are the best terms you offer, then?" asked the farmer.

"Yes; but if you don't close the bargain immadiately, I may rise a trifle. I 've been too aisy, on account of poor Molly. My feelings are too much for me."

"Then, Mr. Sheriff," said Mr. Morton, "you must do your duty."

So Patrick Magee found himself again in the stern grasp of the law. He was taken to a magistrate's office for examination, but there he obstinately refused to reveal a word of the important secret, saying he would die first. So he was committed to the county jail, there to await his trial on a charge of kidnapping.

For more than a week the prisoner remained sullenly silent, while poor Molly suffered agonies of suspense, and her friends were fearful that for lack of sufficient evidence the villain might yet escape justice, carrying his secret with him.

But at last he yielded,--subdued, not by hard fare, hard words, or solitude, but by the mad thirst of the inebriate. Since leaving the penitentiary he had been drinking very hard, and now, being suddenly deprived of all stimulants, his spirits sunk, his strength and appetite failed, and he was threatened with the terrible disease of the intemperate,--_delirium tremens_.

Being told by the doctor that he thought Magee must have some brandy, Mr. Raeburn paid a visit to the jail. He found the prisoner sitting on his narrow bed, looking haggard and ill, but as sullen as ever.

"Well, Magee," said Mr. Raeburn, pleasantly, "have you made up your mind to tell all you know of the parentage of that stolen child? You have confessed that you connived at, if you did not assist in the crime, and it may go hard with you at the trial."

Patrick replied, with a furious oath, "Niver a word more will I spake about the matter, if they hang me."

"If I will endeavor to get you discharged; if I will promise to give you some decent clothes, and to furnish you with easy and constant employment, will you tell?"

"No."

"If I will give you a glass of good brandy, will you tell?"

Patrick started, and his dull eyes flashed, but with his old cunning he replied, "Show me first the brandy."

Mr. Raeburn took a flask from his pocket and poured out a glass nearly full. With a trembling, outstretched hand, the poor sot cried, "Yes, yes, yer honor, give it to me, and on my word, on my sowl, I'll tell."

The glass was given him, and he drained it with a sort of frantic relish; then almost immediately, and very hurriedly, began his story.

"Molly's father is Squire Phillips, a mighty clever lawyer and a rich man. He lives at Newburgh, on the Hudson, forninst Fishkill; you mind the town?"

"Yes, and I have heard of Mr. Phillips; go on."

"I should have said he has an office in Newburgh, but he lives on a fine place up the river, out of town, a couple of miles or so. You see, when ill-luck sent me over from Ireland, where I lived in ease and plenty, never taking up a spade but for devarsion, after a hard day following the hounds or riding steeple-chases, I lived with Mr. Phillips as gardener. But he and I niver could agree, and so parted; and soon after my Biddy, who was the cook, was discharged for taking a drop too much just. You see she fell down stairs with the tea-tray. So she had a spite against the master on my account, and against the mistress on her own account, and vowed by all the saints she 'd be aven with them. After we settled in New York, many's the trip she took up the river to prowl about the place (women is quare cratures, yer honor) for a chance to balance accounts. But she never got a shy at them till one afternoon, just before dark, she found little Miss Mary, Mistress Phillips's one child, playing alone on the river-bank, out of sight of the house; it's likely she 'd run away from a lazy nurse. My Biddy wasn't one of the kind that dilly-dallies or shilly-shallies: she pounces on the child like a hawk on a chicken, stops its mouth so it could n't as much as peep, and carries it into a wood near by and hides till dark. Then she takes it over to Fishkill, where she has friends, who lend her proper clothes for the child, and give it a drink that hushes its crying like magic just. Then she takes the night-boat for New York, and in the big, crowded city the child was as completely lost as the small chicken I likened her to would be if the hawk should drop it in a wide sea-marsh. There was a great hue and cry about 'the mysterious disappearance of the only child of John Phillips, Esq.,' (just as if no poor, hard-working man ever lost an only child!) but most of the newspapers drowned her, I believe. Biddy kept her mighty close for a time, and sheared off her curls, but niver a hound of a detective smelt at our door.

"I always told Biddy that trouble would come of this same matter sooner or later, and sure had n't we a power of trouble with Molly herself,--what with her pining and crying, (though Biddy soon learned her to cry _silent_,) and her sickly turn, and her ungrateful disposition? And didn't she forsake us at last,--me a lone widower, and the poor motherless boys?"

"Ah, Magee, what an awful hypocrite you are!" exclaimed Mr. Raeburn; "but go on."

"What more do you want to know, thin?"

"How old was the child when your wife stole it?"

"I should say that the child was a trifle over three years old when Mrs. Magee adopted her," replied Patrick, with imposing dignity.

"Are Mr. and Mrs. Phillips both living?"

"It 's not ten days since I was towld they were, yer honor."

"I start for Newburgh to-morrow morning, with Molly--Miss Phillips," resumed Mr. Raeburn; "but you must remain where you are, in close confinement, at least until we have ascertained if your statement be true. If it be found so, I will do my best to effect your release. Meanwhile, I hope you will improve the time in repenting of your past life, and resolving to begin a better, for you are a great sinner, Patrick."

"Arrah, yer honor, don't be too hard on a poor man! And sure you won't lave me without an' other comforting drop of brandy?"

"You can have more if the doctor prescribes it again. He will know what is best for you. But I hope you will think on what I have said. If you wish to be a better man, you shall not want for help."

"Thank you kindly, Mr. Raeburn, but I doubt it's too late. 'It's mighty hard to tache ould dogs new tricks,' but if you 'll spake a good word for me to the doctor about the brandy, I'll try."

At bedtime Molly kissed her father and mother Morton good night with tender and tearful emotion, but without a word,--her heart was too full. On reaching her pleasant chamber, where her trunk stood ready packed for the journey, she sank on her knees beside her dear little bed, and prayed for the parents she was about to leave, and for those she was about to seek; for her generous friends, the Raeburns, and for poor, sinful Patrick Magee, who needed somebody's prayers so much. When she laid her head on her pillow, she could not sleep, but lay in a tremulous, excited state, half joy, half sorrow. Then Mrs. Morton came in to kiss her once more, and to tuck her in, as she used to do when Molly first came to her a sad and feeble child. As she bent to kiss her she fell on her neck and wept, saying, "My child, my child, how can I give you up?"

"O mother, dear!" replied Molly, embracing her, "you must never give me up. I must still be your child as well as _hers_."

"Do you want _very much_ to go to her, darling?"

"Yes, though you have been so good, so _good_, and I love you very dearly, I have always had a sort of blind yearning in my heart for her. It seems to me that the cry of my infancy, 'Mamma!' 'Papa!' which the cruel blows of Mrs. Magee hushed, has always been whispering in my soul, and _must_ be answered. But if I love them, and they love me ever so much, I shall love you and dear father Morton all my life and into God's forever."

"It is well, dear child, and the Lord's will be done. Good night!"

Molly was wakened early in the morning by the carol of an oriole, but she could make nothing of his song but "Good by, good by, good by!" and the clambering roses by her window seemed sending in sweet farewell sighs. Soon after breakfast, Mr. Raeburn drove up in his carriage, and so Molly set out to seek her fortune and her parents.