Part 12 (1/2)
We groped our way along to the foot of an outside stair-case, where our conductor paused for a moment, calling my attention to the spot. ”Here,”
said Mr. Pease, ”the little sufferer we are going to see, fainted a few nights ago, and lay all night exposed to the rain, where she was found and beaten in the morning by her miserable mother, just then coming home from a night of debauch and licentiousness, with a man who would be ashamed to visit her in her habitation, or have 'the world' know that he consorted with a street wanderer.”
”Beat her! for what?”
”Because she had not sold all her corn, which she had been sent out with the evening before. Poor thing, she had fallen asleep, and some villain had robbed her of her little store, and, as it is with greater crimes, the wicked escaped and the innocent suffered.”
I thought aloud:
”Great and unknown cause, hast thou brought me to her very door?”
My friend stared, but did not comprehend the expression. ”Be careful,”
said he, ”the stairs are very old, and slippery.”
”Beat her?” said I, without regarding what he was saying.
”Yes, beat her, while she was in a fever of delirium, from which she has never rallied. She has never spoken rationally, since she was taken.
Her constant prayer seems to be to see some particular person before she dies.
”'Oh, if I could see him once more--there--there--that is him--no, no, he did not speak that way to me--he did not curse and beat me.'
”Such is her conversation, and that induced her mother to send for me, but I was not the man. 'Will he come?' she says, every time I visit her; for, thinking to soothe and comfort her, I promised to bring him.”
We had reached the top of the stairs, and stood a moment at the open door, where sin and misery dwelt, where sickness had come, and where death would soon enter.
”Will he come?”
A faint voice came up from a low bed in one corner, seen by the very dim light of a miserable lamp.
That voice. I could not be mistaken. I could not enter. Let me wait a moment in the open air, for there is a choking sensation coming over me.
”Come in,” said my friend.
”Will he come?”
Two hands were stretched out imploringly towards the Missionary, as the sound of his voice was recognised.
”She is much weaker to-night,” said her mother, in quite a lady-like manner, for the sense of her drunken wrong to her dying child had kept her sober, ever since she had been sick; ”but she is quite delirious, and all the time talking about that man who spoke kindly to her one night in the Park, and gave her money to buy bread.”
”Will he come?”
”Yes, yes; through the guidance of the good spirit that rules the world, and leads us by unseen paths, through dark places, for His own wise purposes, _he has come_.”
The little emaciated form started up in bed, and a pair of beautiful, soft blue eyes glanced around the room, peering through the semi-darkness, as if in search of something heard but unseen.
”Katy, darling,” said the mother, ”what is the matter?”
”Where is he, mother? He is here. I heard him speak.”
”Yes, yes, sweet little innocent, he is here, kneeling by your bedside.