Part 42 (1/2)
It was an extract from the minutes of a magistrate's court. A little boy, ”apparently between ten and eleven years,” had been brought before a magistrate, having been found among thieves and pickpockets in some disorderly meeting.
The evidence presented a sorry picture.
There stood the child in the dock.
The magistrate, a man esteemed for his benevolence, examined the little prisoner attentively ere he questioned him. At length the good man said,--”How old are you, my boy?” The child did not answer. The magistrate put the question again. No reply.
”Do you know,” said Mr M--, ”how old you are?”
”No,” said the boy, his head bent down.
”Have you been brought here before?”
”No.” Here a constable intimated that this was not true.
”It seems,” said Mr M--, ”that you _have_ been brought here before.
Why do you say no? Do you know that is a falsehood?”
”No:” still the same dogged look.
”Have you any parents?”
”No.”
”Who do you belong to?”
”No one.”
”Do you know what a lie is?”
”No.”
”Do you know that it is wrong to steal?”
”No.”
”Did you never hear of the Commandments?”
”No.”
”Do you know the name of G.o.d?”
”No.”
The kind-hearted magistrate stopped in these interrogatories, and laying down his pen, leaned forward; sorrow shaded his benevolent face as he said,--”My poor boy, what _do_ you know?” [This scene is taken from a record in the _Times_ newspaper of 1850.]
These were the first words of kindness which had ever been spoken to Jasper Lyle in his life, for he was the little prisoner; for though Mrs Watson had, as she expressed, ”a liking for him,” she was rough-spoken to her own children, whom she always _ordered_, never _asked_, to do her bidding.
The unfortunate child lifted his face to Mr M--, and looked half-wonderingly at it. The mode of speech was evidently beyond his comprehension: he looked round at his evil a.s.sociates, older by years in crime than he was, and laughed.