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Ook, fader, ook!
Warden did look, and comprehended at a glance. His essay was hopelessly lost! He had no other copy! A quieter and better man might have felt provocation. Into Wardens breast there entered a devil. He caught the little child roughly in his arms, dealt him several sharp blows, and rushed with him into the adjoining bedroom.
There, you bad, bad boy! Get out of my sight! I never want to see you again. He locked the door on Roy, and might have been heard pacing up and down his sitting-room. He was in a furious rage, and would scarcely have minded then had any one told him that he had seriously injured his child.
Meanwhile the little child, stunned by the blows, terrified by the rough, hard words, totally uncomprehending what he had done wrong, for Faith had many times given him old papers to tear, lay for a moment or two trembling on the floor. Then he began to sob loudly; then he rose to his feet. It was growing dark in the bedroom, and Roy hated the dark. He ran to the door which divided bedroom and sitting-room, and, shaking it cried loudly:
Yet me in yet me in!
No regard was paid to his eager little voice, and his cries and distress were redoubled. Where was Faith? What did it all mean? He was confused, frightened, pained. He could not comprehend how or why. Turning his back at last to the inhospitable closed door, and standing, a pitiable little object, with all his golden curls lying in a tangled mass on his forehead, he saw a welcome light in another part of the room. This light came from the door which opened on to the passage, and was but very seldom used. Now, through some accident,
it was about an inch or two ajar.
Roy saw the light in the passage beyond, and ran to it with a glad cry. When he got there, the thought entered his baby head that he would go and look for Faith. His father had turned him away; his father had hurt him and not been at all nice. Roy, heaving a great sob, felt he did not at all understand his father. Yes; he would go and look for Faith. When she was neither in the sitting-room nor in the bedroom she was out. He would go out to look for her, for she was always very nice.
Down step after step he stumbled, no one meeting him, no one observing. Down the long hall at the end he ran, and out through the open door. His head uncovered, his little round arms bare, he ran quickly away from his home. A baby of two years to be lost in the London streets!
Chapter Five
See what you have done, he said; come here, right over here, and see what you have done.
Faith, her face growing a shade whiter, approached and saw the scattered pieces of the prize essay still lying on the floor.
Wot hever is that, father? she ventured to say.
What ever is that? tis my essay, my prize essay, that your brother tore all into bits. How dare you, how dare you, I say, disobey me and leave the child alone? You have done mischief that can never be put right, and Ill never forgive you.
Oh! father, said Faith piteously. She went on her knees and took some of the tiny torn fragments into her hand.
There! dont touch them; tis jest enough to madden a man, but you shall suffer. If you cant take care of the child, some one else shall. Yes, you shant hear the last of this. Now, tell me where you have been this hour and more.
I went to Sunday-school, father. I dont know why I disobeyed you; indeed I never did it before, but I ad a kind of hankering to go jest once. I left Roy asleep, and I never guessed as he ud wake; I thought Id be back long afore, and I never guessed as youd come home; I never, never guessed it. Oh! Indeed Im dreadful, bitter sorry, indeed I am.
You have need to be; you cant even guess how angry God Almighty is with you; youre a very, very wicked girl. There, get out of my sight go into the bedroom, you shant have no tea to-night.
Faith went slowly towards the bedroom door, she opened it and shut it behind her; she cared nothing for the punishment of going without her supper, she was glad to be away from her father, glad to be alone with the dreadful, dreadful weight which rested on her heart. Her father had said that she was a very, very wicked girl, that no one could even guess how angry God was with her. Yes, she believed her father; she had done wrong. It was most certainly wrong to disobey, she had disobeyed her fathers strictest command. Tears burned in her eyes, but lay too heavy there to roll down her cheeks; she sat on the floor, a little bent-up bundle of misery, and forgot Roy and every one else in the anguish of being under Gods displeasure. And she had been having such a happy time. How sweet that Sunday-school was! how kind the teacher, who had welcomed the timid child standing at the door! then how gentle and good were her words all, all about Jesus and His love all about the tender care the great Heavenly Father takes of His little ones. Faith listened, and when all was over, with her heart quite full of her great question, she lingered behind the other scholars.