There was still time to scribble-
'DEAR LADY ADELA,-
'I trust to you to prepare Mary for well-nigh incredible joy, but do
not agitate her too soon. I cannot come till Friday afternoon.
'Yours gratefully,
'NORTHMOOR.'
Having sent this off, his next search was for a time-table. He would fain have gone by the mail train that very night, but Mr. Deyncourt and Mrs. Morton united in persuading him that his strength was not yet equal to such a pull upon it, and he yielded. They hardly knew the man, usually so equable and quiet as to be almost stolid.
He smiled, and declared he could neither eat nor sleep, but he actually did both, sleeping, indeed, better and longer than he had done since his illness, and coming down in the morning a new man, as he called himself, but the old one still in his kindness to Mrs. Morton. He promised to telegraph to her as soon as he knew all was well, assured her that he would do his best to keep the scandal out of the papers, that he would never forget his obligations to Herbert's generosity, and that if she made up her mind to leave Westhaven he would facilitate her so doing.
Ida was not up. She had had a very bad night, and indeed she had confessed that she had been miserable under dreams worse than waking, ever since the child was carried off. Her mother had observed her restlessness and nervousness, but had set a good deal down to love, and perhaps had not been entirely wrong. At any rate, she was now really ill, and could not bear the thought of seeing her uncle, though he sent a message to her that now he did not find it nearly so hard to forgive her, and that he felt for her with all his heart.
It was this gentleness that touched Mrs. Morton above all. Years had softened her; perhaps, too, his patience, and the higher tone of Mr. Deyncourt's ministry, and she was, in many respects, a different woman from her who had so loudly protested against his marrying Mary Marshall.
CHAPTER XXXIX. THE HONOURABLE PAUPER
Lord Northmoor's card was given to the porter with an urgent request for an interview with the Master of the workhouse.
He steadied his voice with difficulty when, on entering the office, he said that he had come to make inquiry after his son, a child of three and a half years old, who had been supposed to be drowned, but he had now discovered had been stolen by a former nurse, and left at the gate of the workhouse, and as the Master paused with an interrogative 'Yes, my Lord?' he added-'On the night between the Wednesday and Thursday of Whitsun week, May the-'
'Children are so often left,' said the Master. 'I will ascertain from the books as to the date.'
After an interval really of scarcely a minute, but which might have been hours to the father's feeling, he read-
'May 18th.-Boy, of apparently four years old, left on the steps, asleep, apparently drugged.'
'Ah!'
'Calls himself Mitel Tent-name probably Michael Trenton.'
'Michael Kenton Morton.' Then he reflected, 'No doubt he thought he was to say his catechism.'
'Does not seem to know parents' name nor residence. Dress-man's old rough coat over a brown holland pinafore-no mark-feet bare; talks as if carefully brought up. May I ask you to describe him.'
'Brown eyes, light hair, a good deal of colour, sturdy, large child,' said Lord Northmoor, much agitated. 'There,' holding out a photograph.
'Ah!' said the Master, in assent.
'And where-is he here?'
'He is at the Children's Home at Fulwood Lodge. Perhaps I had better ask one of the Guardians, who lives near at hand, to accompany you.'
This was done, the Guardian came, much interested in the guest, and a cab was called. Lord Northmoor learnt on the way that the routine in such cases, which were only too common, was the child was taken by the police to the bellman's office till night and there taken care of, in case he should be a little truant of the place, but being unclaimed, he spent a few days at the Union, and then was taken to the Children's Home at Fulwood. Inquiries had been made, but the little fellow had been still under the influence of the drug that had evidently been administered to him at first, and then was too much bewildered to give a clear account of himself. He was in confusion between his real home and Westhaven, and the difference between his appellation and that of his parents was likewise perplexing, nor could he make himself clear, even as to what he knew perfectly well, when interrogated by official strangers who alarmed him.
Lord Northmoor was himself a Poor Law Guardian, and had no vague superstitions to alarm him as to the usage of children in workhouses; but he was surprised at the pleasant aspect of the nursery of the Liverpool Union, a former gentleman's house and grounds, with free air and beautiful views.
The Matron, on being summoned, said that she had from the first been sure, in spite of his clothes, that little Mike was a well-born, tenderly-nurtured child, with good manners and refined habits, and she had tried in vain to understand what he said of himself, though night and morning, he had said his prayers for papa and mamma, and at first added that 'papa might be well,' and he might go home; but where home was there was no discovering, except that there had been journeys by puff puff; and Louey, and Aunt Emma, and Nurse, and sea, and North something, and 'nasty man,' were in an inextricable confusion.
She took them therewith into a large airy room, where the elder children, whole rows of little beings in red frocks, were busied under the direction of a lively young nurse, in building up coloured cubes, 'gifts' in Kindergarten parlance.
There was a few moments of pause, as all the pairs of eyes were raised to meet the new-comers. With a little sense of disappointment, but more of anxiety, Frank glanced over them, and encountered a rounded, somewhat puzzled stare from two brown orbs in a rosy face. Then he ventured to say 'Mite,' and there followed a kind of laughing yell, a leap over the structure of cubes, and the warm, solid, rosy boy was in his arms, on his breast, the head on his shoulder in indescribable ecstasy of content on both sides, of thankfulness on that of the father.
'No doubt there!' said the Guardian and the Matron to one another, between smiles and tears.
Mite asked no questions. Fate had been far beyond his comprehension for the last five months, and it was quite enough for him to feel himself in the familiar arms, and hear the voice he loved.
'Would he go to mamma?'
The boy raised his head, looked wonderingly over his father's face, and said in a puzzled voice-
'Louey said she would take me home in the puff puff.'
'Come now with father, my boy. Only kiss this good lady first, who has been so kind to you.
'Kiss Tommy too, and Fanny,' said Michael, struggling down, and beginning a round of embraces that sufficiently proved that his nursery had been a happy one, while his father could see with joy that he was as healthy and fresh-looking as ever, perhaps a little less plump, but with the natural growth of the fourth year, and he was much the biggest of the party, with the healthfulness of country air and wholesome tendance, while most of the others were more or less stunted or undergrown.
Lord Northmoor's longing was to take his recovered son at once to gladden his mother's eyes; but Michael's little red frock would not exactly suit with the manner of his travels.
So he accepted the Guardian's invitation to come to his house and let Michael be fitted out there, an invitation all the more warmly given because it would have been a pity to let wife and daughters miss the interest of the sight of the lost child and his father. So, all formalities being complied with and in true official spirit, the account for the boy's maintenance having been asked for, a hearty and cordial leave was taken of the Matron, and Michael Kenton Morton was discharged from Liverpool Union.
The lady and her daughters were delighted to have him, and would have made much of him, but the poor little fellow proved that his confidence in womankind had been shaken, by clinging tight to his father, and showing his first inclination to cry when it was proposed to take him into another room to be dressed. Indeed, his father was as little willing to endure a moment's separation as he could be, and looked on and assisted to see him made into a little gentleman again in outward costume.
After luncheon there was still time to reach Malvern by a reasonable hour of the evening, and Frank felt as if
