IT was between nine and ten o'clock in the evening, at the close of a hot summer's day. A few hours before there had been plenty of stir and excitement in the fields around Wood Cottage. One hundred children belonging to a Sunday School in the great city, had been playing and romping about through the day, and enjoying their yearly treat.
They had been shouting and capering about on the meadows, while the sun shone brightly and sweet breezes blew, and two or three hours before my story begins they had sung some of their little hymns about the love of Jesus, and then started back to London; back to the crowded alleys and dull cheerless streets-but they carried with them a happy remembrance of that sunny day spent in the pleasant fields, where they had sat in long rows upon the grass, and eaten plentifully of cake and nice bread and butter, while kind ladies and gentlemen handed them mugs of sweet fresh milk to drink.
A hundred children had started forth in the morning, but only ninety-eight returned in the evening. Two of the little ones had found a new home.
And now the sun had sunk behind a black, heavy cloud which was slowly coming up in the west, and the breeze which had fanned the faces of the children, was completely lulled; not a breath of air seemed to be stirring, and it had grown hot and oppressive; a solemn calm seemed reigning everywhere.
The little birds had gone to their nests or crept under the boughs of the trees. The sheep in the meadow adjoining Wood Cottage had huddled up close together. The old hen had gathered her chicks very close under her sheltering wings, and when the first distant roar of the thunder was heard, mothers came out their cottage doors and called in the young ones who "ought to have been in bed an hour ago!”
Harry Gray and his wife were sitting in their garden door when the pale lightning flashed across the sky. Mrs. Gray had her baby on her knee, for he was restless with the heat, and would not sleep.
"See; there is lightning, Harry," she said. "There is going to be a storm. Oh, how glad I am that our darling Kit is safe beneath our roof tonight! You should have seen her, how she snuggled down in the little crib between the clean sheets, and in a few minutes was asleep. I suppose she has not been in so comfortable a bed since she left me. Poor lamb; what a life hers must have been! I cannot bear to think of it now.”
"Yes; thank God little Kit is safe," replied the father; "but we must be very careful with her; she looks so tender, and be sure you don't over-feed her at first, wife. She has had but scanty fare and can't stand much yet. Where have you put Ben?”
"In the little room; I had trouble at first to get her to sleep away from him, they've always been together, but she was so worn out that she fell 'over' while I was talking. Before she lay down she put her hands together and said her little prayer that Ben had taught her; something like this it began:-
Jesus, Lord, we come before Thee,
Much we need Thy tender care.
He has been a good boy to her, and his heart seems set on her. We must do what we can for him.”
"Yes, while we have a crust he'll share it," and Harry Gray drew his hand across his eyes.
"Ah! what a flash!" cried Mrs. Gray, holding her breath, as the whole heavens lighted up. Then followed a tremendous peal of thunder and some heavy drops of rain.
They rose and went into the cottage after this, and the mother, giving baby Harry to his father, ran up to look again at little Kit, who opened her eyes, wakened by the heavy peal of thunder.
Little Kit had been separated from her parents for more than three years owing to the cruel neglect of her aunt, Mrs. Rogers, to whose care she had been committed by her mother during a severe illness, and the little girl had lived a life of want and hardship since.
The Grays had tried to find Kit, but Mrs. Rogers moved from one place to another, and at last they thought she had left the country. She had married an idle drunken fellow who had brought her to extreme poverty, and after she had obtained charge of Kit had gone from bad to worse, and exposed the delicate little baby in the London streets in order to gain money, then fearing to be discovered, had hidden the child from her parents, in one of the slums of London.
Some months before the children's Sunday School treat, Mrs. Rogers had died, and the little girl would have perished from want had not Ben Rogers, her cousin-a boy of nine or ten years-cared for her and loved her, and by selling matches earned a bare living for them both. The man, Rogers, allowed them to use the room he slept in, but beyond this had taken little notice of the children until a few weeks before the treat, when, during a slight illness, Kit's pretty little prattle about the Lord Jesus had touched his heart, and caused him to feel more kindly toward the little girl.
The two children had found their way to a Sunday school, and there had learned the good news of the Savior's love, and they had been enjoying themselves with the other little ones in the Hornsey Meadows when accidentally discovered by Kit's mother, whose joy at finding her long-lost child was indeed great.
The peal of thunder awakened Kit, and when she first opened her eyes she was frightened. The room was strange with its clean white bed hangings and neat furniture. She had been used to a dull back room with a mattress on the floor for a bed, and on it she and Ben had slept each night. Her mother's face was strange to her, though the yearning love displayed there would have comforted her little heart could she have seen it right. But the glare of lightning terrified her, and she cried pitifully, "Ben, Ben, where are you?”
Another instant Ben sprang into the room. He pushed past Mrs. Gray and took Kit right out of her crib into his arms, while he tried to stop her sobs.
"I'm here, Kit, don't cry," he said, patting her. "Let her come with me into my bed, Ma'am. She ain't used to sleeping alone. I always sung her to sleep.”
There was no other way, so the mother, whose heart longed to be all in all to the lost little one, gave her up for the time to her old protector, who certainly had earned his right to her love.
"Kiss me, Kittie, for that is what I used to call you," she said, "and love me a little, darling. I am very glad you love Ben; he has been a good kind boy to you.”
Kit put up her lips to kiss, and stroked the kind face that bent over her; then she clasped her arms round Ben and said, "Me does love Ben, he's a dood boy," and in five minutes both children were fast asleep.
"Let them love each other, there's no fear but they'll get fond enough of us by and by, wife," said the father upon hearing about it. "We must remember she would have died had it not been for Ben; but I know how you feel about it. Your poor heart has been starving so long, you feel you can't get right hold of her yet.”
After they had taken one more look at the sleeping children, and given God thanks for His goodness in restoring their lost darling, the father went to his little cash box and put thirty shillings in his wife's hand.
"Go out tomorrow and buy the children the things they most need," he said, "I'm glad we've been able to put a little by, and I can spare you more for them when that's done. We must keep Ben for the present at any rate, and you'll find him a smart, useful little chap, I think, and when he's had a little schooling we can get him a place as message boy. Miss Randolph, their teacher, told me yesterday she would speak to her friend, Mr. Goodall, who has a large stationer's shop near here, and she felt sure he would take Ben and give him a trial when he wanted him to make a start.”