Outpost eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 314 pages of information about Outpost.

Outpost eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 314 pages of information about Outpost.

Falling upon her knees, and pulling a rosary of wooden beads from her bosom, the Irish woman pursued her petitions, mingling them with tears and exclamations more or less pathetic and grotesque; while Teddy, seated upon the Italian’s empty box, his head between his hands, his elbows upon his knees, his eyes fixed steadily upon the floor, gave up his young heart a prey to such remorse as might fitly punish even a heavier crime than that of which his conscience accused him.

CHAPTER XXII.

The confession.

The morning came, but brought no comfort.  Mrs. Ginniss had crept up stairs, and, throwing herself upon the bed, had fallen asleep with the tears still trickling down her honest face; but to Teddy’s haggard eyes no sleep had come, and he had only changed his position by stretching himself upon the floor beside the box, his head upon his arm, his aching eyeballs still shaping in the darkness the form and features of the little sister whom he had sullenly resolved was lost to him forever as punishment for his fault in concealing her.

“If I’d brought her back,” thought he again and again, “they’d have let me get seeing her once in a while; they couldn’t have refused me so much; and maybe some day I’d have been a gentleman, and could have talked with her free and equal.  But now she’s lost to them and to me; and, when I tell the master, he’ll call me a mean thief and a liar, and a rascal every way, and he’ll never look at me again; and mother”—­

Then he would wander away into dreary speculation upon what his another would say when the truth was made known to her, and she found the boy on whom she had lavished her love and pride dishonored and discarded by the master to whom he owed so much, and whose patronage she had taken such pains to secure for him; and then, like the weary burden of a never-ending song, would come again the thought,—­

“But if I’d brought her back at the first!”

The bitter growth of the night, however, had borne fruit in a resolution firm as it was painful; and, when Teddy came up stairs to make himself fit to go to the office, he was able to say some words of comfort to his mother, assuring her that no blame to her could come of what had happened, and that it was possible the child might yet be found, as he should warn those of her loss who could use surer means to search for her than any at their command.

“An’ is it the perlice ye’re manin’?” asked Mrs. Ginniss.  “Sure it’s little they’d heed the loss o’ poor folks like us, or look for one little child that’s missin’, whin there’s more nor enough uv ’em to the fore in ivery poor man’s house.  But niver a one like ours, Teddy b’y,—­niver another purty darlint like her that’s gone.”

Teddy made no reply to this, but, hastily swallowing some food, took his hat, and left the room.

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Project Gutenberg
Outpost from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.