214 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 



between the young ones had to be kept scrupulously private, 

 the pleasures of such stolen intercourse were greatly lightened. 



This condition of things, charming enough, no doubt, to 

 both parties, was most unpleasantly broken up by the acci- 

 dental discovery of its existence by the old man, who, it seems, 

 was furious thereat, and from that time commenced a series 

 of petty and abominable persecutions, which almost drove the 

 forlorn and wretched child mad. 



The gentle consolations which he had heretofore received 

 from sweet little Mattie, were now denied him. He was 

 banished, in mid-winter, to the barn to sleep on the hay, with 

 only a single thin and tattered blanket to cover his shivering 

 body. 



The heroic boy bore all this for eighteen months without a 

 murmur, and all for the sake of his little mistress, with whom, 

 in spite of the vigilance of the father, he managed to obtain 

 occasional interviews, in which, with many tears on both 

 sides, the testimonials of their pure and innocent affection 

 were hurriedly exchanged. 



Old Saunders had but the one child ; and having amassed a 

 considerable fortune by the most parsimonious and usurious 

 practices, he was constantly haunted by the apprehension, 

 even in her childhood, that every one who approached little 

 Mattie did so with an eye to her money. The child was 

 tender-hearted, meek, and confiding, as her poor mother had 

 been before her ; and the wretch remembered how even he 

 had wrought upon the isolation of that poor woman, and 

 induced her to confide to him her little all, as well as life, 

 and he very properly concluded, that if such a creature as 

 himself could thus win upon the confidence of the mother 

 even though it had only lasted for a few days after marriage 

 who might not aspire to win that of the child, that resembled 

 her so closely. 



He therefore watched her most jealously, and cut her off 

 as much as possible from all intercourse with the outward 



