OLD BILL SMITH, THE SILENT HUNTER. 215 



world even in the distant perspective of womanhood tho 

 idea of her marriage and a dower was almost death to him. 

 To part with any portion of his precious and ill-gotten gold 

 was like wringing the drops of his heart-blood upon the 

 thirsty sands. He at once became furious the moment he 

 discovered the intimacy and childish sympathy between the 

 boy Smith and his child. There was no knowing what such 

 a thing might come to ; and the starveling, whom he flattered 

 himself he had apprenticed out of charity, might prove the 

 viper upon his hearth. 



Such were the barbarities practised upon the helpless 

 orphan, that, although too manly himself ever to complain, 

 they became the talk of the neighborhood ; and, while some 

 persons openly asserted that old Saunders was trying to kill 

 the boy by inches, others had determined to have him pre- 

 sented to the next Grand Inquest that sat in the county, for 

 barbarity and neglect of duty. 



Before, however, this very necessary and proper step could 

 be taken, these persecutions had grown beyond any further 

 possibility of endurance, and in a fit of ungovernable despair, 

 the miserable child made up his rags into a little bundle, in 

 which he also secreted a few scraps of food, which little 

 Mattie, to whom he had made known his purpose, had ob- 

 tained for him. He then crept into her little room by the 

 window at night, and after weeping long, as if their little 

 hearts would burst in each other's arms for each felt that 

 this parting was from the only friend they had in the world 

 the poor boy comforted the tender mourner by assuring 

 her, in a tone of singular confidence, that when he got to be 

 a great man he was going to come back for her and make her 

 his little wife. 



Even at the early age of thirteen the remarkable magnetic 

 power which afterwards distinguished the man, was developed 

 for, in relating this occurrence himself in after-life, he said 

 that when he spoke this in a bold, confident tone, the little 



