Page:Her Benny - Silas K Hocking (Warne, 1890).djvu/237

Rh that Benny was acquitted, his delight knew no bounds. He accepted the fact as almost proof positive that Benny was innocent, and went at once to tell granny the news.

He found the old woman crying over Benny's letter, with the eighteenpence lying in her lap. When Joe came in she handed him the letter without a word. Joe blew his nose violently several times during its perusal, then laid it down on the table, and walked to the door to hide his emotion. It was several moments before he could command himself sufficiently to speak, then he blurted out—

"The poor parsecuted bairn mun be found somehow, Betty, an' 'ere's off to sairch. Good momin', Betty."

And before the old woman could reply he was gone.

During the next three days Joe had but little sleep. He tramped the town in every direction, in the hope that he might glean some tidings of the poor lost lad; but his labour was in vain, and each evening when he returned to his hut it was with a sadly diminished hope of ever finding the boy again.

On the evening that Benny, hungry and forsaken, lay down in the wood to sleep, Joe felt his heart drawn out in prayer in such a manner as he had never before experienced. Nearly the whole of the night he spent upon his knees. Now and then he got up and walked out into the silent street, and gazed for a few moments up into the starlit sky. Then he would return to his hut again and pray more fervently than ever. He had returned from his search that evening utterly cast down, feeling that the only resource