The alarm was raised; the country
searched in all directions, but ineffectually, during a fearful
tempest. Ultimately the poor boy was found unconscious on the ground,
drenched to the skin. On his being taken home, and his father
questioning him, all that could be heard were his cries "Come back,
mamma; stop, stop for me!" Nothing else but the tossings of fever.
Once again, "Then she has come back," he cried, "that man did not take
her quite away; the carriage drove here at last." The story slowly
elicited from the child on his gaining strength was this. On his going
for a walk with his mother in the park, she took the key of a gate
which led into a lane. A gentleman was waiting outside. Gerard had
never seen him before, but he heard his mother call him Rupert. They
walked together through the lane accompanied by the child, and talked
earnestly. She wept, and the boy was indignant. When they reached a
cross-road, a carriage was waiting. On approaching it the gentleman
pulled the child's hands from hers, lifted her in, sprang in after,
and the coachman drove like the wind, leaving the child to hear his
mother shriek in agony, "My child--my son!" Nothing more could be
discovered; the country was ransacked in vain.
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