Noo gang yer wa's, and do the wark he gies ye to do. Only
min', it's no you; it's him.'
The next morning, the sweet winds of his childhood wooing him to
remain yet a day among their fields, he sat on the top of the
Aberdeen coach, on his way back to the horrors of court and alley in
the terrible London.
CHAPTER VII.
THE SILK-WEAVER.
When he arrived he made it his first business to find 'Widow
Walker.' She was evidently one of the worst of her class; and could
it have been accomplished without scandal, and without interfering
with the quietness upon which he believed that the true effect of
his labours in a large measure depended, he would not have scrupled
simply to carry off the child. With much difficulty, for the woman
was suspicious, he contrived to see her, and was at once reminded of
the child he had seen in the cart on the occasion of Shargar's
recognition of his mother. He fancied he saw in her some
resemblance to his friend Shargar. The affair ended in his paying
the woman a hundred and fifty pounds to give up the girl. Within
six months she had drunk herself to death. He took little Nancy
Kennedy home with him, and gave her in charge to his housekeeper.
She cried a good deal at first, and wanted to go back to Mother
Walker, but he had no great trouble with her after a time. She
began to take a share in the house-work, and at length to wait upon
him. Then Falconer began to see that he must cultivate relations
with other people in order to enlarge his means of helping the poor.
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