Caroline Woolmer Leakey

“ I spoke curtly and somewhat austerely, in order to set a due value on my services and due censure on her obstinacy.
“I want you to tell them, sir, not to be uneasy after me: for there’s no manner of call for it, I’m as respectable as when I left the hut.”
“Bessie, you are both wilful and rebellious; do you call that respectable? If you are saved from destruction it will be in spite of yourself. What does a young woman expect if she stays out to such an hour? ”

“ I have dwelt in the city until its many tones seem to me to blend into one cry, ’Come over and help us,’ and the cry draws out my sympathies, and my sorrow, too; for what is individual help to the mass? ”

“ Nor did my lantern assist me to a full definition of the figure, for in bringing its light to bear upon the trunk, the long black arms only seemed to stretch more determinately towards me. In England such trees might be considered of the ghost-tribe; here, where fears are too much pre-occupied to think of supernatural appearances, a charred stump is not only a charred stump, but very often something more, especially if it be large and hollow. ”

“ Let the worst come to the worst, or the best to the best, ain’t she forgotten her Catechism and her Bible? When I was young, I was taught to honour my father and mother. But, I tell you what it is, sir,” he lowered his voice, and spoke confidentially, “come what may, I don’t blame the girl too much, for the sin lies at our door. We’d no business, my missus and me, to leave England in our old age — ’twas pride from beginning to end. ”

“ To some, the country with its shade and sunshine, singing birds and flowering hedges, is a mentor of mighty truths. To others, the city with its human hum, and groaning tread wheel, ever turning, is a preceptor teaching of life, death, and eternity. ”

“ It convinced him that Bessie was the all in all engrossing occupation of other thoughts than his.
“She’s heard of, and I know her whereabouts. I’d rather have seen her dragged dead out of the river! A dead child ain’t half the pain of a living one gone astray. A dead child can't come back if she’d fain, therefore a living one that won’t is worse!”
A sentiment to which I could not say nay, for the testimony of ages is in its favour. ”

“ I called several times at the Black Bear, but without success; she was never to be seen, and I had almost given up all hope of a second interview, when one day, in returning through my former route, who should I espy but Bessie sitting on the very trunk where I had first met her father.
“You, Bessie! It looks bad to see you out this time of night.” ”

“ Joe Sadlers was not a digger of the common order: others might betray her, he never. We walked and talked till we reached the main road; there Bessie discovered that she had left her handkerchief at the tree. ”

“ When the commotion consequent on this outcry had ceased, it was explained to me that Bessie was apprehended on suspicion of having stolen the cash-box of the Black Bear till, which was safe at eight o’clock, and missing ten minutes after. The suspicion was the greater from the fact of the empty box having been secreted in the trunk of a tree from the direction of which she had been traced. ”

“ I don’t wish to go back to father and mother till I can repay them for the trouble I’ve cost ’em, and that 1 hope to do soon, for I’m engaged to Joe Sadlers, a successful digger; I’ve kept honest company with him, and he’ll marry me after a bit ”