The Mysteries of Montreal | Page 3

take it,
as he would otherwise feel impelled to throw it in the river. I thought
my heart would break to see the poor infant so ruthlessly treated, so I
took it from him, promising to see it safely to some charitable
institution. He told me his name was Ferguson, that he was in business
in Montreal, and that if I would deposit the child in some charitable
institution and call and see its mother during her recovery, he would
pay all necessary expenses. It was too late that night to go out with the
child, so I prepared some food for its nourishment and kept it till the
next day, resolved to go after dusk and see the Lady Superior at one of
the nunneries, but to my chagrin I discovered that the nunnery was
closed, and I was obliged to return home with the babe, which,
by-the-by, continued to roar lustily all the way, and so attracted public
attention to me (its presumptive mother) that I wept as bitterly as the
child itself, and was heartily sorry that I had undertaken any such
mission.
Next day I set out again in good time, but now a new difficulty awaited
me. The good Sister who received me informed me that only those who
were baptized and received into the Catholic Faith were eligible for
admission. On hearing this I burst into tears; I told her my story, that
the child was not mine, but that I was commissioned by its father to
deliver it to her, and I besought her so earnestly to take it from me that
she very considerately did so, and on my handing her the necessary fee,
she undertook to have it regularly baptized and admitted.
In the evening I called to see the mother; she was lying on a miserable
couch in a low lodging-house in the Quebec suburbs, yet she had about
her the air of a lady, and on her finger glittered a ring set with brilliants.
She wept when I told her how her child was disposed of, but said that
she had no other alternative, as if her father, who was a lawyer of
eminence, had any idea of her predicament, he would cast her off in
shame; that when she first discovered her condition she persuaded her
paramour to make a formal proposal for her hand, but her father was
enraged beyond measure, and threatened her so terribly that she, for a

time at least, put away all thoughts of Ferguson from her mind, and had
not quite decided how to act, when the occurrence took place which led
to the visit aforementioned, and caused the necessity for my attendance.
Miss L---- had barely time to call in a carriage at Ferguson's office, and
apprise him of her condition, when she was taken ill, and obliged to
procure a lodging with all speed. Ferguson selected the wretched hovel
alluded to, as being away from all chance of discovery by his or her
friends, and after my visit, empowered me to engage a nurse, and make
what other arrangements I could for Miss L----'s comfort. She managed
to get a confidential friend to telegraph her father from Quebec that she
had arrived in that city, and then sent on a letter and had it mailed there,
stating that she had gone on the steamboat the previous evening to see
some friends off, and, remaining too long on board, was taken away
eastward, but would return on receiving the passage money from
Montreal.
With this story she managed to deceive her otherwise astute father, and
in four days she actually got up and went to her own home in a carriage;
insisting on retiring immediately to her room in consequence of the
nervous excitement and fatigue she had undergone. The nurse I had
engaged to attend her, she on some pretence or another smuggled into
the house as a domestic servant, and so not only managed to have an
attendant, but to keep up a clandestine communication with Ferguson
and the outer world.
In the frantic hope of acquiring a rapid fortune, Ferguson migrated to
New Orleans, but just then the American war broke out, and he was
pressed into the service. Whether he was killed or not Miss L---- never
found out; his letters became gradually less frequent, till finally she lost
all trace of him whatever, and she eventually married a wholesale
merchant of this city, who is to this day probably unaware of this little
episode in his wife's former career. Sometimes I see her in her carriage
driving with liveried servants along St. James street, and I cannot
refrain from thinking of the innocent babe as it lay in poor Ferguson's
coat-tail.

CHAPTER II.
A Just Retribution.
One evening,