On February 23rd, 1807, Wilberforce's Bill for the abolition of the foreign slave trade was carried by a majority of 283 to 16. Sir Samuel Romilly contrasted the feelings of Napoleon with that of the man who would that night "lay his head upon his pillow and remember that the slave trade was no more." There was still, however, much to do; but Wilberforce lived to hear the news that the nation was willing to pay twenty millions for the abolition of slavery.
(_After the Portrait by Joseph Slater._)]
[Illustration: THE MINOR CANON'S DAUGHTER]
By E. S. Curry, Author of "One of the Greatest," "Closely Veiled," Etc.
It was Mr. Warde who, before the police arrived, organised and dispatched search parties. The visitors and servants from the Deanery, with his own and the Palace household, were scattered through the immediate neighbourhood, in less than half an hour from the first summons.
Marjorie was with her mother. Mr. Pelham--after a distracted visit to his own house, hoping against hope that he might still find the toddling child safe and rosy, sleeping in her cot--had brought servants back with him, whom he put under Mr. Warde's instructions. For Mr. Warde knew every inch of ground about, every possible danger into which the little feet might have strayed.
In the precincts of the cathedral, in the gardens throughout the neighbourhood, in every nook and secluded place, lights were soon flashing and voices calling.
All that anybody knew was little enough. Soon after eight--the hour at which Mr. Bethune and Marjorie had gone to the Deanery--nurse had gone to the garden to call the children in. She found it empty, and, pursuing her search into the cave, found reason to be alarmed. But she did not then alarm Mrs. Bethune. Returning to the house, which was strangely still, she had looked into the drawing-room.
"They have taken Barbara home," Mrs. Bethune explained. "They will soon be back, nurse. But it is getting late for the little ones."
She looked so quiet and calm on her sofa, resting, with the sense of her husband's love folding her round, that the nurse forbore to disturb her with her own sudden forebodings. But she put on her bonnet, and ran up to The Ridges, to satisfy herself against her fears. No Barbara was there; neither she nor the boys had been seen since the afternoon. Barbara's nurse--forgetting for a time her airs--accompanied her to the Canons' Court. Together they again searched the garden; the cathedral yard, where the darkness was settling down over the numerous graves and tombs; the shady Canons' Walk--calling anxiously the names of their respective charges. No signs were to be found of the children. Then nurse, without troubling her mistress, went to the Deanery, and asked for Mr. Bethune; and from him, when he reached his wife's side, had come the summons to Mr. Pelham and Marjorie.