At that moment his father entered the house. Hysterics again came to plead the cause of Mrs Kerr. Walter had seen enough. He seized hold upon his son. He chastised him—unmercifully he did so; for he also, on occasions, was a man of violent passions; but, as with augmented rage he struck his son, the boy, while he submitted patiently to his chastisement, gazed in his face with a tearless and stern eye, and when he had exhausted his rage and strength, the boy turned on him and said—“Are you done, sir? I shall tell my mother this!—MY mother!” When Walter Kerr heard the words—“I shall tell _my mother_,” and especially the words—“MY mother”—pronounced by his son, and the emphatic manner in which they were pronounced, he trembled—his heart filled—he burst into tears, and, stretching out his hand, he said—“Francis!” But the boy exclaimed—“No!” refused the offered hand, and rushed out of the room. Throughout the day he was not again seen; and after many days of diligent search after him had been made, it was ascertained that he had entered on board of a foreign trading vessel from Newcastle. Twelve months passed, and the vessel again arrived in Newcastle; but the captain stated that the astonishing boy (as he termed Francis) had left him, he knew not for why, nor for where, while they were upon the coast of Africa, where many vessels were. The tidings fell sadly on the heart of Walter Kerr; but he had other evils to contend with. He had lost his son; and with his villa, his grounds, his carriage, and his visiters, he had lost the half of his fortune. But the ambition of Mrs Kerr was not yet satisfied. Her husband did not possess landed property sufficient to think of being a Justice of the Peace for the county; yet she thought it would give her additional importance were he chief magistrate in the town of H——. I will not say that Mr Kerr had not a sprinkling of ambition in his composition himself, and he more readily agreed that he should aspire to the honour of being elevated to the bench, than to any other whim that she had proposed to him. Therefore, after bestowing the necessary and customary (though illegal) fees on the corporators, which made another fearful inroad on his monied property, Mr Kerr had the honour and gratification of being elected chief magistrate of the town of H——. “Now,” thought he, “Harriet will surely have reached the height of her ambition; she will be content now.” But he was mistaken. She not only discovered that the idea of a magistrate standing behind a counter, and working amongst bales of goods, or casks of sundry liquors, was intolerable, but she declared that the effluvia which he brought with him from his warehouse on his hands and garments, was quite as obnoxious as though she still lived over it. And further, she added, that you might as well attempt to wash the Ethiopian white as wash it away. It rendered her incapable of taking her dinner every day.