CONCLUSION
Later on, in fragments, Darry learned the whole story. It was all very
wonderful, and yet simple enough.
The old man whom he remembered so well, and who had told him to call him
uncle, was in reality a brother of his mother.
He had quarreled with his sister Elizabeth's husband, after abusing his
kindness, and to cancel what he called a debt, had actually stolen the
only child of the man he had wronged and hated.
An old story, yet happening just as frequently in these modern days as
in times of old, for men have the same passions, and there is nothing
new under the sun.
Everything that money could do was done to find the man and the little
boy he had kidnapped, but he proved too cunning for them all, and
although several times traces were found of his being at some foreign
city, when a hunt was made he had again vanished.
So the years came and went, and the child's mother was left a widow.
Hope never deserted her heart, though it must have grown fainter as time
passed on, and all traces of the wicked child-stealer seemed swallowed
up in mystery.
Paul had known of her great trouble, and it was the remarkable
resemblance of Darry to a picture he had seen of his uncle Rudolph as a
boy that first startled him.
Then came the story about the waif, and this gave him strong hopes that
by the wonderful favor of Providence he had been enabled to come across
the long-lost boy, his own cousin.
Their happiness was subdued, for there had been lives lost in the storm,
a number of passengers and crew having been swept from the deck of the
steamer by the giant waves before the coming of the life savers.
As the storm subsided by noon, our little party, increased by Abner's
presence, was enabled to cross the still rough sound in the staunch
motor-boat of Paul, and to Nancy's amazement appeared at her humble
little home.
She heard the story of Darry's great good fortune with mingled emotions,
for while she could not but rejoice with him in that he had found a
mother, still, in a way, it seemed to the poor woman as though she had
been bereaved a second time, for she was beginning to love the boy who
had come into her life to take the place of Joe.
Still, the future appeared so rosy that even Nancy could not but feel
the uplift, and her face beamed with the general joy as she bustled
around and strove to prepare a supper for her guests.
In the village they had heard news.
Jim Dilks and several of his cronies were in the hands of the United
States authorities, having been arrested on serious charges.
Later on they were convicted of using false beacons in order to lure
vessels on the reefs for wicked purposes, and of robbing the dead cast
up on the shore.
A more serious charge could not be proven, though few doubted their
innocence.
Darry, or as he was compelled to call himself now, Adrian Singleton,
being summoned to give evidence, helped to send the big wrecker to his
well-earned solitude by telling what he had seen on the night of the
last storm, and as some jewelry was found in his possession, which was
identified by the wife of a passenger who lost his life, and whose body
was washed up on the beach later on, there was no difficulty in securing
his conviction.
As for his profligate son, he was not long in following the elder Dilks
to confinement, being caught in some crime that partook of the nature of
robbery, and was sent to a reformatory, where it is to be hoped he may
learn a lesson calculated to make him a better man when he comes forth.
Since these happenings took place only a few years back, young Jim is
still in confinement; his boon companions Sim Clark and Bowser vanished
from Ashley and doubtless sought congenial surroundings in Wilmington,
where they could pursue their destiny along evil lines until the long
arm of the law reached out and brought them to book.
True to his word, Paul saw to it that Abner Peake was placed in charge
of the big farm he owned, not a great distance away from Ashley, and
here the former life saver and his family have every comfort their
simple hearts could wish for, so that they count it the luckiest day of
their lives when the cabin boy of the lost brigantine, _Falcon_, was
washed up on the beach out by the life-saving station.
About once a year Abner visits his old chums out on the beach, spending
a couple of days in their company and reviving old times, but on such
occasions they often see him sitting by himself under the shelter of
some old remnant of a former wreck, his calm blue eyes fixed in an
absent-minded fashion upon the distant level horizon of Old Ocean, and
at such times no one ventures to disturb him, for well they know that he
is holding silent communion with the spirit of poor little Joe, who went
out with the tide, and was seen no more.
Somewhere upon that broad, lonely ocean his little form has found a
resting place, and so long as he lives must Abner drop a tear in his
memory whenever he sets eyes upon his watery shroud.
But the Peakes are happy, and the twins are growing up to be buxom
children.
There is another little laughing Peake now, a boy at that, and at last
accounts Darry--it is hard to call him by any other name--heard that he
is destined to be christened Joseph Darry Peake.
After all, Paul and Darry did have a chance to spend some part of the
winter cruising together on the sound, although our hero later on
decided that he must start in to make himself worthy of the position
which was from this time to be his lot, and enrolled at an academy where
his fond mother could be near him, and have a home in which he might
find some of the happiness that fate had cheated him out of for so long.
No one who knows the youth doubts that he has a promising future before
him, and many prophesy that he will eventually make a more famous
lawyer than his father was before him.
Often Darry loves, when by himself, to look back to the days that are no
more, and at such times he thinks with gratitude of the friends whom a
kindly Providence raised up for him in his time of need.
Among these he never fails to include Captain Harley, the skipper of the
_Falcon_, whose widow Darry had communicated with while he was still
under the roof of the life saver's home, and whom he later on met
personally, as she came on to hear all he could tell about her lost
husband.
And the brave life savers on that desolate Carolina beach have not been
forgotten by the grateful mother of the boy they had adopted, for during
each winter there always comes a huge box filled with such warm clothing
as men in their arduous and dangerous profession greatly need.
At Christmas holidays Darry, Paul and Mrs. Singleton make it a point to
spend a week at Ashley, during which time they live again the stirring
scenes of the past, and find much cause for gratitude because of the
wonderful favors that were showered upon them in that locality.
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's Darry the Life Saver, by Frank V. Webster