A STRANGE DISCOVERY.
CAPTAIN BROWN had employed Jacques Bernoux, the French fisherman, to
get the spy-glass Walter had forgotten and left on the rock, and he
came on board, one morning, to bring it.
“Do you know a man who goes about the piers and streets selling
baskets? an old man, and an Englishman?” said Walter.
“John Bell?”
“That’s the name.”
“Yes; pass his place every day going to my boat.”
“Will you ask him to come on board the vessel to-morrow?” asked the
captain.
“Yes, sir.”
Early the next morning the basket-maker made his appearance with a
large burden of baskets; he had been so engaged manufacturing that it
kept him out of the streets—the reason that Walter couldn’t find him.
The captain, taking him into the cabin, said, “My friend, when you was
here, a few days ago, you gave me some particulars of your life. This
young man, Mr. Griffin, my mate, was not present; but having heard
what then passed between us, he has not a doubt but that Charles Bell,
who built and is part owner of this vessel, is your oldest son. As for
myself, residing in another part of the country, I have no personal
knowledge of the circumstances; but I must say that as related by him,
they seem to me most probable. But you can hear what he has to say
about it, and judge for yourself.”
While the captain was speaking, the basket-maker became very pale,
trembled, and big tears rolled down his hollow cheeks.
“For the sake of Heaven, captain,” he exclaimed, “do not raise in this
sad heart hopes that may have no foundation. I’ve made up my mind to
endure the worst, as God shall give me strength, till I lay these bones
in the grave.”
“I am the last person to do that; but I have been turning the subject
over in my mind ever since you were here last, and the more I reflect
upon the young man’s story, the more the probability of it grows upon
me.”
The basket-maker, hearing these words, made a sign to Walter, who
gave him substantially the same statement he had made to Ned and the
captain. The old man was deeply affected; he evidently saw strong
grounds for believing the person described was his child, but was
fearful of cherishing a premature hope.
“I can bear what I have borne,” he said, “but the disappointment would
drive me mad. You say, young man, that you have known this person
intimately?”
“Yes, sir, as well as it’s possible for one person to know another.”
“And that his name is Charles?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What’s his age?”
“I think about twenty-three.”
“My son, if living, would be twenty-three next Michaelmas. What sort of
a looking man is this Charles Bell?”
“Hair, eyes, and complexion just like yours, but he is not so large a
man as you are.”
“Those are the features of my boy,” replied the old man, evidently
gaining confidence as he continued his inquiries.
“You say you didn’t know this Charles Bell when he first came to Elm
Island, and this Mr. Rhines and his wife took him.”
“No, sir; I was too young; but I’ve heard my brother talk about it.”
“My boy,” said the old man, “was a most loving boy, very much attached
to his mother. I don’t believe he would leave her and his brother and
sister. You never heard him mention his parents or family—did you?”
“This Charles Bell’s mother is dead. I never heard him speak of any
brother or sister.”
“How do you know his mother is dead?”
“Because, sir, he went to St. John’s two or three years ago, brought
her body from there, and buried it on his place, under an elm tree—a
beautiful spot. I’ve seen it a hundred times.”
The old man’s countenance fell. “It cannot be,” he said, “that my
wife, with young children and small means, would leave England,
and all her and my relations, and go to the colonies; and yet the
time, circumstances, and personal appearance of the young man tally
precisely.”
“I know it’s your son,” said Walter; “nobody can make me believe it
ain’t. He looks as much like you as my two hands look alike, saving the
difference in age, and his voice is like yours.”
“Do you expect to come here again, captain?”
“Yes, if we get off clear this time, and can run the gantlet. You know
it is all luck and chance with us.”
“I can send a letter by you, and that will remove all doubts, and
settle the whole matter.”
“But I hoped you would feel sure enough to take passage with us. You
can do better in the States than here.”
“I could not bear to go over there expecting to meet a son, and be
disappointed. I’m making a very good living here.”
“I think you’d better go.”
“Well, captain, I’ve about as much as I can carry at present, and am
somewhat confused. I will go about my regular business the rest of the
day; that will steady my mind; and perhaps I may think of some question
that this young man can answer, that will throw more light on the
matter; and I will be on board again in the morning.”
Resisting all solicitations to stop to dinner, the old man departed
with his load.
“I know it’s his son,” said Walter, as they were eating dinner. “I feel
it in my bones, and I think we ought to persuade him to go.”
“I have not much doubt,” replied the captain. “People are always
emigrating from England to St. John’s and Canada. Her relatives might
have gone, and taken her with them. I shall persuade him in the morning
to go, if I can.”
The second mate, who was a Marblehead man, and had listened to the
conversation, now inquired, “Don’t all this crew belong right there?
and wouldn’t they be likely to know more about it than Mr. Griffin?
Most of them are much older than he is.”
“To be sure they would,” cried Walter. “There’s Danforth Eaton helped
clear Elm Island when Charlie Bell first came there; then there’s
Peterson, and Enoch Hadlock,—what a ninny I was not to think of that
before he went away!—there’s not _one_ of them but knows more about
his _first_ coming there than I do.”
Leaving his dinner, Walter ran forward, and soon returned, saying that
Eaton knew all about it.
When John Bell came on board the next morning, he seemed calm,
collected, and much more hopeful. Sending for Eaton, the captain said
to him, “Eaton, I want you to tell us all you know about Charles Bell’s
coming to Elm Island, and about his parents, if you know or have heard
anything about them, and I want you to begin at the bottom.”
“What I know, cap’n, isn’t hearsay, but I had it all from his own lips.”
“So much the better.”
“You see, cap’n, about that time there was some Tories come up from the
provinces—”
“We know,” said the captain, interrupting him, “how he got to the
island; but what we are most concerned to ascertain is, who his parents
were, and how he came into the hands of those pirates (for they were no
better) who brought him to Elm Island. Can you tell us anything about
that?”
“Reckon I kin tell you all about it; but I must tell it in my own way.
If you keep putting in and interrupting me, I shall get all mixed up.”
“Well, go on.”
“You see, arter this boy come on the island, Lion Ben he hires me and
Joe Griffin, the next winter, to cut spars and clear land. Charlie Bell
was a little, slender, half-starved, pitiful-looking creatur’, then,
but he was willing and clever, and soon begun to pick up. Most of the
winter he drove the team; but along in March, when it was bad hauling,
he helped me chop. I tapped a maple, to have sap to drink while I was
chopping. One day we comes into the woods arter dinner, and before we
went to work, sot down by the sap tree, in the sun. I sets on a stump,
same as where that stool is, and he on another, same as where that
old gentleman is setting. I takes a good drink of the sap, and hands
the dipper to him; says I, ‘Charlie, tell me your history, or part of
it, like as you did Joe and Fred Williams.’ He didn’t want ter, but I
coaxed him. Then he said, the way his father come to be pressed, was
all through another man, that courted his mother when she was a gal,
but she liked his father better; he couldn’t give her up, and allers
hild that old grudge agin his father. He said his father had agreed to
work for the government, and if he had only got his name on the roll,
couldn’t have been touched any more than if he had been a peer of the
kingdom. This feller, I forget his name—” “Robert Rankin,” said the
basket-maker. “That’s it, old man, by jingo,—who thought, if he was
out of the way, he could get her, after all,—told the press-gang, and
they took him as he was on the road to the place where he would have
been safe.”
The tears were streaming down John Bell’s cheeks, and his hands were
lifted in gratitude to Heaven; but he would not interrupt Eaton by a
question.
“He said, soon arter his father was gone, he was killed in an action,
and his mother carried on the business for a while; but this feller
kept prosecutin’ her, and wantin’ her to have him, till she couldn’t
stand it any longer. So she packed up everything, and went to St.
John’s, where she had a brother; but when she got there, he’d gone
to furrin parts, and she took sick and died. Then the boy, destitute
and wandering about the streets and docks to pick up a living, fell
inter the hands of them are reprobates, thinking they were honest
fishermen, and went cook for them. The rest you say you know. Good as a
story-book—ain’t it?”
“Eaton,” said the captain, sternly, “this is Mr. Bell’s father.”
“His _father_! Then he wasn’t killed. I didn’t dream of that, or I
shouldn’t have spoken like as I did. I see now he favors him.”
“Did he tell you,” asked the father, “what became of the other
children?”
“I axed him if there was any more of ‘em. He said his mother’s
relations took ‘em.”
There was an oppressive pause in the conversation after Eaton had gone
forward. John Bell sat with his handkerchief over his face, while the
others, respecting his emotions, were silent.
“No doubt, there can be none,” he said, at length, “that my poor
wife is dead—God only knows what she suffered, in poverty and among
strangers; that two of my children—whether alive or dead I know
not—are in England, and that the other is in America. I may yet see
_him_. I ought to be thankful for that.”
“Your son, Mr. Bell,” said the captain, “is well to do; able to provide
you with every comfort; and, what is more, respected and beloved.”
“And he owns land?”
“Yes; six hundred acres.”
“That seems like a dream to me, for none of our folks ever owned a foot
of land. I always loved the earth, and loved to work on it, even when
it was the freehold of another. I feel there may yet be some happiness
in store for me.”
“You are not an old man yet, Mr. Bell,” said the captain, “and good
news and good spirits will make you ten years younger; so bring all
your things on board, and prepare to go with us, the first gale that
scatters the blockaders.”
“I don’t suppose there is any doubt now. I know there can’t be. Still,
you know a person in my situation feels they can’t be too certain; and
there is just one thing more that has come to mind since I was here. I
would like to ask of this young man whether he ever noticed any scar on
my son’s face.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Walter; “it is on his right jaw, and close to his
ear,—runs up behind the ear, into his hair.”
“Then I’ll indulge no more in doubt. It would be ungrateful. I
never shall forget when he received the cut that made that scar, it
frightened me so. Though it was long ago, it seems but the other day.”
“How did it happen, Mr. Bell?” asked Walter.
“I suppose you never saw any basket rods growing?”
“No, sir.”
“In England, we plant them in rows, three feet apart, and as straight
as an arrow. They grow seven or eight feet high, and make a nice place
for the children to play. I was cutting the sallies with a large
knife, as sharp as a razor. My little children, with their cousins,
who had come to see them, were playing hide-and-seek among the rows,
when Charlie ran in the way of my knife, and I cut a dreadful gash in
his cheek, that made that scar. And now I will leave you, and make my
preparations for the voyage.”
“Not till you have taken dinner with us,” said the captain; “and,
Mr. Bell, I expect you to make the vessel your home, and sleep here
whenever it suits your convenience.”
“Thank you, captain. My quarters on shore are not so spacious or
elegant that I should feel inclined to refuse so handsome and hearty an
offer.”
When the meal was concluded, Mr. Bell went on shore.
“Only see,” said Walter, looking after him, as he went up the pier,
“how quick he steps, and how much straighter he is.”
“There’s a new heart in him,” said the captain. “He’s something to live
for and look forward to now. In a week’s time he’ll be another man. As
far as I am concerned, I had rather carry _him_ home, than the richest
cargo. And now, Mr. Griffin, run up and tell the good news to Ned.”