In Search of the Castaways; or the Children of Captain Grant

CHAPTER III THE CAPTAIN’S CHILDREN

LORD GLE­NAR­VAN’S for­tune was enor­mous, and he spent it en­tire­ly in do­ing good. His kind­heart­ed­ness was even greater than his gen­eros­ity, for the one knew no bounds, while the oth­er, of ne­ces­si­ty, had its lim­its. As Lord of Luss and “laird” of Mal­colm, he rep­re­sent­ed his coun­ty in the House of Lords; but, with his Ja­co­bite ideas, he did not care much for the fa­vor of the House of Hanover, and he was looked up­on cold­ly by the State par­ty in Eng­land, be­cause of the tenac­ity with which he clung to the tra­di­tions of his fore­fa­thers, and his en­er­get­ic re­sis­tance to the po­lit­ical en­croach­ments of South­ern­ers. And yet he was not a man be­hind the times, and there was noth­ing lit­tle or nar­row-​mind­ed about him; but while al­ways keep­ing open his an­ces­tral coun­ty to progress, he was a true Scotch­man at heart, and it was for the hon­or of Scot­land that he com­pet­ed in the yacht races of the Roy­al Thames Yacht Club.

Ed­ward Gle­nar­van was thir­ty-​two years of age. He was tall in per­son, and had rather stern fea­tures; but there was an ex­ceed­ing sweet­ness in his look, and a stamp of High­land po­et­ry about his whole bear­ing. He was known to be brave to ex­cess, and full of dar­ing and chival­ry– a Fer-​gus of the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry; but his good­ness ex­celled ev­ery oth­er qual­ity, and he was more char­ita­ble than St. Mar­tin him­self, for he would have giv­en the whole of his cloak to any of the poor High­landers.

He had scarce­ly been mar­ried three months, and his bride was Miss He­le­na Tuffnell, the daugh­ter of William Tuffnell, the great trav­el­er, one of the many vic­tims of ge­ograph­ical sci­ence and of the pas­sion for dis­cov­ery. Miss He­le­na did not be­long to a no­ble fam­ily, but she was Scotch, and that was bet­ter than all no­bil­ity in the eyes of Lord Gle­nar­van; and she was, more­over, a charm­ing, high-​souled, re­li­gious young wom­an.

Lord Gle­nar­van did not for­get that his wife was the daugh­ter of a great trav­el­er, and he thought it like­ly that she would in­her­it her fa­ther’s predilec­tions. He had the DUN­CAN built ex­press­ly that he might take his bride to the most beau­ti­ful lands in the world, and com­plete their hon­ey­moon by sail­ing up the Mediter­ranean, and through the clus­ter­ing is­lands of the Archipela­go.

How­ev­er, Lord Gle­nar­van had gone now to Lon­don. The lives of the ship­wrecked men were at stake, and La­dy He­le­na was too much con­cerned her­self about them to grudge her hus­band’s tem­po­rary ab­sence. A tele­gram next day gave hope of his speedy re­turn, but in the evening a let­ter ap­prised her of the dif­fi­cul­ties his propo­si­tion had met with, and the morn­ing af­ter brought an­oth­er, in which he open­ly ex­pressed his dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the Ad­mi­ral­ty.

La­dy He­le­na be­gan to get anx­ious as the day wore on. In the evening, when she was sit­ting alone in her room, Mr. Hal­bert, the house stew­ard, came in and asked if she would see a young girl and boy that want­ed to speak to Lord Gle­nar­van.

“Some of the coun­try peo­ple?” asked La­dy He­le­na.

“No, madame,” replied the stew­ard, “I do not know them at all. They came by rail to Bal­loch, and walked the rest of the way to Luss.”

“Tell them to come up, Hal­bert.”

In a few min­utes a girl and boy were shown in. They were ev­ident­ly broth­er and sis­ter, for the re­sem­blance was un­mis­tak­able. The girl was about six­teen years of age; her tired pret­ty face, and sor­row­ful eyes, and re­signed but coura­geous look, as well as her neat though poor at­tire, made a fa­vor­able im­pres­sion. The boy she held by the hand was about twelve, but his face ex­pressed such de­ter­mi­na­tion, that he ap­peared quite his sis­ter’s pro­tec­tor.

The girl seemed too shy to ut­ter a word at first, but La­dy He­le­na quick­ly re­lieved her em­bar­rass­ment by say­ing, with an en­cour­ag­ing smile: “You wish to speak to me, I think?”

“No,” replied the boy, in a de­cid­ed tone; “not to you, but to Lord Gle­nar­van.”

V. IV Verne

“Ex­cuse him, ma’am,” said the girl, with a look at her broth­er.

“Lord Gle­nar­van is not at the cas­tle just now,” re­turned La­dy He­le­na; “but I am his wife, and if I can do any­thing for you–“

“You are La­dy Gle­nar­van?” in­ter­rupt­ed the girl.

“I am.”

“The wife of Lord Gle­nar­van, of Mal­colm Cas­tle, that put an an­nounce­ment in the TIMES about the ship­wreck of the BRI­TAN­NIA?”

“Yes, yes,” said La­dy He­le­na, ea­ger­ly; “and you?”

“I am Miss Grant, ma’am, and this is my broth­er.”

“Miss Grant, Miss Grant!” ex­claimed La­dy He­le­na, draw­ing the young girl to­ward her, and tak­ing both her hands and kiss­ing the boy’s rosy cheeks.

“What is it you know, ma’am, about the ship­wreck? Tell me, is my fa­ther liv­ing? Shall we ev­er see him again? Oh, tell me,” said the girl, earnest­ly.

“My dear child,” replied La­dy He­le­na. “Heav­en for­bid that I should an­swer you light­ly such a ques­tion; I would not de­lude you with vain hopes.”

“Oh, tell me all, tell me all, ma’am. I’m proof against sor­row. I can bear to hear any­thing.”

“My poor child, there is but a faint hope; but with the help of almighty Heav­en it is just pos­si­ble you may one day see your fa­ther once more.”

The girl burst in­to tears, and Robert seized La­dy Gle­nar­van’s hand and cov­ered it with kiss­es.

As soon as they grew calmer they asked a com­plete string of ques­tions, and La­dy He­le­na re­count­ed the whole sto­ry of the doc­ument, telling them that their fa­ther had been wrecked on the coast of Patag­onia, and that he and two sailors, the sole sur­vivors, ap­peared to have reached the shore, and had writ­ten an ap­peal for help in three lan­guages and com­mit­ted it to the care of the waves.

Dur­ing the recital, Robert Grant was de­vour­ing the speak­er with his eyes, and hang­ing on her lips. His child­ish imag­ina­tion ev­ident­ly re­traced all the scenes of his fa­ther’s ship­wreck. He saw him on the deck of the BRI­TAN­NIA, and then strug­gling with the bil­lows, then cling­ing to the rocks, and ly­ing at length ex­haust­ed on the beach.

More than once he cried out, “Oh, pa­pa! my poor pa­pa!” and pressed close to his sis­ter.

Miss Grant sat silent and mo­tion­less, with clasped hands, and all she said when the nar­ra­tion end­ed, was: “Oh, ma’am, the pa­per, please!”

“I have not it now, my dear child,” replied La­dy He­le­na.

“You haven’t it?”

“No. Lord Gle­nar­van was obliged to take it to Lon­don, for the sake of your fa­ther; but I have told you all it con­tained, word for word, and how we man­aged to make out the com­plete sense from the frag­ments of words left–all ex­cept the lon­gi­tude, un­for­tu­nate­ly.”

“We can do with­out that,” said the boy.

“Yes, Mr. Robert,” re­joined La­dy He­le­na, smil­ing at the child’s de­cid­ed tone. “And so you see, Miss Grant, you know the small­est de­tails now just as well as I do.”

“Yes, ma’am, but I should like to have seen my fa­ther’s writ­ing.”

“Well, to-​mor­row, per­haps, to-​mor­row, Lord Gle­nar­van will be back. My hus­band de­ter­mined to lay the doc­ument be­fore the Lords of the Ad­mi­ral­ty, to in­duce them to send out a ship im­me­di­ate­ly in search of Cap­tain Grant.”

“Is it pos­si­ble, ma’am,” ex­claimed the girl, “that you have done that for us?”

“Yes, my dear Miss Grant, and I am ex­pect­ing Lord Gle­nar­van back ev­ery minute now.”

“Oh, ma’am! Heav­en bless you and Lord Gle­nar­van,” said the young girl, fer­vent­ly, over­come with grate­ful emo­tion.”

“My dear girl, we de­serve no thanks; any­one in our place would have done the same. I on­ly trust the hopes we are lead­ing you to en­ter­tain may be re­al­ized, but till my hus­band re­turns, you will re­main at the Cas­tle.”

“Oh, no, ma’am. I could not abuse the sym­pa­thy you show to strangers.”

“Strangers, dear child!” in­ter­rupt­ed La­dy He­le­na; “you and your broth­er are not strangers in this house, and I should like Lord Gle­nar­van to be able on his ar­rival to tell the chil­dren of Cap­tain Grant him­self, what is go­ing to be done to res­cue their fa­ther.”

It was im­pos­si­ble to refuse an in­vi­ta­tion giv­en with such heart, and Miss Grant and her broth­er con­sent­ed to stay till Lord Gle­nar­van re­turned.