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

CHAPTER IV LADY GLENARVAN’S PROPOSAL

LA­DY HE­LE­NA thought it best to say noth­ing to the chil­dren about the fears Lord Gle­nar­van had ex­pressed in his let­ters re­spect­ing the de­ci­sions of the Lords of the Ad­mi­ral­ty with re­gard to the doc­ument. Nor did she men­tion the prob­able cap­tiv­ity of Cap­tain Grant among the In­di­ans of South Amer­ica. Why sad­den the poor chil­dren, and damp their new­ly cher­ished hopes? It would not in the least al­ter the ac­tu­al state of the case; so not a word was said, and af­ter an­swer­ing all Miss Grant’s ques­tions, La­dy He­le­na be­gan to in­ter­ro­gate in her turn, ask­ing her about her past life and her present cir­cum­stances.

It was a touch­ing, sim­ple sto­ry she heard in re­ply, and one which in­creased her sym­pa­thy for the young girl.

Mary and Robert were the cap­tain’s on­ly chil­dren. Har­ry Grant lost his wife when Robert was born, and dur­ing his long voy­ages he left his lit­tle ones in charge of his cousin, a good old la­dy. Cap­tain Grant was a fear­less sailor. He not on­ly thor­ough­ly un­der­stood nav­iga­tion, but com­merce al­so–a two-​fold qual­ifi­ca­tion em­inent­ly use­ful to skip­pers in the mer­chant ser­vice. He lived in Dundee, in Perthshire, Scot­land. His fa­ther, a min­is­ter of St. Ka­trine’s Church, had giv­en him a thor­ough ed­uca­tion, as he be­lieved that could nev­er hurt any­body.

Har­ry’s voy­ages were pros­per­ous from the first, and a few years af­ter Robert was born, he found him­self pos­sessed of a con­sid­er­able for­tune.

It was then that he pro­ject­ed the grand scheme which made him pop­ular in Scot­land. Like Gle­nar­van, and a few no­ble fam­ilies in the Low­lands, he had no heart for the union with Eng­land. In his eyes the in­ter­ests of his coun­try were not iden­ti­fied with those of the An­glo-​Sax­ons, and to give scope for per­son­al de­vel­op­ment, he re­solved to found an im­mense Scotch colony on one of the ocean con­ti­nents. Pos­si­bly he might have thought that some day they would achieve their in­de­pen­dence, as the Unit­ed States did–an ex­am­ple doubt­less to be fol­lowed even­tu­al­ly by Aus­tralia and In­dia. But what­ev­er might be his se­cret mo­tives, such was his dream of col­oniza­tion. But, as is eas­ily un­der­stood, the Gov­ern­ment op­posed his plans, and put dif­fi­cul­ties enough in his way to have killed an or­di­nary man. But Har­ry would not be beat­en. He ap­pealed to the pa­tri­otism of his coun­try­men, placed his for­tune at the ser­vice of the cause, built a ship, and manned it with a picked crew, and leav­ing his chil­dren to the care of his old cousin set off to ex­plore the great is­lands of the Pa­cif­ic. This was in 1861, and for twelve months, or up to May, 1862, let­ters were reg­ular­ly re­ceived from him, but no tid­ings what­ev­er had come since his de­par­ture from Callao, in June, and the name of the BRI­TAN­NIA nev­er ap­peared in the Ship­ping List.

Just at this junc­ture the old cousin died, and Har­ry Grant’s two chil­dren were left alone in the world.

Mary Grant was then on­ly four­teen, but she re­solved to face her sit­ua­tion brave­ly, and to de­vote her­self en­tire­ly to her lit­tle broth­er, who was still a mere child. By dint of close econ­omy, com­bined with tact and pru­dence, she man­aged to sup­port and ed­ucate him, work­ing day and night, deny­ing her­self ev­ery­thing, that she might give him all he need­ed, watch­ing over him and car­ing for him like a moth­er.

The two chil­dren were liv­ing in this touch­ing man­ner in Dundee, strug­gling pa­tient­ly and coura­geous­ly with their pover­ty. Mary thought on­ly of her broth­er, and in­dulged in dreams of a pros­per­ous fu­ture for him. She had long giv­en up all hope of the BRI­TAN­NIA, and was ful­ly per­suad­ed that her fa­ther was dead. What, then, was her emo­tion when she ac­ci­den­tal­ly saw the no­tice in the TIMES!

She nev­er hes­itat­ed for an in­stant as to the course she should adopt, but de­ter­mined to go to Dum­bar­ton­shire im­me­di­ate­ly, to learn the best and worst. Even if she were to be told that her fa­ther’s life­less body had been found on a dis­tant shore, or in the bot­tom of some aban­doned ship, it would be a re­lief from in­ces­sant doubt and tor­tur­ing sus­pense.

She told her broth­er about the ad­ver­tise­ment, and the two chil­dren start­ed off to­geth­er that same day for Perth, where they took the train, and ar­rived in the evening at Mal­colm Cas­tle.

Such was Mary Grant’s sor­row­ful sto­ry, and she re­count­ed it in so sim­ple and un­af­fect­ed a man­ner, that it was ev­ident she nev­er thought her con­duct had been that of a hero­ine through those long try­ing years. But La­dy He­le­na thought it for her, and more than once she put her arms round both the chil­dren, and could not re­strain her tears.

As for Robert, he seemed to have heard these par­tic­ulars for the first time. All the while his sis­ter was speak­ing, he gazed at her with wide-​open eyes, on­ly know­ing now how much she had done and suf­fered for him; and, as she end­ed, he flung him­self on her neck, and ex­claimed, “Oh, mam­ma! My dear lit­tle mam­ma!”

It was quite dark by this time, and La­dy He­le­na made the chil­dren go to bed, for she knew they must be tired af­ter their jour­ney. They were soon both sound asleep, dream­ing of hap­py days.

Af­ter they had re­tired. La­dy He­le­na sent for Ma­jor Mc­Nabbs, and told him the in­ci­dents of the evening.

“That Mary Grant must be a brave girl,” said the Ma­jor.

“I on­ly hope my hus­band will suc­ceed, for the poor chil­dren’s sake,” said his cousin. “It would be ter­ri­ble for them if he did not.”

“He will be sure to suc­ceed, or the Lords of the Ad­mi­ral­ty must have hearts hard­er than Port­land stone.”

But, notwith­stand­ing Mc­Nabbs’s as­sur­ance, La­dy He­le­na passed the night in great anx­iety, and could not close her eyes.

Mary Grant and her broth­er were up very ear­ly next morn­ing, and were walk­ing about in the court­yard when they heard the sound of a car­riage ap­proach­ing. It was Lord Gle­nar­van; and, al­most im­me­di­ate­ly, La­dy He­le­na and the Ma­jor came out to meet him.

La­dy He­le­na flew to­ward her hus­band the mo­ment he alight­ed; but he em­braced her silent­ly, and looked gloomy and dis­ap­point­ed– in­deed, even fu­ri­ous.

“Well, Ed­ward?” she said; “tell me.”

“Well, He­le­na, dear; those peo­ple have no heart!”

“They have re­fused?”

“Yes. They have re­fused me a ship! They talked of the mil­lions that had been wast­ed in search for Franklin, and de­clared the doc­ument was ob­scure and un­in­tel­li­gi­ble. And, then, they said it was two years now since they were cast away, and there was lit­tle chance of find­ing them. Be­sides, they would have it that the In­di­ans, who made them pris­on­ers, would have dragged them in­to the in­te­ri­or, and it was im­pos­si­ble, they said, to hunt all through Patag­onia for three men–three Scotch­men; that the search would be vain and per­ilous, and cost more lives than it saved. In short, they as­signed all the rea­sons that peo­ple in­vent who have made up their minds to refuse. The truth is, they re­mem­bered Cap­tain Grant’s projects, and that is the se­cret of the whole af­fair. So the poor fel­low is lost for ev­er.”

“My fa­ther! my poor fa­ther!” cried Mary Grant, throw­ing her­self on her knees be­fore Lord Gle­nar­van, who ex­claimed in amaze­ment:

“Your fa­ther? What? Is this Miss–“

“Yes, Ed­ward,” said La­dy He­le­na; “this is Miss Mary Grant and her broth­er, the two chil­dren con­demned to or­phan­age by the cru­el Ad­mi­ral­ty!”

“Oh! Miss Grant,” said Lord Gle­nar­van, rais­ing the young girl, “if I had known of your pres­ence–“

He said no more, and there was a painful si­lence in the court­yard, bro­ken on­ly by sobs. No one spoke, but the very at­ti­tude of both ser­vants and mas­ters spoke their in­dig­na­tion at the con­duct of the En­glish Gov­ern­ment.

At last the Ma­jor said, ad­dress­ing Lord Gle­nar­van: “Then you have no hope what­ev­er?”

“None,” was the re­ply.

“Very well, then,” ex­claimed lit­tle Robert, “I’ll go and speak to those peo­ple my­self, and we’ll see if they–” He did not com­plete his sen­tence, for his sis­ter stopped him; but his clenched fists showed his in­ten­tions were the re­verse of pa­cif­ic.

“No, Robert,” said Mary Grant, “we will thank this no­ble lord and la­dy for what they have done for us, and nev­er cease to think of them with grat­itude; and then we’ll both go to­geth­er.”

“Mary!” said La­dy He­le­na, in a tone of sur­prise.

“Go where?” asked Lord Gle­nar­van.

“I am go­ing to throw my­self at the Queen’s feet, and we shall see if she will turn a deaf ear to the prayers of two chil­dren, who im­plore their fa­ther’s life.”

Lord Gle­nar­van shook his head; not that he doubt­ed the kind heart of her Majesty, but he knew Mary would nev­er gain ac­cess to her. Sup­pli­ants but too rarely reach the steps of a throne; it seems as if roy­al palaces had the same in­scrip­tion on their doors that the En­glish have on their ships: _Pas­sen­gers are re­quest­ed not to speak to the man at the wheel_.

La­dy Gle­nar­van un­der­stood what was pass­ing in her hus­band’s mind, and she felt the young girl’s at­tempt would be use­less, and on­ly plunge the poor chil­dren in deep­er de­spair. Sud­den­ly, a grand, gen­er­ous pur­pose fired her soul, and she called out: “Mary Grant! wait, my child, and lis­ten to what I’m go­ing to say.”

Mary had just tak­en her broth­er by the hand, and turned to go away; but she stepped back at La­dy He­le­na’s bid­ding.

The young wife went up to her hus­band, and said, with tears in her eyes, though her voice was firm, and her face beamed with an­ima­tion: “Ed­ward, when Cap­tain Grant wrote that let­ter and threw it in­to the sea, he com­mit­ted it to the care of God. God has sent it to us–to us! Un­doubt­ed­ly God in­tends us to un­der­take the res­cue of these poor men.”

“What do you mean, He­le­na?”

“I mean this, that we ought to think our­selves for­tu­nate if we can be­gin our mar­ried life with a good ac­tion. Well, you know, Ed­ward, that to please me you planned a plea­sure trip; but what could give us such gen­uine plea­sure, or be so use­ful, as to save those un­for­tu­nate fel­lows, cast off by their coun­try?”

“He­le­na!” ex­claimed Lord Gle­nar­van.

“Yes, Ed­ward, you un­der­stand me. The DUN­CAN is a good strong ship, she can ven­ture in the South­ern Seas, or go round the world if nec­es­sary. Let us go, Ed­ward; let us start off and search for Cap­tain Grant!”

Lord Gle­nar­van made no re­ply to this bold propo­si­tion, but smiled, and, hold­ing out his arms, drew his wife in­to a close, fond em­brace. Mary and Robert seized her hands, and cov­ered them with kiss­es; and the ser­vants who thronged the court­yard, and had been wit­ness­es of this touch­ing scene, shout­ed with one voice, “Hur­rah for the La­dy of Luss. Three cheers for Lord and La­dy Gle­nar­van!”