“They gave him up, and he is bound to me.”
“It was not much of a gift; I wonder so shrewd a man as I know you to be should have taken him with the expectation that anybody would ever take him off your hands.”
“I know, Mr. Whitman, you think we are all a set of brutes, and buy and sell these men just as a drover does cattle, but there’s a little humanity about some of us, after all.”
He then related the circumstances with which our readers are already familiar, saying, as he concluded the narration,—
“When I saw those miserable wretches with whom he was brought up, dressed up in stolen clothes, and he in rags that were dropping off him; heard them call him a fool because he would neither beg, lie, swear nor steal; and when, being determined to know the truth of it, I inquired and heard the story of the old nurse at the workhouse confirmed by the parish authorities,—a change came over me, and I determined to take this boy, but from very different motives from those that influenced me at first.”
“How so?”
“You see I had engaged, and had to pay for, berths to accommodate thirteen men, had been disappointed and had but twelve. The vessel was about ready for sea, I had to pick up some one in a hurry and thought I would take this boy. I knew I could get rid of him somehow so as to make myself whole in the matter of trade. But when I heard about the poor dying mother, and the good minister, I determined to take that boy, bring him over here, put him in some good family and give him a chance; and that family was yours, Mr. Whitman, and I have never offered this boy to any one else, never shall. If you do not take him I shall carry him to my house.”
“Body of me, why then did you come within two miles of your own house and bring him here? And what reason could you have for thinking that I of all persons in the State would take him?”
“I will tell you. You and I have known each other for more than twenty-five years. I have during that time felt the greatest respect for you, though you perhaps have cherished very little for me. I know how you treat your hired help and children, and believed that there was something in this boy after all,—stupid as misery has made him appear,—and that you could bring it out both for your benefit and his, whereas I cannot stay at home. I must be away the greater part of the time about my business, and at my place he would be left with my wife or hired men and small children. If I was to be at home, I would not part with him even to yourself.”
Peter could restrain himself no longer, but climbing upon the curbing of the millstone near which his father stood, flung his arms around his parent’s neck, exclaiming,—