The rest of the evening was spent in mutual inquiries, and Anna listened with an agitated mind to the brief account her father gave of his former life.
[CHAPTER XIV.]
"After leaving Downash," said Eastwood, "I went, as was reported, to sea, and what passed there I would willingly hide from all my friends; suffice it to say, though I always wished to be considered as a gentleman, my manners were so different from what properly belongs to that character, that none would admit me into their company; and I associated with the lowest of the crew; spending my time as they did, and oftener drunk than sober. But let me pass over what it pains me to remember; I was more than once or twice nearly drowned by my own temerity; and two of the ships in which I was, were wrecked, from which I narrowly escaped with my life. For nearly eighteen years I lived this miserable life; discharged from ship to ship on account of my behaviour, till at the end of that time I contracted a very severe illness, which brought me a little to my senses. I was confined to my bed with a rheumatic fever nearly twelve months; three of which I was on board a vessel which put me on shore at Hull, in Yorkshire; and though it was in this country that I was born, I did not know I had any relations left there, for I am ashamed to say, I had never inquired for them. On my first setting out in life, being taken from home very early, and the favourite of my schoolmaster, who overrated my abilities when he recommended me to a medical friend of his, to teach me the profession; I thought myself much above the rest of my family; and on coming to London with my new master, I soon forgot them all. But I am departing from my story, and relating the follies of my youth instead of those of riper age. Alas! what a retrospection is mine! You, Mr. Campbell, can look back on a well-spent life; I only on infamy!" His silence spoke his distress; and Mr. Campbell, wishing to relieve it, said:—
"I think I have heard you mention a brother."
"And it is to that brother," replied Eastwood, "next to Divine Providence, that I am what I now am. When I first knew you I was ashamed of him, and my pride made me tell you an untruth (Oh, that pride should descend to such meanness!) in saying that he was in business for himself; but at that time he was only a shopman, and not being of so dissipated and idle a turn as I was, we never met during the time I mentioned. When I was put on shore at Hull, quite a stranger, though within a few miles of my native place, very ill, and without the use of my limbs, or any money in my pocket, except a very small overplus of my pay, which was left after discharging the surgeon's bill, who attended me on board; my conduct had not been such as to gain me any friends in the ship, and but for the humanity of one of the common sailors, who got me a lodging at a small public-house, I must have perished in the streets. But what I suffered was little, very little to what I deserved. And now I had time to look back and reflect on the past, though I would have drowned reflection as I had often done before, had not the people of the house refused to bring me any liquor. I wish to shorten my tale as much as I can, and will only say, that my brother, who had opened a shop in Hull, and was very prosperous in business, heard my name; and his compassion induced him to come and see if it was his brother, who was formerly ashamed to call him by that name; but, poor and wretched as I was, he was not ashamed of me. He removed me to his own house, where both himself and his wife treated me with the kindest attention.
"Oh, how is it," said he, interrupting his narrative, "how is it, that all my life through I have met with the kindest treatment from those of whom I least deserved it? and now again I experience it; what can I say for myself?
"The best medical aid was procured me, and I had sufficient time, as I said before, to reflect on my past life; and bitter reflections these were. I seemed now for the first time to recollect that I had a daughter; and when sufficiently recovered to undertake the journey, I told my brother I was determined to find her, if she was alive. I preferred coming in person to writing, because I could say nothing good of myself; but my brother told me, that, contrary to every appearance in our younger days, my father had prospered in the small farm he rented when I left him, and had left what little property he died possessed of, between us. 'Your share, and the interest due upon it since his death,' said he, 'shall be yours on your return to Hull; and should you be so fortunate as to find your child alive, let me advise you to settle it on her; and if my hopes of your reformation are realized, it may still be in your power to add to it by an attention to business, in whatever line you choose to enter.'
"I thanked him for his generosity and advice, determined not to accept the former, unless I found my child in a situation that needed it.