With Wolfe in Canada: The Winning of a Continent

by G. A. Henty

"Nothing to say to her, ma'am! Why, he will be off his head with joy. Didn't he search for her, and advertise for her, and do all he could to find her for months? It wasn't till he tried for over a year that he gave it up, and sent for Richard Horton to come to him."

"Her grandfather can only judge by what he knows, John. He tells me that the son wrote to his father, over and over again, on his deathbed, and that he never came near him, or took any notice of the letters."

"That's true enough, ma'am," the butler said sadly; "and it is what has pretty nigh broken the squire's heart. He was obstinate like at first, and he took me with him when he travelled about across the sea among the foreigners, and when he was at a place they called Athens, he got a fever and he was down for weeks. We came home by sea, and the winds was foul, and we made a long voyage of it, and when we got home there was letters that had been lying months and months for us, and among them was those letters of Master Herbert's.

"The squire wasn't an hour in the house afore the carriage was round to the door, and we posted as hard as horses could take us right across England to Broadstairs, never stopping a minute except to change horses; and when we got there it was a month too late, and there was nothing to do but to go to the churchyard, and to see the stone under which Master Herbert and his young wife was laid.

"The house where they had died was shut up. There had been a sale, and the man who was the father of Master Herbert's wife was gone, and we learned there had been a baby born, and that had gone too. The squire was like a madman, blaming himself for his son's death, and a-raving to think what must Master Herbert have thought of him, when he never answered his letters. I had a terrible time with him, and then he set to work to find the child; but, as I told you, we never did find it, or hear a word of it from that time to this, and the squire has never held up his head. He will be pretty well out of his mind with joy."

"I am very glad to hear what you say, John," Mrs. Walsham said. "I could hardly fancy the squire, who always has borne such a name for kindness, being so hard that he would not listen to his dying son's entreaties."

"No, ma'am. The squire was hard for a bit. Master Herbert's marriage was a sad disappointment to him. He had made up his mind he was going to do so well, and to cut such a figure in the world; but he would have come round. Lord bless you, he only meant to hold out for a bit. When he was ill at Athens, he was talking all the time about forgiving his son, and I could see how hard it had been to him to keep separated from him. On the voyage home he fidgeted ever so at the delay, and I knew that the first thing he did, when he got back, would be to write to Master Herbert and tell him to bring his wife down to the Hall. There's not a hard corner in the squire's heart.

"I thank the good God for the news you have told me, ma'am; it's the best I ever heard in all my life."

Mrs. Walsham now told him how the child had been brought up, and then the sergeant himself, who was waiting in the next room, was brought in; and to him John Petersham related the story of the squire's illness, the reason of the letters not reaching him for months after they had been written, and his intense sorrow and self reproach at having arrived too late, and told him of the efforts that had been made to find the child. The sergeant listened in grave silence.

"I am glad it is so," he said, after a pause. "I have misjudged the squire, and I am glad of it. It will be a blow to me to lose the child. I do not pretend that it won't; but it is for her good, and I must be content. He can hardly object to my seeing her sometimes, and if I know that she is well and happy, that is all I care for; and now the sooner it's over the better. Can she come up this evening?"