“Yes, my Lord, dearly. He was so good to me and my sister. We were his only thought: and whenever he came home from his voyages, we were sure of some SOUVENIR from all the places he had been to; and, better still, of loving words and caresses. Ah! if you knew him you would love him, too. Mary is most like him. He has a soft voice, like hers. That’s strange for a sailor, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Robert, very strange.”
“I see him still,” the boy went on, as if speaking to himself. “Good, brave papa. He put me to sleep on his knee, crooning an old Scotch ballad about the lochs of our country. The time sometimes comes back to me, but very confused like. So it does to Mary, too. Ah, my Lord, how we loved him. Well, I do think one needs to be little to love one’s father like that.”
“Yes, and to be grown up, my child, to venerate him,” replied Glenarvan, deeply touched by the boy’s genuine affection.
During this conversation the horses had been slackening speed, and were only walking now.
“You will find him?” said Robert again, after a few minutes’ silence.
“Yes, we’ll find him,” was Glenarvan’s reply, “Thalcave has set us on the track, and I have great confidence in him.”
“Thalcave is a brave Indian, isn’t he?” said the boy.
“That indeed he is.”
“Do you know something, my Lord?”