“And now, sir, I have no doubt in the world that you are the son of Mr. Tristram and his sweet young American wife, and the same little baby that I saw in its carriage. If you are, you are heir to Tresmont, own cousin to Lord Seabright, and your name is Tristram Coffin Tresmont.”
“Why,” said Breeze, “was my mother’s name Coffin?”
“Yes, Merab Coffin; and her father came from a place in America they call Nantucket, I believe.”
Wolfe was even more excited than Breeze over the tale they had just heard; the facts of which, if proved, would make such a difference in the fortunes of his dorymate. The glittering prospects of the future seemed to make but little impression upon Breeze; but they instantly flashed across Wolfe’s mind in all their brilliancy, and he asked his parents many questions concerning Tresmont. From them the boys learned that it was situated in the northern part of Lincolnshire, and overlooked the Humber with its broad fen-lands. They also learned that much of the family property was invested in the fisheries of Grimsby, which is the largest fishing port in the world.
“That alone would go a long way towards proving you the son of the family, ‘Sir Breeze,’” laughed Wolfe, “for you have taken as naturally to fishing as a dory to water. I told you that you were a prince in disguise, and you promised to remember me when you came into your kingdom. Now I claim the captaincy of your largest smack.”
“You shall be admiral of the whole fleet!” answered Breeze, with a smile. “You know, old man, that no matter what might happen, I could never forget the dorymate with whom I had drifted through the fogs of the Newfoundland Banks. By-the-way, how did you manage to get the brig into port after Nimbus and I left you in such a hurry?”
Wolfe told him of the cruise, of their safe arrival in Gloucester, of the meeting between Captain McCloud and the loving wife who had never given him up for lost, of the sadness occasioned by their boy’s absence, and of how his adopted mother still watched for him with a firm faith that he would yet return to her, of the salvage money received, and of so many other things, that more than an hour was occupied in the telling of them all.
Then Breeze had to narrate his adventures after tumbling overboard from the brig, and tell of being picked up by the Fish-hawk, of the great cuttle-fish, of finding the ambergris and losing the schooner, of Iceland and its wonderful geysers, and, in fact, of all that had happened to him since the dorymates had last seen each other on the deck of the Esmeralda. “And to think, Wolfe,” he said, “that this meeting is but the end of the cruise on which we started together so long ago, against our will, in the old Vixen!”
“It only goes to prove,” said Wolfe, “how very much stranger truth is than fiction. If all your adventures were written in a book, no one would ever believe they had ever actually happened. Would they, father?”
“Well, no, my son,” replied the squire. “I can’t say that they would, and I don’t know that anybody could be blamed for the doubting of them. Sir Wolfe used frequent to tell of the remarkable adventures of a gentleman of the name of Polo; but to my mind, these here of Mr. Breeze--begging his pardon, I mean Sir Tristram--beats them away out of sight.”