The next day the Saga sailed away, leaving Breeze behind, and it was a week before she returned. The first notice the McClouds had of her coming back was the appearance of Lord Seabright at their cottage late one evening.
He greeted Mrs. McCloud and the captain, and then, turning to Breeze with out-stretched hand, he said, “Cousin Tristram, I am proud to welcome you as a relative, and as master of Tresmont. How soon will you go back to England with me?”
Before Breeze could answer, Lord Seabright turned to the others, and told them the whole story. He ended it by stating that he had discovered the rascally jeweller in New York, and compelled him to own up to his villany and admit the falsity of his claim upon Tresmont.
“Now,” he said, “I want to take Cousin Tristram home with me, and place him where he may become fitted to take charge of the great English estate that will be his as soon as he comes of age.”
“But I don’t want to become an Englishman!” exclaimed Breeze, now finding a chance to speak. “I am an American by birth, I have grown up as an American, and an American I mean to be, just so long as I live. Oh, sir! if you are truly my cousin, as you say you are, I would a thousand times rather you would keep whatever English property might be mine, and leave me here to live with those whom I love and who love me.”
No entreaties nor inducements in the shape of the brilliant career open to him in England could alter his determination. He said that while he should be proud to be an Englishman if he had been born in England, having been born in Yankee land, he was more proud than anything of being a Yankee, and that he would not exchange that title for any other in the world.
Finally Lord Seabright, who had always been anxious to possess the Tresmont property, which adjoined his own, said,
“Well, Cousin Tristram, I do not know but that you are right. A man can have but one country, and the one he will always love the most is the one in which he was born and has passed the first twenty years of his life. Such being my belief, I will make you this offer: I will purchase Tresmont of you, if you are willing to sell it, when you become of age, paying you its full money value. Besides this, you will have a handsome income from the invested property left by your grandfather. The only conditions that I attach to my offer are that in the mean time you will complete your education in the best American university, and that you will spend every summer vacation for the next three years with me in England.”
“It’s a bargain, sir,” cried Breeze, “provided I can have money enough now to pay Wolfe Brady’s expenses through college as well as my own.”
“My dear fellow,” replied Lord Seabright, “there is money enough already held in trust for you from Tresmont to pay the expenses of every boy in this town through college, and you would be welcome to as much more if you wanted it.”