When I awoke next morning, the first thing I did was to reconnoitre how our little and most unexpected visitor held out. There lay the fair child, steeped in a balmy slumber, with his downy cheeks as peachlike and blooming as ever; even his hair, with the crystallized salt sparkling amongst it, once more curled thick and clustering round his magnificent forehead.
"Art them a thing of mortal birth,
Whose happy home is on our earth?
Does human blood with life embue
Those wandering veins of heavenly blue,
That stray along thy forehead fair,
Lost 'mid a gleam of golden hair?
Oh, can that light and airy breath
Steal from a being doomed to death;
Those features to the grave be sent,
In sleep thus mutely eloquent?
Or art thou what thy form would seem,
The phantom of a blessed dream?"
As I stooped over him he awoke, and stretched out his arms in the evident expectation of clasping some one that he had been accustomed to lie beside; alas! they touched the cold hard ship's side. He grew startled, and called on his mother and then on his father, on his grandfather, and his dear aunt Emily, waiting between each exclamation for the wonted caress or answer. His eye caught mine—he looked surprised, and peered anxiously all about the cabin, until at last, as if he really had comprehended the full extent of his desolation, he began to cry bitterly, and to sob as if his little heart would have burst. Lennox and I did every thing in our power to pacify him; but who could come in stead to him of those whose hearts were now cold for ever? I could not stand it, and went on deck, leaving him in the hands of the steward.
The weather was now clear, and the sea had gone down; the frigate was about a mile and a half on our lee-bow, carrying all sail, so that we had to crack on to keep up with her. During that forenoon and the following day we had no communication together; but about 11 A.M. on the third day after the ship had foundered, we got so well placed on her quarter as to be able to communicate without trumpets.
The commodore hailed first—"Sad accident that t'other day, Mr Lanyard."
"Very, sir."
"All hands lost, I presume?"
Before Dick could answer, he continued, evidently in great amazement, "What child is that, Mr Brail?" I looked round, and was a good deal surprised to see the figure the little stranger now cut. When picked up he had nothing on but his little frock and shift, which had been torn in the getting of him in; so Lennox and the sailmaker had rigged him in a tiny check-frock, with white lappels, a pair of little duck trowsers, with large horn buttons; very wide at the feet, and very tight at the waist—cut in the very extreme of nautical dandyism; little white canvass shoes, and a small tarpauling hat. They had even hung by a piece of spunyarn a small horn-handled clasp-knife round his neck, so that he was a complete topman in miniature.
Childlike, for he could not have been three years old at the most, he had already taken to the men, and was playing with the pet lamb, that was making believe to buck him with its head; and indeed every now and then it would knock over the little fellow, but without hurting him, and roll about with him on the deck.
"What child is that? And I see you have some live stock—where got you the sheep?"