“Her name!” cried the captain, starting up.
“Calm yourself, my dear sir. I have made all needful arrangements for your going off to-morrow. It is too late to-day. Sit down and let me explain; and, above all, bear in mind that this may turn out to be a wrong scent after all. Of course you may surmise that we lawyers obtain our information from many and various sources. The source whence the information concerning your matter has come is peculiar, namely, a lay-missionary who is going to visit the ship to-morrow—having some friends on board. Happening to meet the man the other day, I mentioned your matter to him. He is a very sharp-witted man, and one whose accuracy of observation I should trust implicitly, even if his own interests were involved. Well, he said that on board of the steam-ship Talisman, now lying off Gravesend, he saw that very day a woman among the steerage emigrants who answered to my description exactly, and added that he had heard her spoken of as the wife of a somewhat dissipated man, who had all the appearance of a seafaring person, named Richards. Of course I attach no importance to the name, as you say you never knew it, but his being a sailor-like man, and the fact that he was probably beneath his wife in station, coupled with the correct description of the wife, while it does not justify our being too sanguine, raises our hopes, you see—”
“I see, I see—yes. I beg that you will give me the agent’s name and address,” cried the captain, whose hopes, despite the guarded and cautious statements of the solicitor, had been raised to the highest point.
“Here is his name, with the part of the river where you are to meet him,” said the calm man of law, handing his client a slip of paper; “but let me, my dear sir, impress on you the advisability of not allowing yourself to become too sanguine. Disappointments are invariably more severe in cases where expectations have been too high; and I fear that you may be already building too trustfully upon the very slender foundation supplied by this information.”
Admitting the force of this truism, and putting the slip of paper in his purse, Captain Bream bade his solicitor good-bye, with many protestations of undying gratitude, and left the room with the highest possible hopes of success.
Chapter Twenty Two.
In the Mission Boat on the Thames—The Damping of the Body cannot damp the Ardent Spirit.
Next morning Captain Bream accompanied the lay-missionary to Gravesend, where they took a boat and put off to the emigrant ship.