Captain Scarsdale, who was a cautious man, wrote down all that was told him, and induced the man to sign it. He then instantly sent for the other two men, and telling them what he knew, induced them to confess the truth, and, partly by threats, and partly by persuasions, made them sign the same document. He then carefully locked it up in his chest, and being an upright and kind-hearted man, it was with great satisfaction that he believed he had it in his power to right the wronged.
“Man proposes, God disposes,” is a proverb, day after day proved to be true in the lives of every man. The sick seaman recovered, and he and his comrades, after serving some months on board deserted the ship; and although Captain Scarsdale hunted everywhere, he could gain no further tidings of them.
The child thus strangely found became a fine intelligent boy, and attached himself warmly to him. His recollections, faint though they were, all tended to corroborate the account the seamen had given. Captain Scarsdale would have sent home the information he had received, and placed the cause of the boy in proper hands; but the men having disappeared, he was afraid to trust the document to a stranger, with the numberless chances of a long sea voyage, against its ever reaching its destination. Unexpected events, however, kept him out in the South Seas far longer than he had anticipated. He did not object to this, for he had the boy as his companion, and he devoted himself to his education. Young Rolf did not show any great talent, but he gave every promise of becoming a fine, manly, true-hearted sailor, and with that his kind patron was amply satisfied.
At length, just as the ship had nearly completed her cargo of sperm oil, and was about to return home, she was overtaken by a hurricane, and driven on shore and lost; the crew were saved, and so was the captain’s chest. Most of Captain Scarsdale’s hard-earned gains were swallowed up; and the command of another whaler, whose master had died, being offered him, he gladly accepted it, in the hopes that, by remaining out a few years longer, he should be able to retrieve his fortunes; and what was still nearer his heart, of obtaining the means for, as he told his acquaintance, of establishing young Morton’s rights. What he considered those rights to be he wisely told no one.
“No, no,” he replied, when asked; “no one but a fool sounds a trumpet before him to give notice of his approach, that the enemy may be prepared to receive him.”
Rolf Morton had by this time become all that his friend anticipated; but though well-informed for his age, his knowledge of the world and its ways, it must be owned, was not extensive.
The ship was bound to Liverpool, but being dismasted in a terrific gale, she was driven past the entrance to the Channel, and up the west coast of Ireland. Land was made at last on the starboard bow, and hopes were entertained that she might be brought round so as to enter the Irish Channel by the northern passage. Captain Scarsdale himself lay in his hammock, disabled by a falling spar.
Scarcely an hour had passed after the land was seen before the ship struck. It was ascertained that it was on the extreme point of a reef, and the first mate hoped that by lightening the ship she might beat over it. The captain acquiesced, and every article that could be got at was, as soon as possible, committed to the sea.
“Yes, heave away—heave away everything you can lay your hands on, lads!” was the order. “It will matter but little, I suspect, after all.”
Among other things thrown overboard was the captain’s chest; the mate saw it just as it reached the foaming sea, too late to save it. He said nothing to the captain: he believed that the ship herself would be lost, but his prognostications proved wrong; the good ship drove over the bank, weathered out the gale, jury-masts were got up, and she not only got into the Irish Channel, but safe up the Mersey, without any help whatever.