Dorymates: A Tale of the Fishing BanksMunroe, Kirk
General
Dorymates: A Tale of the Fishing Banks
Munroe, Kirk
Newfoundland and Labrador -- Fiction
"Sir Wolfe was very angry at all this, for he had no love for the
Yankees, begging your pardon, sir, and he could not bear the thought of
his only son marrying one of them. What he wrote to Mr. Tristram I never
knew, but at any rate they did not come home for nearly two years, when
they brought their baby, which must have been you, sir, with them. Mrs.
Tristram, as we called her, was one of the sweetest young ladies as ever
I laid eyes on; but Sir Wolfe would not see her, and they stayed with
Mr. Tristram’s elder sister, who was my Lady Seabright.
"While they were there, I met the nurse one day wheeling the baby in his
little carriage, and when I stopped to look at him I took notice of this
very identical gold ball hanging around his neck. The nurse said it was
one of them puzzle-balls that Miss Merab--that was your mother, sir--had
got in the East Indies, and had had fixed up as a present for Mr.
Tristram. It was he himself fastened it to a gold chain and hung it
around the baby’s neck. I never saw the inside of it, but my wife there
did many a time, for she was stopping with my Lady Seabright, in place
of her own maid, who was sick all the time Mr. Tristram and his wife
were there.
"Finally they decided to go back to America, and as the doctor said a
long sea voyage would be the very best thing for Mrs. Tristram’s health,
they took passage on a sailing-ship, of which I mind the name well, it
being such a queer one. It was _Señora_, and from the day she left
Liverpool docks to this never a word has come from her, good or bad.
"Soon after that I left Sir Wolfe’s service, and he helped me start the
little business that I’ve followed ever since here in Queenstown, with
fairly good success, thanks to the Americans. I never saw him again; but
I heard he was never the same man after the ship his son had sailed in
was given up for lost. He died about six months ago, rest his soul, and
at that time the newspapers all over the world, but particular in
America, had advertisements in them asking for any information of Mr.
Tristram, or his wife, or their son, who would, if he was alive, be heir
to Tresmont. I saw some of the advertisements myself, and heard of
others from my American customers; but I never knew of any answer coming
to them, and I don’t suppose there ever was one.
“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.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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