Chapter 22

“You know that I did not find this man, this Hoskins, at Lancaster. By his direction I sought him in London, and, after some trouble, found him. He was busy in his own affairs, and it was difficult to get at him; but, by perseverance, and asking him to dine with me at a coffee-house, I at last succeeded. He is a native of Ravenglass, a miserable town on the seashore of Cumberland, with which I am well acquainted, for it is not far from Dromore. He emigrated to America before I was born; and after various speculations, is at last settled at Boston, in some sort of trade, the exigences of which brought him over here, and he seized the opportunity to visit his family. There they were, still inhabiting the forlorn town of Ravenglass; their cottage still looking out on a dreary extent of sand, mud, and marsh; and the far mountains, which would seem to invite the miserable dwellers of the flats to shelter themselves in their green recesses, but they invite in vain.

“Hoskins found his mother, a woman nearly a hundred years of age, alive; and a widowed sister living with her, surrounded by a dozen children of all ages. He passed two days with them, and naturally recurred to the changes that had taken place in the neighbourhood. He had at one time had dealings with the steward of Dromore, and had seen my father. When he emigrated, Sir Boyvill had just married. Hoskins asked how it went on with him and his bride. It is our glorious fate to be in the mouths of the vulgar, so he heard the story of my mother’s mysterious flight; and, in addition to this, he was told of my boyish wanderings, my search for my mother, and my declaration that I would give two hundred pounds to any one through whose means I should discover her fate.

“The words fell at first upon a heedless ear, but the next morning it all at once struck him that he might gain the reward, and he wrote to me; and as I was described as a wanderer without a home, he wrote also to my father. When I saw him in town, he seemed ashamed of the trouble I had taken. ‘It is I who am to get the two hundred pounds,’ he said, ‘not you; the chance was worth wasting a little breath; but you may not think the little I have to tell worth your long journey.’

“At length I brought him to the point. At one period, a good many years ago, he was a settler in New-York, and by some chance he fell in with a man lately arrived from England, who asked his advice as to obtaining employment: he had some little money—some few hundred pounds, but he did not wish to sink it in trade or the purchase of land, but to get some situation with a tolerable salary, and keep his little capital at command. A strange way of using money and time in America! but such was the fancy of the stranger; he said he should not be easy unless he could draw out his money at any time, and emigrate at an hour’s notice. This man’s name was Osborne; he was shrewd, ready-witted, and good-natured, but idle, and even unprincipled. ‘He did me a good turn once,’ said Hoskins, ‘which makes me unwilling to do him a bad one; but you cannot injure him, I think, in America. He has risen in the world since the time I mention, and has an employment under our minister at Mexico. After all, he did not tell me much, and what I learned came out in long talks by degrees, during a journey or two we took together to the West. He had been a traveller, a soldier in the East. Indies, and unlucky everywhere; and it had gone hard with him at one time in Bengal, but for the kindness of a friend. He was a gentleman far above him in station who got him out of trouble, and paid his passage to England; and afterward, when this gentleman returned himself to the island, he found Osborne in trouble again, and again he assisted him. In short, sir, it came out, that if this gentleman (Osborne would never tell his name) stood his friend, it was not for nothing this time. There was a lady to be carried off. Osborne swore he did not know who—he thought it a runaway match; but it turned out something worse, for never did girl take on so for leaving her home with a lover. I tell the story badly, for I never got the rights of it. It ended tragically—the lady died—was drowned, as well as I could make out, in some river. You know how dangerous the streams are on our coast.

“‘It was the naming Cumberland and our estuaries that set me asking questions, which frightened Osborne. When he found that I was a native of that part of the world, he grew as mute as a fish, and never a word more of lady or friend did I get from him; except, as I guessed, he was well rewarded, and sent over the water out of the way; and he swore he believed that the gentleman was dead too. It was no murder—that he averred, but a sad tragic accident that might look like one; and he grew as white as a sheet if ever I tried to bring him to speak of it again. It haunted his thoughts nevertheless: and he would talk in his sleep, and dream of being hanged—and mutter about a grave dug in the sands, and there being no parson; and the dark breakers of the ocean—and horses scampering away, and the lady’s wet hair—nothing regular, but such as often made me waken him; for in wild nights, such mutterings were no lullaby.