“What would papa say to that?” said Robert, laughing. “He wants me to be a sailor.”
“The one won’t hinder the other. If all cavaliers wouldn’t make good sailors, there is no reason why all sailors should not make good horsemen. To keep one’s footing on the yards must teach a man to hold on firm; and as to managing the reins, and making a horse go through all sorts of movements, that’s easily acquired. Indeed, it comes naturally.”
“Poor father,” said Robert; “how he will thank you for saving his life.”
“Yes, my Lord, dearly. He was so good to me and my sister. We were his only thought: and whenever he came home from his voyages, we were sure of some SOUVENIR from all the places he had been to; and, better still, of loving words and caresses. Ah! if you knew him you would love him, too. Mary is most like him. He has a soft voice, like hers. That’s strange for a sailor, isn’t it?”
“I see him still,” the boy went on, as if speaking to himself. “Good, brave papa. He put me to sleep on his knee, crooning an old Scotch ballad about the lochs of our country. The time sometimes comes back to me, but very confused like. So it does to Mary, too. Ah, my Lord, how we loved him. Well, I do think one needs to be little to love one’s father like that.”
“Yes, and to be grown up, my child, to venerate him,” replied Glenarvan, deeply touched by the boy’s genuine affection.
During this conversation the horses had been slackening speed, and were only walking now.
“You will find him?” said Robert again, after a few minutes’ silence.
“Yes, we’ll find him,” was Glenarvan’s reply, “Thalcave has set us on the track, and I have great confidence in him.”
“Thalcave is a brave Indian, isn’t he?” said the boy.
“That all the people you have with you are brave. Lady Helena, whom I love so, and the Major, with his calm manner, and Captain Mangles, and Monsieur Paganel, and all the sailors on the DUNCAN. How courageous and devoted they are.”
“Yes, my boy, I know that,” replied Glenarvan.
“And do you know that you are the best of all.”
“Well, it is time you did, my Lord,” said the boy, seizing his lordship’s hand, and covering it with kisses.
Glenarvan shook his head, but said no more, as a gesture from Thalcave made them spur on their horses and hurry forward.