CHAPTER XXIX

IN STRANGE LANDS

Mr. Winslow and his nephew Edward Norman were sportsmen who, as many other sportsmen had done before them and have done since, had gone as pa.s.sengers with the sealing fleet that they might see the big ice and secure for themselves trophies of the seal hunt of their own killing.

And so it came about that they met Bobby, and took him under their care.

Indeed, Mr. Winslow felt an unusual interest in the lad from the moment he met him, for Bobby had an open, frank countenance and a pleasing manner.

But they would not permit him to talk or tell them much of his story until they had him on shipboard, and Bobby had eaten and bathed and changed his ill-smelling skin clothing for a suit that Edward Norman pressed upon him. And though the clothes were a trifle large, and the trousers two or three inches longer than was necessary, they set Bobby off to good advantage and wrought a wonderful change in his appearance.

"You're to stay in the cabin as our guest," said Mr. Winslow when Bobby was dressed, and would have gone forward to the sailors' quarters. "I have arranged it with the Captain. I am very much interested in what you said about Skipper Ed. His name, you said, is Edward Norman. Who is he?"

"Skipper Ed's our nearest neighbor," Bobby explained simply.

"Do you call him 'Skipper' because he is a sea captain? Has he always lived on the Labrador coast? You see," added Mr. Winslow, "I'm greatly interested because his name is the same as my nephew's. It is a strange coincidence, and we should like to learn all about him."

"We've always called him 'Skipper,'" answered Bobby. "He was a sailor once, but that was long before I came. He's lived at Abel's Bay, I heard him say, over twenty years. He's told Jimmy and me a lot about Harvard College, and when he was a boy he lived in a place called Carrington--"

"What! Carrington?" exclaimed Mr. Winslow. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, sir," said Bobby. "He's often told Jimmy and me about his home there when he was a boy."

The two men looked at each other and they were plainly excited, and in an intensely expectant voice Mr. Winslow asked:

"Did he ever speak of his family?"

"Yes, sir--of his father and mother and brother and sister," said Bobby.

"Anything else?"

"Why, yes, sir; about the trees and flowers and garden and--"

"I mean about himself," interrupted Mr. Winslow. "Did he ever tell you about a bank, or why he left home?"

"No, sir," said Bobby. "I remember, though, a story he used to tell us about two boys whose father had a bank. One borrowed some money from the bank and lost it gambling, and because he had a wife and little child the other brother told their father that he did it, though he didn't know anything about it until after it was done. The brother that took the money tried to stop him. The father of the boys sent the one who said he took the money away, and he went and settled in a land like The Labrador, and never saw his old home or any of his people again."

The two men were leaning eagerly forward during this recital. When Bobby had finished they sat back and looked into each other's eyes, and after a moment Mr. Winslow spoke:

"There is no doubt, Edward, that Skipper Ed is your uncle--your father's brother who disappeared so long ago, when you were a baby."

"Yes," agreed Edward, "and we must go to him and take him home again."

"You--don't--mean--you're Skipper Ed's people?" stammered the astonished Bobby.

"Yes," said Mr. Winslow, "Edward's father and Skipper Ed were, I believe from what you have told us, brothers, and in that case Mrs. Winslow is Skipper Ed's sister. She was a little girl when he went away. We must look into the matter, and we shall all be very glad if it proves to be true."

And then they talked for a long while, and drew from Bobby the story of their life at Abel's Bay--of how Skipper Ed had taught him and Jimmy, and the evenings spent in talking and studying in the easy chairs before the big box stove in Skipper Ed's cabin, and about Abel Zachariah and Mrs. Abel--so much, in fact, about their daily lives and hopes and disappointments that presently his two hearers felt that they had known Bobby and his friends all their life.

And Bobby told them the story of his own coming to the Coast, as he had heard it from Abel and Mrs. Abel many a time, of how he had been found drifting in a boat with a dead man, of the grave Abel had made on Itigailit Island for his dead companion, and the cairn he himself had built.

"We have the boat yet," said Bobby, "for it was a good boat. Father has always taken great care of it. He and Mother always say it's the boat G.o.d sent me in out of the mists from the far beyond, where storms are born."

"What a romantic life you've led!" said Edward. "Your very advent upon the Coast was romantic--and tragic. And the way we found you today is no less so."

"Have you no clue that would help you identify yourself? No clue as to where you came from? Was there nothing to identify the dead man?" asked Mr. Winslow.

"No," answered Bobby, "and I've never thought about it very much. Mother has the clothes I wore, wrapped in a bundle and stowed into a chest.

I've often seen the bundle, but I never undid it or meddled with it for she prizes it so."

"It was probably a boat from a whaling or fishing ship that was wrecked," Mr. Winslow suggested. "Perhaps you were the captain's son.

You should look into the bundle; it may help to identify you, and you may have relatives living, perhaps in Newfoundland, who would be glad to know of you."

For two weeks the _Fearless_, which was the ship upon which Mr. Winslow and his nephew were pa.s.sengers, remained near the ice, her crew of nearly two hundred men engaged in killing seals and in loading them aboard, and then at last, with a cargo of nearly forty thousand carca.s.ses, she set sail to the southward.

The days were lengthening rapidly now, and with every mile the atmosphere grew milder. The Labrador coast was still ice-bound, and it would be many weeks before the harbors were cleared and vessels could enter them, but Mr. Winslow promised Bobby that as early as conditions would permit they would sail northward to Abel's Bay, and perhaps charter a vessel for the journey. Indeed, he and Edward were nearly if not quite as anxious for this as Bobby.

It was during the first week in April that the _Fearless_ steamed into St. John's harbor, and Bobby for the first time in his life saw a city, and great buildings, and railway trains, and horses--horses were his great mark of admiration--and very shy he was, for he had been transported to a world that was new to him.

And then, in a swirl of ever-growing wonders, they were away on a railway train, and for a night on a steamer, and again on a train, moving at a gait that made Bobby's head whirl, and at last budding trees were seen, and green fields--all the marvelous things of which Skipper Ed had so often told him.

At last they left the train one evening at Carrington, which, as everyone knows, is a suburb of Boston. Bobby was hurried with Mr.

Winslow and Edward Norman into an automobile, which whirled away with them to a great old house, where they were greeted at the door by Mrs.

Winslow, whom Bobby thought nice and motherly, and whom he loved at once; and by a white-haired old gentleman and old lady who Bobby learned were Edward's grandparents.

Bobby was made quite dizzy by much talking and by innumerable questions that he was called upon to answer, and when Mrs. Winslow and the white-haired old lady cried at the story of Skipper Ed, and the old gentleman repeated over and over again: "Is it possible! Is it possible!

My poor Edward! My long lost boy!" he almost cried himself, though he could see nothing to cry about, really, except Jimmy's supposed death.

And then came wonderful days while Bobby watched the marvelous blossoming of the trees in the garden, and as they were transformed into ma.s.ses of pink and white, and flower beds became spots of glowing color, he believed a miracle had been performed before his very eyes--as, indeed, one had. And there were times when he believed he must be dreaming, and not living in the world at all, and then he would pinch himself to make certain he was really alive and awake, and that he had not perished on the ice after all and awakened in Paradise.

But in his room of nights when the lights were out and he was alone and all was still, he had many sleepless and homesick hours. Then it was he longed for the old times again in the cozy cabins, and for Abel Zachariah and Mrs. Abel, and Skipper Ed and Jimmy, and felt that he would give all the world to have them back.

And so the weeks pa.s.sed until the lengthening days of June were well advanced, and Mr. Winslow announced that he had chartered a small auxiliary schooner and that she was ready for the northern voyage, and then for two nights before their departure for St. John's, where the schooner was in waiting, Bobby could scarcely sleep at all, so eager was he to return home to Abel Zachariah and Mrs. Abel, that they might know he still lived, for he often thought of them there in the cabin, very lonely without him.

One day late in June Mr. and Mrs. Winslow, with Edward Norman and Bobby, went down to Boston, where they boarded their steamer, and immediately the lines were thrown off and the steamer had turned her prow seaward, Bobby nearly shouted with joy, and every throb of the steamer's engine, and every turn of the propeller, brought fresh delight to his heart, for they were beating away the miles that separated him from home.

In Halifax there was a day's vexatious delay while they awaited the St.

John's steamer, but at last it came, and at last they were on board the schooner _Gull_ in St. John's harbor, and at last the _Gull_ was plowing northward past stately icebergs glimmering in the sunshine, and vagrant pans of ice rising and falling on the swell, and home was drawing near.

CHAPTER x.x.x

THE MYSTERY CLEARED

How slowly those last days dragged away! Bobby could scarcely restrain his impatience. But one day in the middle of July Itigailit Island was sighted, and that evening the _Gull_ anch.o.r.ed in its lee. Abel Zachariah had not come out to his fishing yet, and the island was bare and deserted. Bobby's emotion nearly got the better of him when he remembered that stormy winter's day when he had last been here, with Skipper Ed and Jimmy.

They launched a motor boat with which they had provided themselves, and went ash.o.r.e for a half hour, while Bobby pointed out Abel's landing place, and the place where they always pitched their tent, and where the snow _igloo_ had stood. The seals were gone, so Bobby knew Skipper Ed and Abel had hauled them home before the ice broke up.