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 passengers, 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
carcasses, 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, whe
|