Breeze stared in amazement at Wolfe’s mother, and wondered what could possibly have affected her so greatly. Wolfe sprang to her side and helped her into a chair; while the squire, who had caught the golden ball as it was about to drop from his wife’s hand, now gazed at it as intently as though it were some charm that fascinated him.

“What is it, mother?” inquired Wolfe, anxiously.

“The Tresmont coat of arms,” she answered, faintly, “and the very locket my young lady gave to Mr. Tristram just after they were married. Oh, tell me, sir,” she said, turning to Breeze, “how did it come into your keeping? and what do you know of them it belonged to?”

“It has belonged to me,” answered Breeze, “since before I knew anything; for it was clasped about my neck when I was a baby, and picked up at sea floating in a cask.”

“Then,” exclaimed Wolfe’s mother, standing up in her excitement, “you must be the son of our own Mr. Tristram, and the heir to Tresmont! Don’t you see the likeness, husband? He is the very image of Mr. Tristram.”

Yes, the squire saw it, and had noticed it the very moment he set eyes on the young gentleman. Now it was plainer than ever to him. There were the same blue eyes, the same closely curling yellow hair, and the same tall straight figure. There could not be the slightest doubt of it.

Breeze was so bewildered by this wonderful turn of events, and by the tumult of conflicting emotions aroused by what he had just heard, that for a few moments he was speechless, and appeared like one in a dream. Finally finding his voice, he said to the squire,

“If you knew my real father and mother, sir, won’t you please tell me something of them?”

“Of course I will, sir; but it will make a long story to tell, even the little I knew of them. So we’d better seat ourselves comfortable-like; and with my wife here to help me where my memory fails, I think perhaps I may come at the telling of it understandingly.”

Thus saying, the worthy man began, and in spite of many interruptions from his wife and the questions asked by both Breeze and Wolfe, he finally succeeded in relating the following tale:

"As you already know, sir, before we were married both my wife and I lived in the family of Sir Wolfe Tresmont, of Tresmont in Lincolnshire, England, she as lady’s-maid and I as butler. When I first took service there Mr. Tristram was a fine young gentleman of about your own age, although the missis, having been brought up in the family, had known him from his boyhood.

"After I had been in the family for five years, one of which we had been married, Mr. Tristram got through with his college, and was sent off on his travels around the world. His mother died while he was gone, but his father heard from him regular.

"At last there came a long letter, telling as how Mr. Tristram had got married to an American young lady, who was the daughter of a ship captain. She went with her father to the East Indies, and somewhere out there Mr. Tristram met them, and engaged passage to New York on the same ship. They fell in love with each other on the voyage, and were married as soon as the ship reached port. Then he wrote to his father what he had done, and asked if he might bring his wife home.

"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.”

Wolfe was even more excited than Breeze over the tale they had just heard; the facts of which, if proved, would make such a difference in the fortunes of his dorymate. The glittering prospects of the future seemed to make but little impression upon Breeze; but they instantly flashed across Wolfe’s mind in all their brilliancy, and he asked his parents many questions concerning Tresmont. From them the boys learned that it was situated in the northern part of Lincolnshire, and overlooked the Humber with its broad fen-lands. They also learned that much of the family property was invested in the fisheries of Grimsby, which is the largest fishing port in the world.

“That alone would go a long way towards proving you the son of the family, ‘Sir Breeze,’” laughed Wolfe, “for you have taken as naturally to fishing as a dory to water. I told you that you were a prince in disguise, and you promised to remember me when you came into your kingdom. Now I claim the captaincy of your largest smack.”

“You shall be admiral of the whole fleet!” answered Breeze, with a smile. “You know, old man, that no matter what might happen, I could never forget the dorymate with whom I had drifted through the fogs of the Newfoundland Banks. By-the-way, how did you manage to get the brig into port after Nimbus and I left you in such a hurry?”

Wolfe told him of the cruise, of their safe arrival in Gloucester, of the meeting between Captain McCloud and the loving wife who had never given him up for lost, of the sadness occasioned by their boy’s absence, and of how his adopted mother still watched for him with a firm faith that he would yet return to her, of the salvage money received, and of so many other things, that more than an hour was occupied in the telling of them all.

Then Breeze had to narrate his adventures after tumbling overboard from the brig, and tell of being picked up by the Fish-hawk, of the great cuttle-fish, of finding the ambergris and losing the schooner, of Iceland and its wonderful geysers, and, in fact, of all that had happened to him since the dorymates had last seen each other on the deck of the Esmeralda. “And to think, Wolfe,” he said, “that this meeting is but the end of the cruise on which we started together so long ago, against our will, in the old Vixen!”

“It only goes to prove,” said Wolfe, “how very much stranger truth is than fiction. If all your adventures were written in a book, no one would ever believe they had ever actually happened. Would they, father?”

“Well, no, my son,” replied the squire. “I can’t say that they would, and I don’t know that anybody could be blamed for the doubting of them. Sir Wolfe used frequent to tell of the remarkable adventures of a gentleman of the name of Polo; but to my mind, these here of Mr. Breeze--begging his pardon, I mean Sir Tristram--beats them away out of sight.”

Thus talking, they all became hungry; and by the time they had finished the nice little supper that Wolfe’s mother prepared for them, and were ready to go to bed, it was long past midnight.

Breeze had been told one thing that evening that troubled him greatly, and it was that, in case he had not been found, Lord Seabright, who was now the executor of Sir Wolfe’s estate, would have inherited it. He could not bear the thought of thus stepping in and claiming a property that would otherwise belong to one who had shown him such great kindness.

It was this thought that caused him to assent rather reluctantly, when, after a late breakfast the next morning, Wolfe proposed that they should go on board the Saga, and see if her owner had rejoined her. At any rate, he said, he would like exceedingly to visit the yacht, and to renew his acquaintance with Nimbus.

When they reached the landing-place, the shrill sound of the silver whistle that Breeze carried soon brought a boat from the yacht to them; and as they were rowed off Breeze was relieved to learn that Lord Seabright had not arrived.

Wolfe was astonished, as well as delighted, with all that was shown him on board the beautiful craft; but nothing pleased him so much as the meeting with Nimbus, to whom he had taken a great fancy during their one day’s acquaintance on board the Esmeralda.

Nimbus was just lifting down a pan of flour from a high shelf as Wolfe appeared, unannounced, at the galley door. The black man started so violently at the sudden sight of one whom he supposed to be on the other side of the ocean that the pan of flour was upset, and he was instantly covered from head to foot as with a mantle of snow. Quickly recovering his presence of mind, the good-natured cook exclaimed,

“Golly! Misto Wolfe Brady. You scare um pore brack man so he turn white! Where you leab um ole Esmeral’ an’ de cap’n?”

Amid his shouts of laughter at the negro’s comical appearance, Wolfe helped to brush him off, and at the same time explained his own presence on board the Saga.

After a lunch, which Nimbus insisted upon getting for them, the young men returned to the city. As they were walking up the main business street, a carriage that was driven rapidly towards them suddenly drew up, and a cheery voice called out, “Hello, McCloud!”

It was Lord Seabright, who had just arrived, and was on his way to the yacht. He asked Breeze if his companion were the friend whom he had expected to meet. When Breeze answered that he was, and that his name was Wolfe Brady, the other exclaimed, “What! not the son of the Brady who used to be butler to Sir Wolfe Tresmont? I believe he did come to Queenstown to open some kind of a shop.”

Breeze said that was the very person, and, moreover, that they were stopping in front of his shop at that very moment. Upon this his lordship said he must step in and speak to the old fellow, whom he remembered very well.

Squire Brady was greatly flustered by the sudden appearance in his humble establishment of this titled visitor; but, reassured by his cordial greeting, he gathered up his wits, and saying that he had a communication of the greatest importance to make to him, begged his lordship to step into his private office for a moment.

Somewhat puzzled, and wondering what it could be, the young man good-naturedly consented. After the door had been carefully closed, and his visitor had refused an offered chair, the worthy shopkeeper and ex-butler said, mysteriously,

“My lord, I have every reason to believe that the heir to Tresmont has appeared.”

“Yes, so have I.”

“And that he is a young man.”

“Yes.”

“From America.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Who was picked up at sea when an infant.”

“Certainly; I know that. Anything else?”

“He is the own son of Mr. Tristram and his American wife.”

“Of course he is.”

“And he’s got evidence to prove who he is.”

“I examined his evidence in London yesterday.”

“But he was not in London.”

“I saw him there, I tell you.”

“He spent last night in my house, your lordship.”

“Who on earth are you talking about, Brady?”

“The young gentleman who came on your lordship’s yacht, and who calls himself Breeze McCloud, but who is really your lordship’s own cousin, Sir Tristram Coffin Tresmont.”

“Come, come, Brady! you don’t know what you are talking about,” said Lord Seabright, impatiently. “I left Sir Tristram Coffin Tresmont in London yesterday, and he is no more Breeze McCloud than I am. Whatever have you got into your head?”

“But, your lordship,” persisted the shopkeeper, now considerably excited, “this young gentleman wears the golden puzzle-ball fast to a chain around his neck that was give to Mr. Tristram by his wife, which I saw it with my own eyes on him when he was a blessed infant in his carriage.”

“So does the Sir Tristram Coffin Tresmont now in London wear a golden chain from which hangs a golden puzzle-ball, as you call it, that was fastened around his baby neck by his father, to whom it was presented by his wife. Is there anything more?”

“Well, I am beat!” gasped the astonished shopkeeper, wiping the perspiration from his forehead.

“So am I,” said Lord Seabright. “It’s bad enough to have to give up a fine property that I have for some time considered my own; but to have two claimants to it appear at once, and each of them producing the same proof of his identity, is a little too much. Have you any other reason for thinking this young friend of yours is what he claims to be?”

For answer the shopkeeper opened the door, and calling Breeze into the office, asked him to show his lordship the locket he wore about his neck.

Breeze produced the ball, opened it, and offered it for Lord Seabright’s inspection.

“Exactly the same,” said he, looking at it carefully.

Then Breeze touched the inside spring, and displayed the three tiny locks of hair, and the inscription on the under side of the plate.

“Hello! This is something new,” exclaimed Lord Seabright. “This proof goes away ahead of the other chap’s. We must look into this matter more closely.”