He soon arrived at the cottage, where the sound of his footsteps brought out the fisherman and his wife, the latter bearing in her arms the little object of his solicitude.

  “See, Mr Forster,” said Jane, holding out the infant, “it’s quite well and hearty, and does nothing but smile. What a lovely babe it is!”

  Forster looked at the child, who smiled, as if in gratitude; but his attention was called away by the Newfoundland dog, who fawned upon him, and after having received his caresses, squatted down upon the sand, which he beat with his tail as he looked wistfully in Forster’s face.

  Forster took the child from the arms of its new mother. “Thou hast had a narrow escape, poor thing,” said he, and his countenance assumed a melancholy cast as the idea floated in his mind. “Who knows how many more perils may await thee? Who can say whether thou art to be restored to the arms of thy relatives, or be left an orphan to a sailor’s care? Whether it had not been better that the waves should have swallowed thee in thy purity, than thou shouldest be exposed to a heartless world of sorrow and of crime? But He who willed thee to be saved knows best for us who are in darkness;” and Forster kissed its brow, and returned it to the arms of Jane.

  Having made a few arrangements with Robertson and his wife, in whose care he resolved at present to leave the child, Forster bent his steps towards the promontory, that he might ascertain if any part of the vessel remained. Stretching over the summit of the cliff, he perceived that several of the lower futtocks and timbers still hung together, and showed themselves above water. Anxious to obtain some clue to her identity, he prepared to descend by a winding and hazardous path which he had before surmounted. In a quarter of an hour he had gained a position close to the wreck; but, with the exception of the shattered remnant which was firmly wedged between the rocks, there was nothing to be seen; not a fragment of her masts and spars, or sails, not a relic of what was once life remained. The tide, which ran furiously round the promontory, had swept them all away, or the undertow of the deep water had buried every detached particle, to be delivered up again, “far, far at sea.” All that Forster could ascertain was, that the vessel was foreign built, and of large tonnage; but who were its unfortunate tenants, or what the cargo, of which she had been despoiled by the devouring waves, was not even to be surmised. The linen on the child was marked J de F; and this was the only clue which remained for its identity. For more than an hour did Forster remain fixed as a statue upon the rock, where he had taken his station with arms folded, while he contemplated the hoarse waves, dashing against the bends, or dividing as they poured themselves between the timbers of the vessel, and he sunk into deep and melancholy thought.

  And where is the object exciting more serious reflection than a Wreck?

  The pride and ingenuity of man humbled and overcome; the elements of the Lord occupying the fabric which had set them at defiance; tossing, tumbling, and dancing, as if in mockery at their success! The structure, but a few hours past, as perfect as human intellect could devise, towering with its proud canvass over space, and bearing man to greet his fellow-man, over the surface of death! — dashing the billow from her stem, as if in scorn, while she pursued her trackless way — bearing tidings of peace and security, of war and devastation — tidings of joy or grief, affecting whole kingdoms and empires, as if they were but individuals!

  Now, the waters delight in their revenge, and sparkle with joy, as the sun shines upon their victory. That keel, which, with the sharpness of a scythe, has so often mowed its course through the reluctant wave, is now buried; — buried deep in the sand, which the angry surge accumulates each minute, as if determined that it never will be subject to its weight again.

  How many seasons had rolled away, how many millions had returned to the dust from which they sprung, before the kernels had swelled into the forest giants levelled for that structure; — what labour had been undergone to complete the task; — how many of the existent race found employment and subsistence as they slowly raised that monument of human skill; — how often had the weary miner laid aside his tool to wipe his sweating brow, before the metals required for the completion had been brought from darkness; — what thousands had been employed before it was prepared and ready for its destined use! Yon copper bolt, twisted with a force not human, and raised above the waters, as if in evidence of their dreadful power, may contain a history in itself.

  How many of her own structure must have been employed, bringing from the north, the south, the east, and the west: her masts, her spars, her “hempen tackle,” and her canvass wings; her equipment in all its variety; her stores for the support of life; her magazines of quiescent death. And they who so fearlessly trod her decks, conscious of their own powers, and confident in their own skill; they who expanded her thousands of yards of canvass to the pursuing breeze, or reduced them, like magic, at the approaching storm — where are they now? How many sighs have been lavished at their absence! how many hearths would have been gladdened by their return! Where are the hopes, the fears, the ambition, and the pride; the courage and the enterprise; the love and the yearnings after their kin; the speculations of the present, and the calculations of the future, which occupied their minds, or were cherished in their bosoms? All — all wrecked!

  Days, weeks, and months rolled away; yet every step that could be taken to find out the name of the vessel proved unavailing. Although the conjectures of Forster, that she was one of the many foreign West Indiamen which had met with a similar fate during that tempestuous winter, was probably correct; still no clue could be gathered by which the parentage of the little girl could be ascertained, The linen was indeed marked with initials; but this circumstance offered but a faint prospect of discovery. Either her relations, convinced of her loss made no inquiries, or the name of the vessel in which she had been a passenger was not known to them. The child had been weaned, and removed to the cottage, where it occupied much of the attention of the old housekeeper and Forster, who, despairing of its ever being reclaimed, determined to bring it up as his own.

  Mrs Beazeley, the housekeeper, was a good-tempered woman, long passed the grand climacteric, and strongly attached to Forster, with whom she had resided many years. But, like all women, whether married or single, who have the responsibility of a household, she would have her own way; and scolded her master with as little ceremony as if she had been united to him by matrimonial bonds.

  To this Forster quietly submitted: he had lived long enough to be aware that people are not the happiest who are not under control, and was philosopher sufficient to submit to the penal code of matrimony without tasting its enjoyments, The arrival of the infant made him more than ever feel as if he were a married man; for he had all the delights of the nursery in addition to his previous discipline. But, although bound by no ties, he found himself happier. He soon played with the infant, and submitted to his housekeeper with all the docility of a well-trained married man.

  The Newfoundland dog, who, although (like some of his betters) he did not change his name for a fortune, did, in all probability, change it with his fortune, soon answered to the deserved epithet of Faithful, and slept at the foot of the crib of his little mistress, who also was to be rechristened. “She is a treasure, which has been thrown up by the ocean,” said Forster, kissing the lovely infant. “Let her name be Amber.”

  But we must leave her to bud forth in her innocence and her purity, while we direct the attention of the reader to other scenes, which are contemporary with those we have described.

  Chapter Four.

  A woman moved is like a fountain troubled,

  Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;

  And while ’tis so, none so dry or thirsty

  Will deign to sip, or touch one drop of it.

  Shakespeare.

  A man may purchase an estate, a tenement, or a horse because they have pleased his fancy, and eventually find out that he has not exactly suited himself; and it sometimes will occur that a man is placed in a similar situation relative to his choice of a wife: a more serious evil; as, although the prime cost may be nothing, there is no chance of getting rid of this latter speculation by re-vending, as you may the former. Now it happened that Nicholas Forster, of whom we have already made slight mention, although he considered at the time of his marriage that the person he had selected would exactly suit his focus, did eventually discover that he was more short-sighted in his choice than an optician ought to have been.

  Whatever may have been the personal charms of Mrs Nicholas Forster at the time of their union, she had, at the period of our narrative, but few to boast of, being a thin, sharp-nosed, ferret-eyed, little woman, teeming with suspicion, jealousy, and bad humours of every description: her whole employment (we may say, her whole delight) was in finding fault: her shrill voice was to be heard from the other side of the street from morning until night. The one servant which their finances enabled them with difficulty to retain, and whom they engaged as the maid of all work (and certainly she was not permitted by Mrs Forster to be idle in her multifarious duty), seldom remained above her month; and nothing but the prospect of immediate starvation could induce any one to offer herself in that capacity.

  Mr Nicholas Forster, fortunately for his own happiness, was of that peculiar temperament, that nothing could completely rouse his anger; he was absent to an excess; and if any language or behaviour on the part of his wife induced his choler to rise, other ideas would efface the cause from his memory; and this hydra of the human bosom, missing the object of its intended attack, again laid down to rest.

  The violence and vituperation of his spouse were, therefore, lost upon Nicholas Forster; and the impossibility of disturbing the equanimity of his temper increased the irritability of her own. Still Mr Nicholas Forster, when he did reflect upon the subject, which was but during momentary fits of recollection, could not help acknowledging that he should be much more quiet and happy when it pleased Heaven to summon Mrs Forster to a better world: and this idea ultimately took possession of his imagination. Her constant turbulence interfered so much with the prosecution of his plans, that, finding it impossible to carry them into execution, every thing that he considered of moment was mentally put off until Mrs Forster was dead!

  “Well, Mr Forster, how long is the dinner to wait before you think proper to come? Every thing will be cold as usual.” — (n.b., the dinner consisted of the remains of a cold shoulder of mutton.)— “Or do you mean to have any dinner at all? Betty, clear away the table; I have my work to do, and won’t wait any longer.”

  “I’m coming, my dear, I’m coming; only this balance spring is a job that I cannot well leave,” replied Nicholas, continuing his vocation in the shop, with a magnifying glass attached to his eye.

  “Coming! yes, and Christmas is coming Mr Forster. — Well, the dinner’s going, I can tell you.”

  Nicholas, who did not want appetite, and who was conscious that if the mutton returned to the cupboard there would be some difficulty made in reproducing it, laid down the watch and came into the back parlour.

  “Well, my dear, here I am; sorry to have kept you waiting so long, but business must be attended to. — Dear me, why the mutton is really quite cold,” continued Nicholas, thrusting a large piece into his mouth, quite forgetting that he had already dined twice off the identical joint. “That’s a fine watch of Mr Tobin’s; but I think that my improvement upon the duplex when I have finished it—”

  “When you have finished it, indeed!” retorted the lady; “why, when did you ever finish any thing, Mr Forster! Finish indeed!”

  “Well, my dear,” replied the husband, with an absent air— “I do mean to finish it, when — you are dead!”

  “When I am dead!” screamed the lady, in a rage— “when I am dead!” continued she, placing her arms akimbo, as she started from the chair:— “I can tell you, Mr Forster, that I’ll live long enough to plague you, it’s not the first time that you’ve said so; but depend upon it, I’ll dance upon your grave yet, Mr Forster.”

  “I did not exactly mean to say that; not exactly that, my dear,” replied Nicholas, confused. “The fact is that I was not exactly aware of what I was saying — I had not precisely the—”

  “Precisely the fiddle-stick, Mr Forster! you did mean it, and you do mean it, and this is all the return that I am to expect for my kindness and anxiety for your welfare — slaving and toiling all day as I do; but you’re incorrigible, Mr Forster: look at you, helping, yourself out of your snuff-box instead of the salt-cellar. What man in his senses would eat a cold shoulder of mutton with tobacco?”

  “Dear me, so I have,” replied Forster, removing the snuff taken from the box, which, as usual, lay open before him, not into the box again, but into the salt-cellar.

  “And who’s to eat that salt now, you nasty beast?”

  “I am not a beast, Mrs Forster,” replied the husband, whose choler was roused; “I made a mistake; I do perceive — now I recollect it, did you send Betty with the ‘day and night glass’ to Captain Simkins?”

  “Yes, I did, Mr Forster: if I did not look after your business, I should like to know what would become of us; and I can tell, you Mr Forster, that if you do not contrive to get more business, there will soon be nothing to eat; seventeen and sixpence is all that I have received this last week; and how rent and fire, meat and drink, are to be paid for with that, you must explain, for I can’t.”

  “How can I help it, my dear? I never refuse a job.”

  “Never refuse a job? no; but you must contrive to make more business.”

  “I can mend a watch, and make a telescope, but I can’t make business, my dear,” replied Nicholas.

  “Yes, you can, and you must, Mr Forster,” continued the lady, sweeping off the remains of the mutton, just as her husband had fixed his eye upon the next cut, and locking it up in the cupboard— “if you do not, you will have nothing to eat, Mr Forster.”

  “So it appears, my dear,” replied the meek Nicholas, taking a pinch of snuff; “but I really don’t—”

  “Why, Mr Forster, if you were not one of the greatest—”

  “No, no, my dear,” interrupted Nicholas, from extreme modesty, “I am not one of the greatest opticians of the present day; although when I’ve made my improve—”

  “Greatest opticians!” interrupted the lady. “One of the greatest fools, I meant!”

  “That’s quite another thing, my dear; but—”

  “No buts, Mr Forster; please to listen, and not interrupt me in that bearish manner. Why do you repair in the way you do? Who ever brings you a watch or a glass that you have handled a second time?”

  “But why should they, my dear, when I have put them in good order?”

  “Put them in order! but why do you put them in order?”

  “Why do I put them in order, my dear?” replied Forster, with astonishment.

  “Yes; why don’t you leave a screw loose, somewhere? then they must come again. That’s the proper way to do business.”

  “The proper way to do my business, my dear, is to see that all the screws are tight.”

  “And starve!” continued the lady.

  “If it please God,” replied the honest Nicholas.

  But this matrimonial duet was interrupted by the appearance of their son, whom we must introduce to the reader, as he will play a conspicuous part in our narrative.

  Newton Forster, for thus had he been christened by his father, out of respect for the great Sir Isaac, who was now about seventeen years’ old — athletic and well proportioned in person, handsome in features, and equally gifted in mind. There was a frankness and sincerity in his open brow, an honesty in his smile, which immediately won upon the beholder; and his countenance was but an index to his mind. His father had bestowed all his own leisure, and some expense, which he could ill afford, upon his education, trusting one day that he would rival the genius after whom he had been christened; but Newton was not of a disposition to sit down either at a desk or a work-bench. Whenever he could escape from home or from school, he was to be found either on the beach or at the pier, under the shelter of which the coasting vessels discharged or received their cargoes; and he had for some years declared his intention to follow the profession of a sailor. To this his father had reluctantly consented, with the proviso that he would first finish his education; and the mutual compact had been strictly adhered to by each party.

  At the age of fifteen Newton had acquired all that could be imparted to him by the pedagogue of the vicinity, and had then, until something better should turn up, shipped himself on board of a coasting vessel, in which, during the last two years he had made several trips, being usually absent about six weeks, and remaining in port about the same time, until another cargo could be procured.

  Young as he was, the superiority of his education had obtained him the situation of mate of the vessel; and his pay enabled him to assist his father, whose business, as Mrs Forster declared, was not sufficient to “make both ends meet.” Upon his return, his love of knowledge and active habits induced him to glean as much as he could of his father’s profession, and he could repair most articles that were sent in. Although Newton amused himself with the peculiarities and eccentricity of his father, he still had high respect for him, as he knew him to be a worthy, honest man. For his mother he certainly had none: he was indignant at her treatment of his father, and could find no redeeming quality to make amends for her catalogue of imperfections. Still he had a peculiar tact, by which he avoided any serious altercation. Never losing his own temper, yet quietly and firmly resisting all control, he assumed a dominion over her, from which her feelings towards him, whatever they may have been in his early years, were now changed into those of positive hatred. His absence this morning had been occasioned by his assistance being required in the fitting of a new main-stay for the sloop to which he belonged. “Please God, what, father?” said Newton, as he came in, catching his father’s last words.