The Silver Bottle; or, The Adventures of Little Marlboro in Search of His Father

by J. H. Ingraham

  `And this is true that you are such a child and in possession of such a bottle?'

  `Yes, sir! Here it is!' I ssid taking it from my pocket and then from two envelops (the inner one being the leaf from the music book with the tune of `Little Marlboro' upon it, in which the baby linen had been wrapped) and handing it to him. He took it and said immediately,

  `This is certainly one of my manufacture, with my stamp upon it! From its shape I know it to be one of the earliest that we had made. I am ready to assist you, sir, if you can tell me how I can do so?'

  `If you will do me the honor to listen to me, sir, I will tell you all my past history and my hopes of the future!'

  `I will cheerfully hear you. Here are two chairs!'

  I then gave him a brief yet sufficiently minute account of the facts the reader is already familiar with up to the time of my embarking for England. He listened with the profoundest attention and at times with emotion he did not attempt to disguise. When I had ended he said, grasping my hand,

  `Sir, your narrative has deeply interested my feelings. I am obliged to you for narrating it to me. I agree with you that your search must be now continued in England; and you have my prayers for your success. I believe you will succeed. You shall have all the aid I can give you! The facts you bring to bear upon the search before you are, as far as they go, of importance. They are, however, in themselves nothing unless you can connect each link that follows with its fellow. You deserve all praise for your perseverance. Come with me, sir, to my counting-room, where my books are, and I will examine them. I was always in the habit of making a record of each days' sales, and to whom, if I knew the persons!'

  From the Silver Smith's Hall I went with him to his own carriage, which had been waiting for him at the door of the Hall, to his counting-room. It was in the rear of a magnificent establishment for the sale of silver wares. We passed through the glittering room and entered his counting-room, which he seemed to keep only to preserve his habits of business. There was at the desk an aged clerk almost as venerable as Mr. Beufort himself.

  `Jacob, turn to ledger B,—date 1818, and see if there is such a name entered upon it as F. R. Marlborough!' said his master as he laid down his hat and stick, and seated himself in his arm-chair. I was too nervous to accept the seat he offered me, but stood waiting to see what Jacob would discover.

  The old clerk having found the huge volume, dusted it and run his eye over the alphabetical list at length arrested his finger upon the letter `M.' He then run over the names beginning with this letter, murmuring `Marl—Marl—Marl,' in a half tone, as his eye traveled down the column. I watched him with intense anxiety. At length at the very bottom of the page, he placed his fore-finger upon a name, and emphatically pronounced the word `Marlborough.'

  `You've found it!' cried Mr. Beufort half rising up in his chair.

  `Yes sir `Marlborough. F. R, page 319,' he responded in a formal tone.

  `Turn to it quickly,' I said, impatient at his mechanical formality.

  He tossed back the heavy leaves of the folio, and laid open the page named. I was instantly looking over his shoulder. It showed an account opened by the House of Beufort & Co. with Ferdinand R. Marlborough. I ran my eye rapidly over the items, which were a score in number. Among others was a `Silver bottle!' I uttered an exclamation of joy, and announced it to Mr. Beufort He came and looked over the book.

  `Extraordinary! Wonderful coincidence! Providence has taken the matter up, young man! Persevere and you will ultimately succeed! Your Silver Bottle will yet make your fortune! Strange, indeed!'

  `Have you any recollection of this, Mr. Marlboro?' I asked earnestly.

  `I am trying to think. I have had so many customers that I am not sure that I recollect him. Do you know who it was, Jacob?'

  `He was quite a young man, I recollect sir, I sold him most of these articles myself.'

  `Can you describe his appearance?' asked Mr. Beufort.

  `He was about the height of this young gentleman, sir, and—(here he looked at me with a sudden gaze of surprise) I never saw two more alike, sir! It is surprising, sir,' he added, looking at me and bowing, `the astonishing resemblance between you and Mr. Marlborough!'

  I exchanged looks with Mr. Beufort, who looked very much excited with the most pleasurable emotions. `Your case is brightening, sir,' he said to me.

  I was silent. I was too deeply moved to open my lips to express what I felt. I trembled between hope and fear.

  `What family did he belong to, Jacob?' asked Mr. Beufort.

  `I cannot say, sir, though I have no doubt he was one of the nobility. He used to call in a tilbury when he came alone; but when he came with his lady, her carriage had a crest of an eagle strangling a snake!'

  `The very same!' I exclaimed almost wild with my feelings.

  `And he had a wife, Jacob?'

  `Yes, Mr. Beufort. A young wife!'

  `Let me see the dates,' he said, looking at the account. `His bills begin January first with the purchase of a diamond necklace, and a set of bridal pearls, doubtless for new year's or wedding gifts. The silver bottle was bought December 20th.'

  `The bottle I sold to the lady. She came alone in her carriage. I recollect the circumstance, from her wishing the crest and the initial `M' engraved upon it!'

  `Your memory is not only tenacious, Jacob, but very valuable just now!'

  `I always had a good memory, sir. I can recollect biting my fingers with my first teeth!' answered Jacob gravely.

  `I dare say, Jacob. You have shown evidences of it now. Is that the bottle you sold the lady?'

  Jacob took it and examined it closely.

  `Yes sir,' he answered confidently.

  `It is one of ours; but is it the identical one?'

  `Yes, sir. I know it by the crest. I engraved it myself!'

  `Then the matter is settled,' said Mr. Beufort, looking at me, and smiling with gratification. `We have now to find out who Mr. Marlborough was, and it is my opinion that will amount to the same thing as finding out your parents, sir! You have clearly proved them to be English, I think! The next step to be taken is to the Herald office!'

  `It is closed,' I said in a tone of disappointment.

  `Not so that admittance cannot be obtained on application to the proper quarter. Come and breakfast with me at No—Terrace, at nine to-morrow, and we will then proceed together to the Herald office!'

  This good man then drove me to my lodgings, where I have now written the progress of events up to this hour. My next letter will make known the result of my visit to the `Herald's Hall.'

  Yours truly, LITTLE MALBORO.'

  [1] We have thought best to give the letters as they are, instead of bringing them into a narrative form.

  CHAPTER II.

  London, - —, 1844.

  I have just returned from a visit to the Herald's Hall, and with a beating heart and trembling fingers I proceed to write what has transpired, before I leave London, which I shall do at day-light in a post chaise.

  It will be remembered that I was about to proceed to the Herald's office with Mr. Beufort who was to make use of his personal influence to obtain admittance for me. To this gentleman I feel under the profoundest obligations of gratitude.—From the first moment in which I made him acquainted with my story, he has taken the deepest interest in my researches; and has voluntarily and most kindly offered to aid me, not only with his influence and experience, but with money, should I at any time require it. But, thanks to my kind foster-mother, good Dame Darwell, I am amply provided with means to meet every possible contingency.

  I left my rooms this morning at ten, and entering Mr. Beufort's carriage, which he had sent to receive me, I drove to his handsome mansion on — Terrace. Ho received me at the door, and said he would be at leisure in a few minutes to accompany me to the Hall, and that in the meanwhile his wife and daughter would entertain me. Thereupon he ushered me into a pleasant withdrawing room opening from the breakfast room, and presented me to Mrs. Beu
fort and her daughter, an accomplished and exceedingly lovely young lady of eighteen years of age, whose features at once reminded me of Emma Field, a young person no doubt still remembered by my readers as she will ever be by me! Indeed this beautiful girl is ever visible to the eye of my imagination whenever I look into the future! It is she who inspires me to action! To persevere in establishing my birth! It is for her that I would be honoured and esteemed! If I should hear to-day that she was no more, or what would be as her death to me, married to another, I feel persuaded that my energies would be paralysed and that I should be indifferent to the result of my researches after my family. If I gain honors it is to lay them at her feet! If I gain wealth it is to share it with her! And without her both would alike be valueless to me!

  I could not help betraying some confusion and surprise at the resemblance I discovered to Emma in Miss Beufort; a resemblance rather of air and general manner than of feature. The sight of her revived all my emotions of love for the absent, and I could not withdraw my eyes from her; till, at length, I discovered that she was embarrassed by my fixed regards. I immediately apologised to her, saying that she so surprisingly resembled an American friend of mine that I could offer no other excuse for my inadvertant gazing. She smiled, and we entered into a conversation upon my fortunes, of which they were previously informed by Mr. Beufort. I could see by Miss Beufort's eyes that she wished I might succeed in discovering my parentage and that she sympathized with me in my situation of doubt and uncertainty. My conversation with Miss Beufort only deepened my tender recollections of her whom she so forcibly recalled to my mind, and inspired me with new ardor in my pursuit of that happiness and honor I hoped one day to share with Emma.

  `Ah, my young friend, so you are agreeably entertaining the ladies, I see! Perhaps we are entertaining a Prince,' added he, smiling pleasantly. `Well, sir, now if you are ready!'

  `If my parents prove honest and respectable I shall be satisfied, even if I find them in humble life,' I answered, understanding his allusion.

  We entered the luxurious carriage of the wealthy Silver-Smith, two livered footmen behind, and the coach rolled with a rapid and easy motion through the crowded streets of London. We soon left the Strand and stopped in front of a stately edifice, seemingly of great antiquity. Alighting at the grand entrance we passed into a large vestibule at the extremity of which was a flight of dark oaken steps with carved banisters. At the top was a sort of open terrace leading upon a low balcony, in which by a door sat in a carved Gothic arm-chair a man in a Herald's surcoat, who was the porter of the Hall. To him Mr. Beufort handed a ticket signed by the nobleman who regulated the affairs of the Herald's Hall.

  `You may enter, gentlemen! It is correct!' he answered, after peeping closely at the signature and seal through a pair of iron spectacles that looked as if they might have been worn by one of the Herald's of the days of the Conqueror.

  We entered a vast hall of Gothic architecture, lighted by a stained window at either extremity. It was the most remarkable apartment I ever entered, and I remained a few moments gazing around me. The ceiling was pointed and groined and formed of groups of light arches supported by columns springing free from the floor thirty feet in height. The arches, pillars and walls were all a dark gray, having the appearance of stone; and the original hue has been changed by time, in many places a deep black. The effect was singularly venerable and impressive. Along the roof was suspended hundreds of banners bearing all sorts of quaint devices, an I presenting a beautiful and strange comingling of gay colors. Some of these banners were very old, and torn doubtless in battle. Along the walls of the hall, beneath this canopy of suspended banners, were arranged rows of shields of every shape, and size, and degree of antiquity, this side the Conquest. Some of them had become perfectly black with age, others were coated with rust; and many glittered and shone as if newly burnished. I noticed that all of them, where they were not so much defaced as to render it impossible for anything to be discerned upon the surface, were carved or else inlaid with devices of heraldry. On some were delineated complete and elaborate coats of arms, by means of gold inserted in grooves cut into the metal. Most of the shields were battered and indented, and in one I saw embedded the end of a broken pike-head.

  Upon the opposite side of the hall were arranged casques and helmets with and without visors; and standing around the apartment were numerous complete suits of armor cap-a-pie, as if enveloping the body of stalwart knights.

  Seeing my curiosity in observing all this, Mr. Beufort said,

  `You are here in the repository of the insignia of English family honors.— There is not a family in the land of any descent that is not represented in this Hall by some appropriate device belonging to its name and inheritance. Here the history of every old British family is recorded from its remotest origin, and many of them extend their line beyond the Conquest to Norman lineage. Here are to be found not only their histories, but the causes are recorded which led to the distinction of each!'

  As he spoke one of the ushers of the Hall approached us, and overhearing Mr. Beufort's words, said courteously, after saluting us,

  `Yes; there is not a family above the rank of a simple baron whose name and lineage is not here on record with a copy of his arms, and how he came by them. There now,' he said, directing our attention to the rows of shields, `is a shield bearing simply for its device a rook. It is the device of the noble family of Rookley, the founder of which was wounded in battle and lay perishing in a copse where he had fallen under the weight of his armor; but who was saved by a rook which lighting upon a tree above him made such a strange clamor that his followers were led to approach the tree to destroy it, when the Knight was found lying beneath it nearly dead. He afterwards, in commemoration of his preservation, took the name of Rookley and adopted this device upon his shield! There is a shield with a lance's head sticking in it. It is the device of the De Lancey family. The founder was a gigantic soldier in the battle of Croisay, and singly defended his king with this shield against a score of Cavaliers, all of whom shivered their lances against it, and the last piercing it broke it in the metal as you see. The soldier saved the king's life, protecting him till succor arrived, and was knighted, adopting the lance head for his heraldic device and designation.

  Interesting as these chivalric remeniscences were, I was too impatient to learn if I was any ways interested in the records of the Hall of Herald's to listen with undivided attention. My eyes were roaming over the multitude of shields and banners with the wild hope of possibly seeing that device which had become so indelibly engraven upon my memory. Mr. Beufort seeing my impatience and referring it to the true cause, said,

  `We have visited the Hall this morning, sir, to ascertain if there is an English family which claims a device which we bear with us!'

  `If the family is English we will ascertain for you, sir,' answered the usher.

  He then led the way into an inner room, the walls of which were piled with old tomes and manuscripts on parchment. Writing tables of black wood were standing in the middle of the apartment which was hung round with numerous frames containing on a small scale hundreds of coats of arms, crests and cyphers with numbers labelled upon each. Upon the table over which it was laid a scarlet cloth curiously embroidered with silver and gold threads, and containing in the centre the arms of the kingdom gorgeously done in needle work, and in brilliant colors, was an enormous volume of immense thickness and bearing marks of age. The usher advanced towards this ponderous folio and by the aid of both hands threw it open. I saw that it blazed with paintings of Heraldic insignia and that the text was all done with the pen instead of being printed.

  `Now, Mr. Beufort, if you will explain to me the device you wish to trace?' he said.

  `Mr. Beufort looked at me. I felt my heart leap to my throat, my agitation was so great. Now that I was about, perhaps, to decide the mystery of my parentage I felt nearly unequal to the command of my feelings. But as my trepidation was natural, I know that my reader
s will sympathise in it. With a face from which I felt all the blood had retreated and with a forced composure which my trembling hand belied, I handed him the original sketch made for the carriage-painter in Philadelphia, by the gentleman whom I supposed to be my father. He glanced over it with a professional eye and then laying it down repeated as if to himself,

  `Eagle rampant, serpent couchant—talon grasping the head. He then turned to the large book and began to throw over the leaves adding, `I ought to know this—seems familiar! Can't think at this moment! Soon see! Very noble family am sure! E, eagle. Here is the letter.'

  He then ran his finger along the column of E's and arrested it on the word `Eagle!' I had left my place and was looking over his shoulder. The word was set down several times in conjunction with lions, bears, griffins, and then I read `Eagle and Serpent.'

  `Eagle and Serpent,' he repeated, `page 1009.'

  `The Eagle and Serpent is the crest of the House of Arlborough,' said an assistant who was writing at the next desk.

  `It is so! I thought I knew it! I should have recognised it at once! But then we have so many, Mr. Beufort, that it is difficult to keep the line of each running in one's mind without confusion.'

  `What Arlborough bears this device?' asked Mr. Beufort with interest.

  `The Duke of Arlborough,' answered the Usher. `Here,' he added, turning the leaves of the folio, `is the representation of the same crest opposite the name of Arlborough. And over against it you see the shield and full arms of the House!'

  `Is there any other family in England that bears this crest?' asked Mr. Beufort.

  `None. It belongs to the Arlborough's.'

  `Then any gentleman bearing this you would set down as belonging to this noble family?'