Elsie at Nantucket Part 11

"I wonder if there was ever a crime committed here?" Elsie said, half inquiringly. "And if there is a jail on the island?"

"Yes, mother," Edward answered; "there is a jail, but so little use for it that they think it hardly worth while to keep it in decent repair. I heard that a man was once put in for petty theft, and that after being there a few days he sent word to the authorities that if they didn't repair it so that the sheep couldn't break in on him, he wouldn't stay."

There was a general laugh; then Edward resumed: "There has been one murder on the island, as I have been informed. A mulatto woman was the criminal, a white woman the victim, the motive revenge; the colored woman was in debt to the white one, who kept a little store, and, enraged at repeated duns, went to her house and beat her over the head with some heavy weapon--I think I was told a whale's tooth.

"The victim lingered for some little time, but eventually died of her wounds, and the other was tried for murder.

"It is said the sheriff was extremely uneasy lest she should be found guilty of murder in the first degree, and he should have the unpleasant job of hanging her; but the verdict was manslaughter, the sentence imprisonment for life.

"So she was consigned to jail, but very soon allowed to go out occasionally to do a day's work."

"Oh, Uncle Edward, is she alive now?" Gracie asked, with a look of alarm.

"Yes, I am told she is disabled by disease, and lives in the poorhouse.

But you need not be frightened, little girlie; she is not at all likely to come to 'Sconset, and if she does we will take good care that she is not allowed to harm you."

"And I don't suppose she'd want to either, unless we had done something to make her angry," said Lulu.

"But we are going to Nantucket Town to stay a while when we leave 'Sconset," remarked Grace uneasily.

"But that woman will not come near you, daughter; you need, not have the least fear of it," the captain said, drawing his little girl to his knee with a tender caress.

"Ah," said Mr. Dinsmore, "I heard the other day of a curiosity at Nantucket which we must try to see while there. I think the story connected with it will particularly interest you ladies and the little girls."

"Oh, grandpa, tell it!" cried Rosie; "please do; a story is just what we want this dull day."

The others joined in the request, and Mr. Dinsmore kindly complied, all gathering closely about him, anxious to catch every word.

"The story is this: Nearly a hundred years ago there lived in Nantucket a sea-captain named Coffin, who had a little daughter of whom he was very fond."

Gracie glanced up smilingly into her father's face and nestled closer to him.

"Just as I am of mine," said his answering look and smile as he drew her closer still.

But Mr. Dinsmore's story was going on.

"It was Captain Coffin's custom to bring home some very desirable gift to his little girl whenever he returned from a voyage. At one time, when about to sail for the other side of the Atlantic, he said to her that he was determined on this voyage to find and bring home to her something that no other little girl ever had or ever could have."

"Oh, grandpa, what could that be?" exclaimed little Walter.

"Wait a moment and you shall hear," was the reply.

"What the captain brought on coming back was a wax baby, a very life-like representation of an infant six months old. He said it was a wax cast of the Dauphin of France, that poor unfortunate son of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette; that he had found it in a convent, and paid for it a sum of money so enormous that he would never tell any one, not even his wife, how large it was."

"But it isn't in existence now, at this late day, surely?" Mrs. Dinsmore remarked inquiringly, as her husband paused in his narrative.

"It is claimed that it is by those who have such a thing in possession, and I presume they tell the truth. It has always been preserved with extreme care as a great curiosity.

"The little girl to whom it was given by her father lived to grow up, but has been dead many years. Shortly before her death she gave it to a friend, and it has been in that family for over forty years."

"And is it on exhibition, papa?" asked Elsie.

"Only to such as are fortunate enough to get an introduction to the lady owner through some friend of hers; so I understand; but photographs have been taken and are for sale in the stores."

"Oh, I hope we will get to see it!" exclaimed Lulu eagerly.

"As far as I'm concerned, I'm bound to manage it somehow," said Betty.

"How much I should like to know what was really the true story of that poor unfortunate child," said Elsie, reflectively, and sighing as she spoke.

"It--like the story of the Man in the Iron Mask--is a mystery that will never be satisfactorily cleared up until the Judgment Day," remarked her father.

"Oh, do tell us about it," the children cried in eager chorus.

"All of you older ones have certainly some knowledge of the French Revolution, in which Louis XVI. and his beautiful queen lost their lives?" Mr. Dinsmore said, glancing about upon his grandchildren; "and have not forgotten that two children survived them--one sometimes called Louis XVII., as his father's lawful successor to the throne, and a daughter older than the boy.

"These children remained in the hands of their cruel foes for some time after the beheading of their royal parents. The girl was finally restored to her mother's relatives, the royal family of Austria; but the boy, who was most inhumanly treated by his jailer, was supposed to have died in consequence of that brutal abuse, having first been reduced by it to a state of extreme bodily and mental weakness.

"That story (of the death of the poor little dauphin, I mean, not of the cruel treatment to which he was subjected) has, however, been contradicted by another; and I suppose it will never be made certain in this world which was the true account.

"The dauphin was born in 1785, his parents were beheaded in 1793; so that he must have been about eight years old at the time of their death.

"In 1795 a French man and woman, directly from France, appeared in Albany, New York, having in charge a girl and boy; the latter about nine years old, and feeble in body and mind.

"The woman had also a number of articles of dress which she said had belonged to Marie Antoinette, who had given them to her on the scaffold.

"That same year two Frenchmen came to Ticonderoga, visited the Indians in that vicinity, and placed with them such a boy as the one seen at Albany--of the same age, condition of mind and body, etc.

"He was adopted by an Iroquois chief named Williams, and given the name of Eleazer Williams.

"He gradually recovered his health, and at length the shock of a sudden fall into the lake so far restored his memory that he recollected some scenes in his early life in the palaces of France. One thing he recalled was being with a richly dressed lady whom he addressed as 'mamma.'

"Some time later--I cannot now recall the exact date--a Frenchman died in New Orleans (Beranger was his name), who confessed on his death-bed that he had brought the dauphin to this country and placed him with the Indians of Northern New York. He stated that he had taken an oath of secrecy, for the protection of the lad, but could not die without confessing the truth."

"I'm inclined to think the story of the dauphin's death in France was not true," remarked Betty.

"Didn't Beranger's confession arouse inquiry, grandpa?" asked Zoe. "And did Eleazer Williams hear of it?"

"I think I may say yes to both your queries," Mr. Dinsmore answered.

"Eleazer's story was published in the newspapers some years ago, and I remember he was spoken of as a very good Christian man, a missionary among the Indians; it was brought out in book form also under the t.i.tle 'The Lost Prince: A Life of Eleazer Williams.'

"Eleazer himself stated that in 1848 he had an interview, on board a steamer from Buffalo, with the Prince de Joinville, who then told him he was the son of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, and tried to induce him to sign away his right to the throne of France, and that he refused to do so.

"In his published statement he said he thought the Prince would not deny having made that communication. But the Prince did deny that, though he acknowledged that the interview had taken place."

"Did Eleazer ever try to get the throne, grandpa?" asked Max.

"No, he never urged his claim; and I dare say was happier as an obscure Indian missionary than he would have been as King of France. He died at the age of seventy."