The Golden Dream: Adventures in the Far West. Robert Michael Ballantyne
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me by the hand, eleven years ago, and brought me to live under your roof; and I’ll not begin to dissemble now. The plain truth is, that I don’t like it at all.”
“Stop, now,” cried Mr Shirley, with a grieved expression of countenance; “don’t be hasty in forming your opinion. Besides, my boy, you ought to be more ready to take my advice, even although it be not altogether palatable.”
“My dear uncle, you quite misunderstand me. I only tell you what I think about the proposal. As to taking your advice, I fully intend to do that whether I like it or not; but I think, if you will listen to me for a few minutes, you will change your mind in regard to this matter. You know that I am very fond of travelling, and that I dislike the idea of taking up my abode on the top of a three-legged stool, either as a lawyer’s or a merchant’s clerk. Well, unless a man likes his profession, and goes at it with a will, he cannot hope to succeed, so that I have no prospect of getting on, I fear, in the line you wish me to adopt. Besides, there are plenty of poor fellows out of work, who love sitting still from nine a.m. to ten p.m., and whose bread I would be taking out of their mouths by devoting myself to the legal profession, and—”
At this point Ned hesitated for a moment, and his uncle broke in with—
“Tell me, now, if every one thought about business as you do, how would the world get on, think you?”
“Badly, I fear,” replied the youth, with a smile; “but everybody doesn’t think of it as I do; and, tell me, uncle, if everybody thought of business as you would wish me to do, what would come of the soldiers and sailors who defend our empire, and extend our foreign trade, and achieve the grand geographical discoveries that have of late added so much lustre to the British name?”
Ned flushed and became quite eloquent at this point. “Now, look at California,” he continued; “there’s a magnificent region, full of gold; not a mere myth, or an exaggeration, but a veritable fact, attested by the arrival of letters and gold-dust every month. Surely that land was made to be peopled; and the poor savages who dwell there need to be converted to Christianity, and delivered from their degraded condition; and the country must be worked, and its resources be developed; and who’s to do it, if enterprising clergymen, and schoolmasters, and miners do not go to live there, and push their fortunes?”
“And which of the three callings do you propose adopting?” inquired Mr Shirley, with a peculiar smile.
“Well uncle, I—a—the fact is, I have not thought much about that as yet. Of course, I never thought of the first. I do not forget your own remark, that the calling of a minister of the gospel of Christ is not, like other professions, to be adopted merely as a means of livelihood. Then, as to the second, I might perhaps manage that; but I don’t think it would suit me.”
“Do you think, then, that you would make a good digger?”
“Well, perhaps I would,” replied Ned, modestly.
Mr Shirley gravely regarded the powerful frame that reclined in the easy-chair before him, and was compelled to admit that the supposition was by no means outrageous.
“Besides,” continued the youth, “I might turn my hand to many things in a new country. You know I have studied surveying, and I can sketch a little, and know something of architecture. I suppose that Latin and Greek would not be of much use, but the little I have picked up of medicine and surgery among the medical students would be useful. Then I could take notes, and sketch the scenery, and bring back a mass of material that might interest the public, and do good to the country.”
“Oh,” said the old gentleman, shortly; “come back and turn author, in fact, and write a book that nobody would publish, or which, in the event of its being published, nobody would read!”
“Come, now, my dear uncle, don’t laugh at me. I assure you it seems very reasonable to me to think that what others have done, and are doing every day, I am able to do.”
“Well, I won’t laugh at you; but, to be serious, you are wise enough to know that an old man’s experience is worth more than a youth’s fancies. Much of what you have said is true, I admit, but I assure you that the bright prospects you have cut out for yourself are very delusive. They will never be realised, at least in the shape in which you have depicted them on your imagination. They will dissolve, my boy, on a nearer approach, and, as Shakespeare has it, ‘like the baseless fabric of a vision, leave not a wrack behind,’ or, at least, not much more than a wrack.”
Ned reverted to the golden dream, and felt uneasy under his uncle’s kind but earnest gaze.
“Most men,” continued Mr Shirley, “enjoy themselves at first, when they go to wild countries in search of adventure, but they generally regret the loss of their best years afterwards. In my opinion men should never emigrate unless they purpose making the foreign land they go to their home. But I won’t oppose you, if you are determined to go; I will do all I can to help you, and give you my blessing; but before you make up your mind, I would recommend you to call on Mr Moxton, and hear what prospects he holds out to you. Then take a week to think seriously over it; and if at the end of that time, you are as anxious to go as ever, I’ll not stand in your way.”
“You are kind to me, uncle; more so than I deserve,” said Ned earnestly. “I’ll do as you desire, and you may depend upon it that the generous way in which you have left me to make my own choice will influence me against going abroad more than anything else.”
Ned sighed as he rose to quit the room, for he felt that his hopes at that moment were sinking.
“And before you take a step in the matter, my boy,” said old Mr Shirley, “go to your room and ask counsel of Him who alone has the power to direct your steps in this life.”
Ned replied briefly, “I will, uncle,” and hastily left the room. Mr Shirley poked the fire, put on his spectacles, smoothed out the wrinkles on his bald forehead with his hand, took up the Times, and settled himself down in his easy-chair to read; but his nephew’s prospects could not be banished from his mind. He went over the whole argument again, mentally, with copious additions, ere he became aware of the fact, that for three-quarters of an hour he had been, (apparently), reading the newspaper upside down.
Chapter Three.
Hopes and Fears—Mr Shirley receives a Visit and a Wild Proposal
When Edward Sinton left his chamber, an hour after the conversation related in the last chapter, his brow was unruffled and his step light. He had made up his mind that, come what might, he would not resist the wishes of his only near relative and his best friend.
There was a day in the period of early boyhood that remained as fresh on the memory of young Sinton as if it had been yesterday—the day on which his mother died. The desolation of his early home on that day was like the rising of a dark thunder-cloud on a bright sky. His young heart was crushed, his mind stunned, and the first ray of light that broke upon him—the first gush of relief—was when his uncle arrived and took him on his knee, and, seated beside the bed where that cold, still form lay, wept upon the child’s neck as if his heart would break. Mr Shirley buried the sister whom he had been too late to see alive. Then he and his little nephew left the quiet country village and went to dwell in the great city of London. From that time forward Mr Shirley was a father to Ned, who loved him more than any one else on earth, and through his influence he was early led to love and reverence his heavenly Father and his blessed Redeemer.
The subject of going abroad was the first in regard to which Ned and his uncle had seriously disagreed, and the effect on the feelings of both was very strong.
Ned’s mind wandered as he put on his hat, and buttoned his great-coat up to the chin, and drew on his gloves slowly. He was not vain of his personal appearance; neither was he reckless of it. He always struck you as being a particularly well-dressed man, and he had naturally a dashing look about him. Poor fellow! he felt anything but dashing or reckless as he hurried through the crowded streets in the direction of the city that day.
Moxton’s door was a green one, with a brass knocker and a brass plate, both of which ornaments, owing to verdigris, were anything but ornamental. The plate was almost useless,