The Golden Dream: Adventures in the Far West

As for Captain Bunting and Bill Jones, they stuck to each other to the last, like two limpets, and both of them stuck to the sea like fish. No shore-going felicities could tempt these hardy sons of Neptune to forsake their native element again. He had done it once, Bill Jones said, “in one o’ the splendidest countries goin’, where gold was to be had for the pickin’ up, and all sorts o’ agues and rheumatizes for nothin’; but w’en things didn’t somehow go all square, an’ the anchor got foul with a gale o’ adwerse circumstances springin’ up astarn, why, wot then?—go to sea again, of coorse, an’ stick to it; them wos his sentiments.” As these were also Captain Bunting’s sentiments, they naturally took to the same boat for life.

But, although Captain Bunting and Bill did not live on shore, they occasionally, at long intervals, condescended to revisit the terrestrial globe, and, at such seasons of weakness, made a point of running down to Brixley Hall to see Ned and Tom. Then, indeed, “the light of other days” shone again in retrospect on our adventurers with refulgent splendour; then Larry sank the butler, and came out as the miner—as one of the partners of the “R’yal Bank o’ Calyforny”—then Ned and Tom related marvellous adventures, to the admiration of their respective wives, and the captain smote his thigh with frequency and emphasis, to the terror of the cat, and Bill Jones gave utterance to deeply-pregnant sentences, and told how that, on his last voyage to China, he had been up at Pekin, and had heard that Ah-wow had dug up a nugget of gold three times the size of his own head, and had returned to his native land a millionnaire, and been made a mandarin, and after that something else, and at last became prime minister of China—so Bill had been told, but he wouldn’t vouch for it, no how.

All this, and a great deal more, was said and done on these great and rare occasions—and our quondam gold-hunters fought their battles o’er again, to the ineffable delight of old Mr Shirley, who sat in his easy-chair, and gazed, and smiled, and stared, and laughed, and even wept, and chuckled—but never spoke—he was past that.

In the course of time Ned and Tom became extremely intimate with the pastor of their village, and were at last his right and left-hand men. This pastor was a man whose aim was to live as his Master had lived before him—he went about doing good—and, of all the happy years our two friends spent, the happiest were those in which they followed in the footsteps and strengthened the hands of this good man, Lizette and Louisa were helpmates to their husbands in this respect, as in all others, and a blessing to the surrounding country.

Ned Sinton’s golden dream was over now, in one sense, but by no means over in another. His sleeping and his waking dreams were still, as of old, tinged with a golden hue, but they had not a metallic ring. The golden rule was the foundation on which his new visions were reared, and that which we are told is better than gold, “yea, than much fine gold,” was thenceforth eagerly sought for and coveted by him. As for other matters—he delighted chiefly in the sunshine of Louisa’s smile, and in fields of golden grain.

The End

1

“Dirt” is the name given among miners to the soil in which gold is found.

2

Hlpluhplp. As the reader may have some difficulty in pronouncing the above word, we beg to inform him, (or her), that it is easily done, by simply drawing in the breath, and, at the same time, waggling the tongue between the lips.