The Golden Dream - Robert Michael Ballantyne (best biographies to read .txt) 📗

"I wos wantin' to ax ye, sir, av ye could put in me pick and shovel in the lan'scape."

"In the landscape, Pat!" exclaimed Ned, addressing his visitor by the generic name of the species; "I thought you wanted a portrait."

"Troth, then, I don't know which it is ye call it; but I wants a pictur' o' meself all over, from the top o' me hat to the sole o' me boots. Isn't that a lan'scape?"

"No, it's a portrait."

"Then it's a porthraite I wants; an' if ye'll put in the pick and shovel, I'll give ye two dollars a pace for them."

"I'll put them in, Pat, for nothing," replied Ned, smiling, as he commenced his sketch. "I suppose you intend to send this to some fair one in old Ireland?"

Pat did not reply at once. "Sure," said he, slowly, "I niver thought of her in that way before, but maybe she was fair wance, though she's been a'most as black as bog-oak for half-a-cintury. It's for me grandmother I want it."

"Your grandmother! that's curious, now; the last man I painted meant to send the likeness to his mother."

"Not so cur'ous neither," replied the man, with some feeling; "it's my opinion, the further a man goes from the owld country, and the rougher he becomes wi' scrapin' up and down through the world, the more tinder his heart gits when he thinks o' his mother. Me own mother died whin I wos a bit spalpeen, an' I lived wi' me grandmother, bliss her heart, ever since,--at laste till I took to wanderin', which was tin years past."

"So long! Pat, you must have wandered far in that time. Have you ever been away far into the interior of this country, among the mountains, in the course of your wanderings!"

"Among the mountains, is it? Indeed I have, just; an' a most tree-mendous beautiful sight it is. Wos ye goin' there?"

"I've been thinking about it. Is the shooting good?"

"Shootin', ah! av ye'd bin wi' me an' Bill Simmons, two summers ago, ye'd have had more nor enough o' shootin'. The grizzlies are thick as paes, and the buffaloes swarm in the valleys like muskaitoes, not to mintion wolves, and beavers, and badgers, and deer, an' sich like--forby the red Injuns; we shot six o' them critters about the legs an' arms in self defence, an' they shot us too--they put an arrow dane through the pint o' Bill's nose, an' wan ripped up me left arm, it did." (Pat bared the brawny limb, and exhibited the wound as he spoke.) "Shootin', is it? faix there's the hoith o' shootin' there, an' no end o' sainery."

The conversation was interrupted at this point by the door being burst violently open, and several men rushing into the hut. They grasped the Irishman by the arms, and attempted to drag him out, but Pat seized hold of the plank, on the edge of which he sat, and refused to move at first.

"Come along, boy," cried one, boisterously; "we're goin' to lynch a doctor, an' we want you to swear to him."

"Ay, an' to swear _at_ him too, if ye like; he's a rig'lar cheat; bin killin' us off by the dozen, as cool as ye like, and pretendin' to be an M.D. all the time."

"There's more than wan," cried another man, seizing Pat again by the arm; "won't ye come, man?"

"Och! av coorse I will; av it's to do any good to the public, I'm yer man. Hooray! for the people, an' down wi' the aristock-racy."

This sentiment was received with a shout of delight, and several exclamations of "Bah!" as the party hurried in a body from the studio. Ned, having thus nothing to do, rose, and followed them towards the centre of the settlement, where a large crowd was collecting to try the unhappy doctors above referred to.

There were six of them, all disreputable-looking rascals, who had set up for doctors, and had carried on a thriving business among the sick miners,--of whom there were many at that time,--until a genuine doctor arrived at the place, and discovered and exposed them. The miners were fortunately not bloodthirsty at this time, so the six self-dubbed M.D.s, instead of being hanged, were banished for ever from the settlement. Half-an-hour later the miners were busy in their respective claims, and Ned Sinton was again seated before his "lan'scape" of the Irishman.

Just as he was completing the sketch, the door opened slowly, and a very remarkable man swaggered into the room, and spat on the centre of the floor. He was dressed in the extreme of the fashion then prevalent in the Eastern States. A superfine black coat, silk vest, superfine black trousers, patent-leather boots, kid gloves, and a black silk hat! A more unnatural apparition at the diggings could not well be imagined. Ned Sinton could hardly credit his eyes, but no rubbing of them would dispel the vision. There he stood, a regular Broadway swell, whose love of change had induced him to seek his fortune in the gold-regions of California, and whose vanity had induced him to retain his drawing-room costume.

This man, besides being possessed of a superabundance of supercilious impudence, also possessed a set of digging tools, the handles of which were made of polished oak and walnut, with bright brass ferrules. With these he proposed to dig his fortune in a leisurely way; meanwhile, finding the weather rather hot, he had made up his mind to have his portrait done.

Thrusting his hands into his pockets, this gentleman shut the door with his heel, turned his back to the fire-place--from the mere force of habit, for there was no fire--and again spat upon the floor, after which he said:

"I say, stranger, what's your charge for a likeness?"

"You will excuse me, sir," answered Ned, "if, before replying to that question, I beg of you not to spit on my floor."

The Yankee uttered an exclamation of surprise, and asked, "Why not, stranger?"

"Because I don't like it."

"You wouldn't have me spit in my hat, would you?" inquired the dandy.

"Certainly not."

"Where then?"

Ned pointed to a large wooden box which stood close to the fire-place, and said, "There--I have provided a box for the accommodation of those sitters who indulge in that disagreeable practice. If you can't avoid spitting, do it there."

"Wall, now, you Britishers are strange critters. But you haven't told me your price for a portrait."

"I fear that I cannot paint you at any price," replied Ned, without looking up from his paper, while Pat listened to the conversation with a comical leer on his broad countenance.

"Why not, stranger?" asked the dandy, in surprise.

"Because I'm giving up business, and don't wish to take any more orders."

"Then I'll set here, I guess, an' look at ye while ye knock off that one," said the man, sitting down close to Ned's elbow, and again spitting on the floor. Whether he did so intentionally or not we cannot tell, probably not, but the effect upon Ned was so strong that he rose deliberately, opened the door, and pointed to the passage thus set free, without uttering a word. His look, however, was quite sufficient. The dandy rose abruptly, and walked out in silence, leaving Ned to shut the door quietly behind him and return to his work, while the Irishman rolled in convulsions of laughter on Tom Collins's bed.

Ned's sitters, as we have hinted, were numerous and extremely various. Sometimes he was visited by sentimental and home-sick miners, and occasionally by dandy miners, such as we have described, but his chief customers were the rough, hearty men from "old England," "owld Ireland," and from the Western States; with all of whom he had many a pleasant and profitable hour's conversation, and from many of whom, especially the latter, he obtained valuable and interesting information in reference to the wild regions of the interior which he longed so much to see.


CHAPTER NINETEEN.


THE WILDERNESS AGAIN--A SPLENDID VALLEY--GIGANTIC TREES AND WATERFALLS-- TOM MEETS WITH AN ACCIDENT--BOTH MEET WITH MANY SURPRISES--MYSTERIES, CAVERNS, DOLEFUL SOUNDS, AND GRIZZLY-BEAR-CATCHERS.

Mounted on gallant steeds, Ned and his friend again appear in the wilderness in the afternoon of a beautiful autumn day. They had ridden far that day. Dust covered their garments, and foam bespattered the chests of their horses, but the spirits of men and beasts were not yet subdued, for their muscles, by long practice, were inured to hardship. Many days had passed since they left the scene of their recent successful labours, and many a weary league had been traversed over the unknown regions of the interior. They were lost, in one sense of that term--charmingly, romantically lost--that is to say, neither Ned nor Tom had the most distant idea of where they were, or what they were coming to, but both of them carried pocket-compasses, and they knew that by appealing to these, and to the daily jotting of the route they had travelled, they could ascertain pretty closely the direction that was necessary to be pursued in order to strike the great San Joaquin river.

Very different was the scenery through which they now rode from that of the northern diggings. The most stupendous and magnificent mountains in the world surrounded, on all sides, the valley through which they passed, giving to it an air of peaceful seclusion; yet it was not gloomy, for the level land was broad and fertile, and so varied in aspect that it seemed as though a beautiful world were enclosed by those mighty hills.

Large tracts of the valley were covered with wild oats and rich grass, affording excellent pasturage for the deer that roamed about in large herds. Lakes of various sizes sustained thousands of wild-fowl on their calm breasts, and a noble river coursed down its entire length. Oaks, chestnuts, and cypresses grew in groups all over the landscape, and up on the hill-sides firs of gigantic size reared their straight stems high above the surrounding trees.

But the point in the scenery which struck the travellers as being most peculiar was the precipitous character of the sides of many of the vast mountains and the flatness of their summits. Tom Collins, who was a good judge of heights, having travelled in several mountainous regions of the world, estimated the nearest precipices to be upwards of three thousand feet, without a break from top to bottom, but the ranges in the background towered far above these, and must have been at least double.

"I never saw anything like this before, Tom," said Ned, in a suppressed voice.

"I did not believe such sublime scenery existed," replied his companion. "I have travelled in Switzerland and Norway, but this surpasses both. Truly it was worth while to give up our gold-digging in order to see this."

"Yet there are many," rejoined Ned, "who travel just far enough into California to reach the diggings, where they remain till their fortunes are made, or till their hopes are disappointed, and then return to England and write a book, perchance, in which they speak as authoritatively as if they had swept the whole region, north and south, east and west. Little wonder that we find such travellers contradicting each other flatly. One speaks of `California' as being the most splendid agricultural country in the world, and