On the evening of a cold December day—the last day of the year—many months after the occurrence of the events narrated in the last chapter, old Mrs Osten sat in her drawing-room, toasting her toes before a cheerful fire. The widow looked very happy, and, to say truth, she had good reason for being so, for her stalwart son had come home to her safe and sound, and was at that moment sitting by her side talking in a most amazing way about his Flora—referring to her as a sort of captive bird which had now no chance of escaping, saying that he meant to take her to Paris, and Switzerland, and Rome, and in summer to the English Lakes, and Killarney, and the Scotch Highlands.
“In fact, mother,” said Will, “after that little event comes off, which is fixed to take place next week, I mean to act the part of Wandering Will over again under entirely new and much more interesting circumstances. Ah! mother,” he continued with enthusiasm, “how little did I think, when I was travelling through the wild regions of the far west, that I was being led to the spot where I should find such a wife!”
“Yes, dear, you were indeed led,” said Mrs Osten, “for that wild region was the very last place in the world to which you would have thought of going to look for a good wife, had you been guided by your own wisdom.”
“True, mother, most true. Gold is much more plentiful in that land than wives, either good or bad. I wonder how my old comrades are getting on there now. You remember Larry, mother, and Bunco. How I wish I could have had them all here at our wedding! You would have delighted in old Captain Dall, and Captain Blathers, too, he’s not a bad fellow though rather wild, but Big Ben would have pleased you most—by the way, this is the last night of the year. I doubt not they will be remembering me to-night, and drinking my health in clear cold water from the crystal springs of the Sierra Nevada. Come, I will pledge them in the same beverage,” said Will, seizing a glass of water that stood at his elbow; “may success, in the highest sense of the word, attend them through life.”
“Amen,” murmured the widow, as Will drained the glass; “I hope they may get plenty of gold without catching the gold-fever, which is just another name for the love of gold, and that, you know, is the root of all evil. But go on telling me about your adventures, Will; I never tire of hearing you relate them.”
“Well, mother, I’ll begin again, but if you will be for ever interrupting me with questions and remarks about Flora, I shall never get to the end of them. Now, then, listen.”
Hereupon Will began to talk, and his mother to listen, with, we need scarcely say, intense interest.
Thus was the last night of that year passed in the drawing-room. Let us see how it was spent in the kitchen.
“Yes, Jemimar,” said Maryann, with her mouth full of buttered toast, “I always said it, and I always thought it, and I always knowed it, that Master Will would come ’ome, and marry a sweet beautiful young lady, which ’as come true, if ever a profit spoke, since the day of Jackariah—let me fill your cup, my dear, p’raps you’ll ’and me the kettle, Richards.”
The worthy coachman rose with alacrity to obey, and Jemima accepted the proffered cup of tea in the midst of a vain attempt to quiet the baby Richards, which happened to be unusually restive that night.
“To think, too,” continued Maryann with a laugh, “that I should ’ave gone an’ mistook the dear creetur at first for a cannibal!”
“Maryhann,” said Jemima, solemnly, “I don’t believe there’s no such things as cannibals.”
“No more do I, Jemimar—did you speak, Mr Richards?” inquired Maryann, with a sudden assumption of dignity.
The coachman, who was devotedly engaged with his fifth slice of buttered toast, protested solemnly that he had not spoken, but admitted that he had experienced a tendency to choke—owing to crumbs—just at the point when Maryann happened to allude to the cannibals. Maryann had a suspicion that the tendency to choke was owing to other causes than crumbs; but as she could not prove her point, and as the baby Richards took it into his head at that moment to burst into an unaccountable and vehement fit of laughter, she merely tossed her head, and resumed her observations.
“No, Jemimar, nothing will ever convince me that there are any savages so depravated as to prefer a slice of ’uman flesh to a good beefsteak, an’ it’s my belief that that himperent Irishman, Larry O’Ale, inwented it all to gammon us.”
“I quite agree with you, Maryhann,” said Jemima, who indeed always agreed with any proposition her friend chose to put forth; “an’ I ’old that it is contrairy to ’uman reason to imagin such beastliness, much less to do it.”
Here Richards had the temerity to observe that he wasn’t quite sure that such things were never done; “for,” said he, “I ’eard Mr Osten himself say as ’ow he’d seen ’em do it, an’ surely he wouldn’t go for to tell a lie.” At which remark Jemima advised him to hold his tongue, and Maryann replied, with an expression of scorn, that she wondered to ’ear ’im. Did he suppose Master Will didn’t sometimes indulge in a little ’armless jesting like other people? She would have added more, but unfortunately the crumbs got into Richards’ throat again, causing that sceptical man to grow red in the face, and give vent to sounds like mild choking.
“’Owever,” observed Jemima, “it don’t matter now, as Mr William and ’is bride are safe ’ome again, and if Mr O’Ale also was fond of a joke, like other people, there is no ’arm in that. Poor fellow, I ’ope ’e’s well, an’ Mr Bunco too, though he is a Red Hindian.”
“’Ear ’ear!” said Richards, suddenly seizing his cup; “let us drink their ’ealth, an’ the ’ealth of all their comrades, for this is the last night of the year, an’ by all accounts they won’t likely be spendin’ it in the midst o’ such comforts an’ blessin’s as we does. Come, lasses, drink it merrily, fill yer glasses, let the teapot circle round.”
The tone in which this proposal was made, and the fact that it was the last night of the year, induced Maryann to respond, with gracious condescension:—
“Well, Richards, I’m agreeable.”
“Here, then,” said Richards, raising his cup on high, “I give you the ’ealth of Mr Larry O’Ale, Mr Bunco, an’ all absent friends—wishin’ ’em luck, an’ lots o’ gold.”
“An’ a ’appy deliverance from these ’orrible countries,” added Maryann.
“I agree with you, Maryhann,” said Jemima, draining her cup to the dregs in honour of the toast.
But how did Larry and his friends spend that last night of the year in the far-off golden land? Let Larry speak for himself, in a letter which was received by Will Osten, many months afterwards, and which we now give verbatim et literatim.
The letter in question was written in a remarkably cramped hand, on several very dirty sheets of blue ruled foolscap, folded with much care and crookedness, and fastened with a red wafer which bore the distinct impression of an extremely hard knuckle. It ran thus:—
“Grizlie bar gultch first janooary.
“Dear mister osten, i taik up my pen, the its litil i has to do wid sitch things, to let yoo no that this coms hopin’ your al wel as it leeves us—barrin bunko who overait hiself last nite at super but hees al rite again, yool be glad to larn that we hav diskivered lots o goold. wan day whin i wos up the straim i thowt id tri me luk in a hole, an faix didnt i turn up a nugit o puer goold as big as my hid. i tuk it down to the hous an’ didnt we spind a nite over it! its glad i was we had no likker for i do belaive weed have all got rorin drunk, as it was, sure we danced haf the nite to the myoosik of a kitle drum—an owld tin kitle it was, but we didnt mind that, niver a taist, for the nugit kep up our sperits. Wel, we wint an turned up the hole kuntry after that, an’ got heeps o goold. yool niver belaive it—there was nugits o’ all sises from a pay to a pitaity. Kaptin dal wint to sanfransisky last munth an hees paid of the det to mister zooleeno, interest an all, so yoor free, an’ theres a big sum in the bank, but i dont no ritely how much, but Kaptin dal is to rite yoo soon as to that an’ a good many other things, he’s too much exited about the nugit just now to midle wid the pen, so he’s maid me his depity, dee see, an its that saim im allways willin to be, for im at all times as kool as a kookumber, an had a first-rate eddikashun—good luk to the parish praist, anyhow—theres a good skreed to begin wid, an’ so as theres enuff in this part o’ me leter to kaip ye thinkin till dinner, ill just go out an have another dig in the straim an resoom me pen when i cum bak.
“Wel, mister osten, as i wor saying, ive returned havin got nothin, bad skran to it, but a few small bits like a thimble, howsumeiver, that samell pay for sharpnin the tools, i now sit down to resoom me pen, as i said before i got up, but och! if ye heerd the row the other boys is goin on wid, yed find it as diffikilt to read this as i do to spel it. but niver mind, that saim dont mater much, for, as i said before, im allways kooll.
“Wel—youve no notion what a work we hav wid the goold, bekais, dee see, weer pikin it up in handfulls, sumtimes wid a nugit, now an again, like yer fist, an the boys is raither exited, for ov koorse they kant al keep as kool as me—but let that pas. as I wor sayin, the row is diffinin for that blakgird Buckywangy is spinin a yarn as long as the mane yard o a sivinty-fore about wan o’ thim spalpeens in the kanible ilands as had his unkles darters waitin maid, as wor a slaiv, hashed up, wid two litle boys an a pig, into what hees got the face to call a Irish stu, an it didnt sit lit on the Kanibles stumick for the raisin they forgot the pepper—its not aisy to write wid sich blarny ringin’ in wans eers—an the boys larfin too as loud, amost as the nigers yel in the Kanible islands—be the way, that minds me o purty miss westwood as we met thair. its mistress osten sheel be by this no doubt, plaiz give her Larry’s best respeks, an its wishin her good luck i am, an the saim to yersilf.
“Yool be glad to heer that buncos found his wife, he wint away south for three or fore weeks, an brot her bak wid him, an she hadnt married nobody in his absence, the its urgin her purty hard they was. shees patchin a pair o me owld breeches at this minit while I write them lines, an is uncomon usful wid her needle, capn blathers says he had no notion before that wimin was so nisisary to man. but hees a dirty owld bachiler. the traper tawks o laivin us, im sory to say. hees a good harted man an a rail broth of a boy is big ben, but he dont take kindly to goold diggin, thats not to say he kant dig. hees made more nor most of us, an more be token he gave the most of it away to a poor retch of a feller as kaim hear sik an starvin on his way to sanfransisky. but big bens heart is in the roky mountins, i kan see that quite plain, i do belaiv he has a sowl above goold, an wood raither katch foxes an bars, he sais heel stop another month wid us an then make traks for his owld hants—just like the way we sailors long for the say after a spree on shore, the i must say non of us say-dogs have any longin as yit to smel salt water, big ben sais that this sort o work is nother good for body nor sowl—an, dee no, i half belaiv hees rite, for kool the i am i feels a litle feverish sometimes, i wos goin to tel ye a anikdot about mister cupples an a brown bar, but the boys are off to the straim again, so i must stop, but il resoom ritein after tay—hopin yool exkuse my fraquint interupshuns, mister ostin, il go.
“Wel, heer i am again—just comed in wid a failin about my inside like a botimles pitt, but thats aisy kured. il taik up the pen after tay, only i want to tell ye weer in luk agin, i got fore nugits as big as walnuts, and heeps o smal wans, an the rest has got a dale o goold wan way or other, now for super.
“There, the pitts fild up now. wel, whair was i. och! yes, it was about mister cupples an the brown bar. you must no that hees got the fever pritty bad, has mister cupples—the goold fever i mean, an goes off an owr or too before the rest of us waiks up of a mornin, but he dont make no more goold, which owld peter—yoo remimber owld peter, mister ostin—sais is a spechiel visitashun for his beein avaridgious. anyhow, he gits les slaip than the rest of us an no more goold. wel, as i wor sayin, he wint off wan mornin up the straim, an it so hapind that big ben and bunco wint in the saim direkshun. in the afternoon, as they was comin home, they turned off the trak an sot down to rest a bit. who shood they see comin along the trak soon arter but mister cupples. he was cumin along slow—meditatin like—for he always comed back slow from digin, as if he was loth to leav, but wint thair kuik enuff, anyhow, close behind him wos trotin a big brown bar. the bar didnt see him, by raisin that the trak was krookit and the skrub thik; but it was goin fast, and had almost overhawled mister cupples whin he wos cloas to the place whair the too men was hidin. heers fun, sais the traper, kokin his gun. bunco he grin’d, but didnt spaik. yool remimber, mister osten, bunco had a way of his own o grinin widout spaikin, but big ben sais his eyes more nor makes up for his tung. wel, just as he comes fornint the too men, mister cupples he heers a sound o futsteps behind him, an stops an turns round, heed no gun nor nothin wotsomiver wid him, havin left all the tools at the place he was digin. in a moment round the corner cums the bar ful swing, it was a sharp turn, and the site o the mate kuite took him aback, for he got up on his hind legs and showed al his grinders, mister cupples was also much took by surprise, but he suddently shook his fist in the bar’s face, an shoutid, ha, yoo raskal, as if he wor spaikin to a fellar creetur. whether it wos the length o the mate’s face, or not bein yoosed to convarsashun, no wan nos; but the bar he ’bout ship, clapt on all sail, and stood away up the gulch at the rait o 15 or 20 nots, while mister cupples he looked after him chuklin, an bunco and big ben too was larfin fit to bust their sides, the they larfed inside, like, for fear o diskiverin thimselves, but when big ben see the bar cleering off like that he up wid his gun, let drive, an put a bal kuite nate in the bak of his skul if mister cupples wasnt afeerd o the bar, he got a most awful frite by the shot, for yoo must no theres bin a dale o murtherin going on at the digins of lait, tho, be good luk, its not cum our way as yet, so he turned and run like al posesed. yoo no what long leggs hees got, faix, he cleerd the ground wid them like a peir o kumpasses, an he was out o site in no time, an cum heer pantin and blowin like a broken-winded steem-ingin. soon after that, big ben cum in wid the skin o the bar over his shoulder, and bunco caryin his too hams to smok, for bar hams ant bad aitin, let me tel yoo, if yoor hungry an not partickler. of koorse mister cupples hasnt had the life of a dog since, for the boys are for iver jokin him amost out of his siven sensis about that bar.
“This is about all iv got to tell, mister osten, not but that i cud go on for paiges an paiges yit, given ee odds an ends o smal tawk an ginral nuse, for whin i wance begin wid the pen i niver no when to stop—its awthership il taik to, maybe, if iver i git into diffikultys—but its ov no yoos spinin out a yarn when its done, so il stop now, wishin ye all helth an hapines, wid the saim from all yer owld frinds at the grizlie bar gultch digins. they bid me say thail never forgit the hapy days theyve spent wid ye in the south says, an the forests of south ameriky an the roky mountins. but them days is all past an gon now. sure i sometimes feel as if the hole thing was a draim. dont you, mister osten. wid best wishes, yoors til deth.
“Larry o hale.”
“p.s.—Plaze give my apologys to yoor muther for forgitin to send my respeks to her. also to maryan, whos a dasent woman av she wasnt so fond o’ fitein. also to richards an’ his beter haf gemima. Shees a good sowl too av she wasnt aflikted wid too ardint a desir to wair some of her husbands garmints. so no more at present from L.o.h.”
We can add little to the record so graphically penned by Larry O’Hale, and it were well, perhaps, that, having spun our yarn out to the end, we should follow his example and write no more. But we feel that it would be unjust to the memory of our hero were we to dismiss him without a “few words” as to his subsequent career.
It happens sometimes, though we believe not frequently, that those who begin life with what may be called a wild burst settle down at last into quiet domestic men, whose chief delight it is to “fight their battles o’er again” with sympathetic comrades, and to “wander in dreams.” Such was the case with Will Osten. Flora acted the part of a best-bower anchor to him all through life, and held him fast; but, if the whole truth must be told, it is our duty to add that Will did not strain hard at the cable! He rode easily in the calm harbour of home, which was seldom ruffled with gales—matrimonial or otherwise.
The success of his Californian estate was so great that, besides setting up in life the most of the comrades who had followed his fortunes, it placed himself beyond the necessity of working for his daily bread. Will did not, however, lead an idle life on that account. He recognised the great truth that he was answerable to his Creator for the management of his time and talents just as much as the man who has to earn his bread in the sweat of his brow, and he made it his chief aim in life to act the part of a faithful steward. That he did not succeed in this to the full extent of his wishes is certain, nevertheless his success must have been considerable if we are to believe the opinion of his friends, who used to say of him, with enthusiasm, that he was a blessing to the community in the midst of which he dwelt, for, in imitation of the Master whom he served, he went about continually doing good.
In process of time, several little boats (if we may be allowed the expression) appeared in the harbour and cast anchor alongside of Will; or, rather, attached themselves to the anchor which held him fast; and Flora was quite able to hold them all—though it must be admitted that she had infinitely more trouble with the little boats than she had with the big ship, for they had all wandering wills of their own, and, from the time of their first appearance, evinced a strong tendency to strain with tremendous vigour at their cables. Indeed, on several occasions, one or two of the boats attempted actually to cut their cables and make off, as the old ship had done before them, but Will’s wisdom and Flora’s winning ways prevailed, and it was found that, having been trained in the way in which they should go from the commencement, they did not depart from that way when they grew old.
In reference to the early existence of this little flotilla, we may, with propriety, quote the opinion of Maryann—than whom there could not be a better witness, for she dwelt in Will’s house, and nursed them all as she had nursed their father before them—superintended, of course, by old Mrs Osten, who dwelt in a cottage of her own hard by, and watched the rise and progress of her descendants for many a year with keen felicity. Maryann, in talking over matters with her faithful bosom friend, was wont to say:—
“Yes, Jemimar, I never had two opinions about it, they’re the beautifulest an’ sweetest children I ever did ’ave had to do with—just as Master Will, their papa, was simularly so; but I’m free to confess that they all has a surprisin’ sperrit. There’s Master William, now (I can’t abear to call him Will, because that was the name as ’is father went by, and I ’old that in a sense it is sacred), there’s Master William, though ’e’s only jist out o’ frocks an’ frilled trousers, and noo into blue tights an’ brass buttons, there ’e is, goin’ about the country on a pony as isn’t much bigger than a Noofoundland dog, but goes over the ’edges an ditches in a way as makes my blood to curdle an’ my skin to creep, with that dear boy on ’is back and ’is tail flyin be’ind, an’ shoutin’ with a sort of wild delight that I do think is wicked—I do indeed, Jemimar, I give you my word I think it sinful, though, of course, ’e dont mean it so, poor child, and ’is father cheerin’ ’im on in a way that must sear ’is conscience wuss than a red ’ot iron, w’ich ’is mother echoes too! it is quite past my compre’ension. Then ’e comes ’ome sich a figur, with ’oles in ’is trousers an’ ’is ’ats squeezed flat an’ ’is jackets torn. But Master Charles aint a bit better. Though ’e’s scarcely able to walk ’e can ride like a jockey, an’ needs more mendin’ of ’is clo’se than any six ordinary boys. Miss Flora, too, would be just as wild if she weren’t good and bidable, w’ich is ’er salvation; an’ the baby—oh! you wouldn’t believe it! didn’t I catch that hinfant, only the other day, tryin’ to throw a summerset in its bed, in imitation of Master William, an’ yesterday morning I caught Master Charles trying to teach it to ’ang on to the clo’se-rope in the nursery by its toes! It’s an awful trainin’ the poor things is gettin’—an’ the only comfort I ’ave in ’em is, that their dear mother do constantly teach ’em the Bible—w’ich condemns all sich things,—an’ she do manage to make ’em fond o’ wisitin’ an’ considerin’ of the poor.”
To which observations Jemima, holding up her hands and gazing at her bosom friend in sympathy, would reply that her own sentiments was hidentically simular, that things in general was to her most amazin’, and that there was no accountin’ for nothin’ in this life, but that w’atever came of it she ’oped the family would live long an’ ’appy in a world, w’ich was, she must confess, a most perplexing mixture of good and evil, though of course she wasn’t rightly able to understand or explain that, but she was sure of this anyhow, that, although she was by no means able to explain ’erself as well as she could wish, she knew that she wished well to every one who stuck to the golden rule like Mr and Mrs Osten.
With which sentiment, good reader, we shall conclude this chronicle of the life and adventures of Wandering Will, and respectfully bid you farewell.
The End.
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