The Golden Dream, Robert Michael Ballantyne [e books free to read .TXT] 📗

interrupted Mr Shirley. "Well, now, let me ask you, Ned, how much gold have you brought back from the diggings?"

Ned fidgeted uncomfortably on his seat--the subject could no longer be avoided.

"I--I--must confess," said he, with hesitation, "that I haven't brought much."

"Of course, you couldn't be expected to have done much in so short a time; but _how_ much?"

"Only 500 pounds," replied Ned, with a sigh, while a slight blush shone through the deep bronze of his countenance.

"Oh!" said Mr Shirley, pursing up his mouth, while an arch twinkle lurked in the corners of each eye.

"Ah! but, uncle, you mustn't quiz me. I _had_ more, and might have brought it home too, if I had chosen."

"Then why didn't you?"

Ned replied to this question by detailing how most of his money had been lost, and how, at the last, he gave nearly all that remained to his friend Tom Collins.

"You did quite right, Ned, _quite right_," said Mr Shirley, when his nephew had concluded; "and now I'll tell you what I want you to do. You told me the other day, I think, that you wished to become a farmer."

"Yes, uncle. I do think that that life would suit me better than any other. I'm fond of the country and a quiet life, and I don't like cities; but, then, I know nothing about farming, and I doubt whether I should succeed without being educated to it to some extent at least."

"A very modest and proper feeling to entertain," said Mr Shirley, with a smile; "particularly when it is considered that farming is an exceedingly difficult profession to acquire a knowledge of. But I have thought of that for you, Ned, and I think I see a way out of the difficulty."

"What way is that?"

"I won't tell you just yet, boy. But answer me this. Are you willing to take any farm I suggest to you, and henceforth to give up all notion of wandering over the face of the earth, and devote yourself steadily to your new profession?"

"I am, uncle; if you will point out to me how I am to pay the rent and stock the farm, and how I am to carry it on in the meantime without a knowledge of husbandry."

"I'll do that for you, all in good time; meanwhile, will you put on your hat, and run down to Moxton's office--you remember it?"

"That I do," replied Ned, with a smile.

"Well, go there, and ask him for the papers I wrote about to him two days ago. Bring them here as quickly as you can. We shall then take the train, and run down to Brixley, and look at the farm."

"But are you really in earnest!" asked Ned, in some surprise.

"Never more so in my life," replied the old gentleman, mildly. "Now be off; I want to read the paper."

Ned rose and left the room, scarcely believing that his uncle did not jest. As he shut the door, old Mr Shirley took up the paper, pulled down the upper pair of spectacles--an act which knocked the lower pair off his nose, whereat he smiled more blandly than ever--and began to read.

Meanwhile, Edward Sinton put on his great-coat--the identical one he used to wear before he went away--and his hat and his gloves, and walked out into the crowded streets of London, with feelings somewhat akin, probably, to those of a somnambulist. Having been so long accustomed to the free-and-easy costume of the mines, Ned felt about as uncomfortable and stiff as a warrior of old must have felt when armed _cap-a-pie_. His stalwart frame was some what thinner and harder than when he last took the same walk; his fair moustache and whiskers were somewhat more decided, and less like wreaths of smoke, and his countenance was of a deep-brown colour; but in other respects Ned was the same dashing fellow that he used to be--dashing by _nature_, we may remark, not by _affectation_.

In half-an-hour he stood before Moxton's door. There it was, as large as life, and as green as ever. Ned really found it impossible to believe that it was so long since he last saw it. He felt as if it had been yesterday. The brass knocker and the brass plate were there too, as dirty as ever--perhaps a thought dirtier--and the dirty house still retreated a little behind its fellows, and was still as much ashamed of itself--seemingly--as ever.

Ned raised the knocker, and smote the brass knob. The result was, as formerly, a disagreeable-looking old woman, who replied to the question, "Is Mr Moxton in?" with a sharp, short, "Yes." The dingy little office, with its insufficient allowance of daylight, and its compensating mixture of yellow gas, was inhabited by the same identical small dishevelled clerk who, nearly two years before, was busily employed in writing his name interminably on scraps of paper, and who now, as then, answered to the question, "Can I see Mr Moxton?" by pointing to the door which opened into the inner apartment, and resuming his occupation--the same occupation--writing his name on scraps of paper.

Ned tapped--as of yore.

"Come in," cried a stern voice--as of ditto.

Ned entered; and there, sure enough, was the same tall, gaunt man, with the sour cast of countenance, standing, (as formerly,) with his back to the fire.

"Ah!" exclaimed Moxton, "you're young Sinton, I suppose?"

Ned almost started at the perfect reproduction of events, and questions, and answers. He felt a species of reckless incredulity in reference to everything steal over him, as he replied--

"Yes; I came, at my uncle's request, for some papers that--"

"Ah, yes, they're all ready," interrupted the lawyer, advancing to the table. "Tell your uncle that I shall be glad to hear from him again in reference to the subject of those papers; and take care of them--they are of value. Good-morning!"

"Good-morning!" replied our hero, retreating.

"Stay!" said Moxton.

Ned stopped, and turned round.

"You've been in California, since I last saw you, I understand?"

"I have," replied Ned.

"Umph! You haven't made your fortune, I fancy?"

"No, not quite."

"It's a wild place, if all reports are true?"

"Rather," replied Ned, smiling; "there's a want of law there."

"Ha! and lawyers," remarked Moxton, sarcastically.

"Indeed there is," replied Ned, with some enthusiasm, as he thought of the gold-hunting spirit that prevailed in the cities of California. "There is great need out there of men of learning--men who can resist the temptation to collect gold, and are capable of doing good to the colony in an intellectual and spiritual point of view. Clergymen, doctors, and lawyers are much wanted there. You'd find it worth your while to go, sir."

Had Edward Sinton advised Mr Moxton to go and rent an office in the moon, he could scarcely have surprised that staid gentleman more than he did by this suggestion. The lawyer gazed at him for one moment in amazement. Then he said--

"These papers are of value, young man: be careful of them. Good-morning--" and sat down at his desk to write. Ned did not venture to reply, but instantly retired, and found himself in the street with-- not, as formerly, an indistinct, but--a distinct impression that he had heard the dishevelled clerk chuckling vociferously as he passed through the office.

That afternoon Ned and old Mr Shirley alighted from the train at a small village not a hundred miles out of London, and wended their way leisurely--for it was a warm sunny day for the season--towards a large, quaint, old farm-house, about two miles distant from the station.

"What a very pleasant-looking house that is on the hill-top!" remarked Ned, as he gave his arm to his uncle.

"D'you think so? Well, I'm glad of it, because that's the farm I wish you to take."

"Indeed!" exclaimed Ned, in surprise. "Surely the farm connected with such a house must be a large one?"

"So it is," replied the other.

Ned laughed. "My dear uncle," said he, "how can _I_ manage such a place, without means or knowledge?"

"I said before, boy, that I would overcome both these difficulties for you."

"You did, dear uncle; and if you were a rich man, I could understand how you might overcome the first; but you have often told me you had no money in the world except the rent of a small property."

"Right, Ned; I said so; and I say it again. I shan't leave you a sixpence when I die, and I can't afford to give you one while I am alive."

"Then I must just leave the matter in your own hands," replied Ned, smiling, "for I cannot comprehend your plans."

They had now reached the gate of the park that surrounded the fine old building of Brixley Hall.

The house was one of those rambling, picturesque old mansions, which, although not very large in reality, have a certain air of magnitude, and even grandeur, about them. The windows were modern and large, so that the rooms were well lighted, and the view in all directions was magnificent. Wherever the eye turned, it met knolls, and mounds, and fields, and picturesque groves, with here and there a substantial farm-steading, or a little hamlet, with its modest church-spire pointing ever upwards to the bright sky. Cattle and sheep lowed and bleated in the meadows, while gentle murmurs told that a rivulet flowed along its placid course at no great distance.

The spot was simply enchanting--and Ned said so, in the fulness of his heart, emphatically.

"'Tis a sweet spot!" remarked his uncle, in a low, sad tone, as he entered the open door of the dwelling, and walked deliberately into the drawing-room.

"Now, Ned, sit down--here, opposite that window, where you can see the view--and I'll tell you how we shall manage. You tell me you have 500 pounds?"

"Yes, uncle."

"Well, your dear mother left you her fortune when she died--it amounts to the small sum of 200 pounds. I never told you of it before, my boy, for reasons of my own. That makes 700 pounds."

"Will that suffice to stock and carry on so large a farm," inquired Ned?

"Not quite," replied Mr Shirley, "but the farm is partly stocked already, so it'll do. Now, I've made arrangements with the proprietor to let you have it for the first year or two rent free. His last tenant's lease happens to have expired six months ago, and he is anxious to have it let immediately."

Ned opened his eyes very wide at this.

"He says," continued the old gentleman, "that if you can't manage to make the two ends meet in the course of a year or two, he will extend the _gratis_ lease."

Ned began to think his uncle had gone deranged. "Why, what _do_ you mean," said he, "who is this extraordinary proprietor?"

"He's an eccentric old fellow, Ned, who lives in London--they call him Shirley, I believe."

"Yourself, uncle!" cried Ned, starting up.

Dear reader, the conversation that followed was so abrupt, exclamatory, interjectional, and occasionally ungrammatical, as well as absurd, that it could not be reduced to writing. We therefore leave it to your imagination.