Philosopher Jack, Robert Michael Ballantyne [english novels for beginners TXT] 📗

the time of which we write, the excitement about the gold-fields of California was at its highest pitch. Men were flocking to that region from all parts of the earth. Fortunes were being made by some in a few months, and lost by others, at the gaming-tables, in a few days, or even hours. While a few gained a competence, many gained only a bare subsistence; thousands lost their health, and not a few their lives. It was a strange play that men enacted there, embracing all the confusion, glitter, rapid change of scene, burlesque, and comedy of a pantomime, with many a dash of darkest tragedy intermingled. Tents were pitched in all directions, houses were hastily run up, restaurants of all kinds were opened, boats were turned keel up and converted into cottages, while ships were stranded or lying idle at their anchors for want of crews, who had made off to that mighty centre of attraction, the diggings.

Arrived at San Francisco, Captain Samson and his crew were landed one fine morning at an early hour, and went up to a modest-looking hotel, without any definite idea as to what was best to be done in their peculiar circumstances. Feeling a strange sensation of helplessness in the midst of so much turmoil and human energy, after their quiet sojourn on the Coral Island, they kept together like a flock of sheep, and wandered about the town. Then they returned to their hotel and had luncheon, for which so large a sum was demanded, that they resolved to return on board at once, and ask the American captain's advice.

They found their deliverer pacing his quarterdeck, with his hands in his pockets, and a stern frown on his countenance. He was quite alone, and the vessel wore an unusually quiet air.

"Nothing wrong, I hope," said Captain Samson, as he stepped over the gangway.

"Everything wrong," replied the American; "crew skedaddled."

"What! bolted?"

"Ay, every man, to the diggin's."

"What will you do?" asked Captain Samson, in a sympathetic tone.

"Sell off the ship and cargo for what they'll fetch, and go to the diggin's too," replied the other. "Moreover, I'd strongly recommend you to do the same."

"What say you to that advice, Philosopher Jack?" asked Captain Samson, turning to our hero, with a peculiar smile.

"I say," answered the philosopher, returning the smile, "that the advice requires consideration."

"Cautiously replied; and what says my Polly?" continued the captain.

"I say whatever you say, father."

"Ah! Poll, Poll, that sort of answer don't help one much. However, we'll call a council of war, and discuss the matter seriously; but, first of all, let's see how the wind blows. How do _you_ feel inclined, Ben Trench? Bein' the invalid of our party, so to speak, you're entitled, I think, to speak first."

"I say, Go," replied Ben.

"And I say ditto," burst from Watty Wilkins with powerful emphasis.

"You wasn't axed yet," observed Bob Corkey. "Besides, stowaways have no right to speak at all."

"What says Mr Luke!" continued the captain.

"Don't go," answered Mr Luke feebly.

"Now, lads," said the captain, after putting the question to the others, "we'll go in for the pros and cons."

They went in for the pros and cons accordingly, and after an animated debate, resolved that the path of duty, as well as that of interest and propriety, lay in the direction of the diggings.

Having settled the matter, and gathered together into a common fund the small amount of cash and property which each had saved from the wreck, they went ashore, purchased the articles necessary for their expedition, and followed the great stream of Californian gold-diggers.

We shall join them, but let not the reader suppose that we intend to bore him or her with the statistics and details of Californian gold-digging. It is our purpose only to touch lightly on those salient points in the adventures of our wanderers which had a more or less direct bearing on the great issues of their lives.


CHAPTER SEVEN.


FAILURE.

There are times, probably, in the life of all when everything seems to go against one,--when plans and efforts turn out ill, or go wrong, and prospects look utterly black and hopeless. Such a time fell upon Philosopher Jack and his friends some months after their arrival at the gold-diggings.

At first they were moderately successful, and at that time what amazingly golden visions they did indulge!

"A carriage and pair," soliloquised Watty Wilkins, one evening at supper, while his eyes rested complacently on the proceeds of the day's labour--a little heap of nuggets and gold-dust, which lay on a sheet of paper beside him; "a carriage and pair, a town house in London, a country house near Bath or Tunbridge Wells, and a shooting-box in the Scotch Highlands. Such is my reasonable ambition."

"Not bad," said Philosopher Jack, "if you throw in a salmon river near the shooting-box, and the right to wear the bonnet, plaid, and kilt at pleasure."

"Not to mention bare legs an' rheumatiz," remarked Simon O'Rook, who was busy with the frying-pan. "Sure, if the good Queen herself was to order me to putt on such things, I'd take off me bonnet an' plaid in excuse that I'd be kilt entirely if she held me to it. All the same I'd obey her, for I'm a loyal subject."

"You're a bad cook, anyhow," said Baldwin Burr, "to burn the bacon like that."

"Burn it!" retorted O'Rook with an air of annoyance, "man alive, how can I help it? It hasn't fat enough to slide in, much less to swim. It's my belief that the pig as owned it was fed on mahogany-sawdust and steel filin's. There, ait it, an' howld yer tongue. It's good enough for a goold-digger, anyhow."

"In regard to that little bit of ambition o' your'n," said Bob Corkey, as the party continued their meal, "seems to me, Watty, that you might go in for a carriage an' four, or six, when you're at it."

"No, Corkey, no," returned the other, "that would be imitating the foibles of the great, which I scorn. What is _your_ particular ambition, now, Mr Luke? What will you buy when you've dug up your fortune?"

The cadaverous individual addressed, who had become thinner and more cadaverous than ever, looked up from his pewter plate, and, with a sickly smile, replied that he would give all the gold in the mines to purchase peace of mind.

This was received with a look of surprise, which was followed by a burst of laughter.

"Why, you ain't an escaped convict, are you?" exclaimed Baldwin Burr.

"No, I'm only an escaped man of business, escaped from the toils, and worries, and confinements of city life," returned Mr Luke, with another sickly smile, as he returned to his tough bacon.

"Well, Mr Luke, if contrast brings any blessing with it," said Edwin Jack, "you ought to revive here, for you have splendid fresh country air--by night as well as by day--a fine laborious occupation with pick and shovel, a healthy appetite, wet feet continually, mud up to the eyes, and gold to your heart's content. What more can you desire?"

"Nothing," replied the cadaverous man with a sigh.

The state of prosperity to which Jack referred did not last. Their first "claim," though rich, was soon worked out, and they were obliged to seek another. This turned out to be a poor one, yielding barely enough of the precious metal to enable them to pay their way, every article of clothing, tools, and food being excessively dear at the mines. Nevertheless, they worked on in hope, but what was termed their "luck" became worse and worse every day, so that at last they were obliged to run into debt.

This was not difficult to do, for the principal store-keeper, Higgins by name, saw that they were respectable, trustworthy men, and felt pretty safe in giving them supplies on credit. One bad result of the debt thus incurred was that the whole tone and spirit of the party was lowered.

"It's too bad," growled Philosopher Jack one evening, as he strode into the tent and flung down his tools; "got barely enough to keep the pot boiling."

"Better that than nothing," remarked Watty Wilkins, who was in the act of taking off his wet boots. "_I_ haven't got as much dust as would gild the end of a bumbee's nose. Hope some of the others have been more successful. None of them have come in yet except O'Rook, who is as unlucky as myself. He's off to the store for something for supper."

Watty sat down before the fire which burned in front of the tent, and sadly toasted his toes.

"I'll tell you what," said Jack, sitting down beside him, "I fear we were fools to come here."

"Not so sure of that" returned Wilkins, with a dubious shake of the head. "Every one, you know, cannot be lucky. Some succeed and some don't. We are down just now, that's all. The wheel of fortune is going round, and something will be sure to turn up soon."

"Nothing will turn up unless we turn it up for ourselves, you may depend upon that" said Philosopher Jack.

"The captain seemed to preach a different doctrine from that last Sunday, didn't he, when he remarked that God sometimes sends prosperity and riches to those who neither ask, work for, nor deserve them?"

"True, Watty, but these, he told us, were exceptional cases; the rule being, that those who labour with body or mind acquire possessions, while those who don't labour fall into poverty. The simple truth of that rule is partially veiled by the fact that thousands of laborious men labour unwisely, on the one hand, while, on the other hand, thousands of idle men live on the product of their forefathers' labours. Besides, didn't the captain also impress upon us that success is not success when it leads to evil, and failure is not failure when it results in good?"

"From all which," retorted Watty, "you bring forward strong proof that your present growling at bad luck is most unphilosophic, you cross-grained philosopher."

"Not at all," returned Jack. "The captain's principles may, or may not be correct. The mere statement of them does not prove that my ill luck just now is going to result in good. But the worst of it is, that during the time of our good fortune, I had been hoarding up in order to be able to send money to my poor father, and now it has all melted away."

"I'm sorry for you, Jack," said Watty, "but that is not the worst of it to my mind, bad though it be. What grieves me most is, that my dear friend and chum, Ben Trench, is surely losing his health under the strain of anxiety and hard work. You see, he is not gifted with the gutta-percha feelings and cast-iron frame of Philosopher Jack, neither has he the happy-go-lucky spirit and tough little corpus of Watty Wilkins, so that it tells on him heavily--very heavily."

Poor Watty said this half jestingly, yet with such a look of genuine feeling that Jack forgot his own troubles for the moment.

"Something _must_ be done," he said, gazing with a concerned