The Golden Dream: Adventures in the Far West Part 3

On the evening of the day in which our tale begins, Edward Sinton--still standing at zero--walked into his uncle's parlour. The old gentleman was looking earnestly, though unintentionally, at the cat, which sat on the rug; and the cat was looking attentively at the kettle, which sat on the fire, hissing furiously, as if it were disgusted at being kept so long from tea.

Ned's face was very long and sad as he entered the room.

"Dear uncle," said he, taking Mr Shirley by the hand, "I'm not going to take a week to think over it. I have made up my mind to remain at home, and become a lawyer."

"Ned," replied Mr Shirley, returning his nephew's grasp, "I'm not going to take a week to think over it either. I have made up my mind that you are to go to California, and become a--a--whatever you like, my dear boy; so sit down to tea, and I'll tell you all about it."

Ned was incredulous at first, but as his uncle went on to explain how matters stood, and gradually diverged from that subject to the details of his outfit, he recovered from his surprise, and sprang suddenly up to 100 degrees of Fahrenheit, even in the shade of the prospect of parting for a time from old Mr Shirley.

Need we be surprised, reader, that our hero on that night dreamed the golden dream over again, with many wonderful additions, and sundry remarkable variations.

Thus it came to pa.s.s that, two weeks afterwards, Ned and his uncle found themselves steaming down the Thames to Gravesend, where the good ship _Roving Bess_ lay riding at anchor, with a short cable, and top-sails loose, ready for sea.

"Ned," said Mr Shirley, as they watched the receding banks of the n.o.ble river, "you may never see _home_ again, my boy. Will you be sure not to forget me! will you write often, Ned!"

"Forget you, uncle!" exclaimed Ned, in a reproachful voice, while a tear sprang to his eye. "How can you suggest such a--"

"Well, well, my boy, I know it--I know it; but I like to hear the a.s.surance repeated by your own lips. I'm an old man now, and if I should not live to see you again, I would like to have some earnest, loving words to think upon while you are away." The old man paused a few moments, and then resumed--

"Ned, remember when far from home, that there is another home--eternal in the heavens--to which, if you be the Lord's child, you are hastening.

You will think of that home, Ned, won't you! If I do not meet you again here at any rate I shall hope to meet you _there_."

Ned would have spoken, but his heart was too full. He merely pressed old Mr Shirley's arm.

"Perhaps," continued his uncle, "it is not necessary to make you promise to read G.o.d's blessed Word. You'll be surrounded by temptations of no ordinary kind in the gold-regions; and depend upon it that the Bible, read with prayer, will be the best chart and compa.s.s to guide you safely through them all."

"My dear uncle," replied Ned, with emotion, "perhaps the best promise I can make is to a.s.sure you that I will endeavour to do, in all things and at all times, as you have taught me, ever since I was a little boy. If I succeed, I feel a.s.sured that I shall do well."

A long and earnest conversation ensued between the uncle and nephew, which was interrupted at last, by the arrival of the boat at Gravesend.

Jumping into a wherry, they pushed off, and were soon alongside of the _Roving Bess_, a barque of about eight hundred tons burden, and, according to Captain Bunting, "an excellent sea-boat."

"Catch hold o' the man-ropes," cried the last-named worthy, looking over the side; "that's it; now then, jump! all right! How are ye, kinsman?

Glad to see you, Ned. I was afraid you were goin' to give me the slip."

"I have not kept you waiting, have I?" inquired Ned.

"Yes, you have, youngster," replied the captain, with a facetious wink, as he ushered his friends into the cabin, and set a tray of broken biscuit and a decanter of wine before them. "The wind has been blowin'

off sh.o.r.e the whole morning, and the good ship has been straining at a short cable like a hound chained up. But we'll be off now in another half-hour."

"So soon?" said Mr Shirley, with an anxious expression on his kind old face.

"All ready to heave up the anchor, sir," shouted the first mate down the companion.

The captain sprang on deck, and soon after the metallic clatter of the windla.s.s rang a cheerful accompaniment to the chorus of the sailors.

One by one the white sails spread out to the breeze, and the n.o.ble ship began to glide through the water.

In a few minutes more the last words were spoken, the last farewell uttered, and Mr Shirley stood alone in the stern-sheet of the little boat, watching the departing vessel as she gathered way before the freshening breeze. As long as the boat was visible Ned Sinton stood on the ship's bulwarks, holding on to the mizzen shrouds, and waving his handkerchief from time to time. The old man stood with his head uncovered, and his thin locks waving in the wind.

Soon the boat was lost to view. Our hero brushed away a tear, and leaped upon the deck, where the little world, of which for many days to come he was to form a part, busied itself in making preparation for a long, long voyage. The British Channel was pa.s.sed; the Atlantic Ocean was entered; England sank beneath the horizon; and, for the first time in his life, Ned Sinton found himself--at sea.

CHAPTER FIVE.

THE SEA--DANGERS OF THE DEEP, AND UNCERTAINTY OF HUMAN AFFAIRS--A DISASTROUS NIGHT AND A BRIGHT MORNING--CALIFORNIA AT LAST.

Only those who have dwelt upon the ocean for many months together can comprehend the feelings of delight, with which the long-imprisoned voyager draws near to his desired haven. For six long months did the _Roving Bess_ do battle with the surging billows of the great deep.

During that time she steered towards the Gulf of Mexico--carefully avoiding that huge reservoir of sea-weed, termed the Saragossa sea, in which the unscientific but enterprising mariners of old used to get becalmed oftentimes for days and weeks together--she coasted down the eastern sh.o.r.es of South America; fired at, and "shewed her heels" to, a pirate; doubled Cape Horn; fought with the tempests that take special delight in revelling there; and, finally, spreading her sails to the genial breezes of the Pacific Ocean, drew near to her voyage-end.

All this the good ship _Roving Bess_ did with credit to herself and comfort to her crew; but a few weeks after she entered the Pacific, she was met, contrary to all expectation, by the bitterest gale that had ever compelled her to scud under bare poles.

It was a beautiful afternoon when the first symptoms of the coming storm were observed. Captain Bunting had just gone down below, and our hero was standing at the weather gangway, observing the sudden dart of a shoal of flying-fish, which sprang out of the sea, whizzed through the air a few hundred feet, and fell with a splash into the water, in their frantic efforts to escape from their bitter enemy, the dolphin.

While Ned gazed contemplatively at the spot where the winged fish had disappeared, the captain sprang on deck.

"We're goin' to catch it," he said, hurriedly, as he pa.s.sed forward; "tumble up, there; tumble up; all hands to shorten sails. Hand down the royals, and furl the t'gallant sails, Mr Williams, (to the first mate,) and look alive."

"Ay, ay, sir," was answered in that prompt tone of voice which indicates thorough discipline and unquestioning obedience, while the men scrambled up the fore-hatch, and sprang up the ratlines hand over hand. A moment before, the vessel had lain quietly on the bosom of the unruffled deep, as if she were asleep, now she was all uproar and apparent confusion; sails slewed round, ropes rattled, and blocks creaked, while the sonorous voice of the first mate sounded commands like a trumpet from the quarter-deck.

"I see no indication of a storm," remarked young Sinton, as the captain walked aft.

"Possibly not, lad; but _I_ do. The barometer has fallen lower, all of a sadden, than I ever saw it fall before. You may depend upon it, we shall have to look out for squalls before long. Just cast your eyes on the horizon over the weather bows there; it's not much of a cloud, and, to say truth, I would not have thought much of it had the gla.s.s remained steady, but that faithful servant never--"

"Better close-reef the top-sails, sir," said the mate, touching his cap, and pointing to the cloud just referred to.

"Do so, Mr Williams, and let the watch below remain on deck, and stand by to man the halyards."

In less than an hour the _Roving Bess_ was running at the rate of twelve knots, under close-reefed top-sails, before a steady gale, which in half-an-hour later increased to a hurricane, compelling them to take in all sail and "lay to." The sun set in a blaze of mingled black and lurid clouds, as if the heavens were on fire; the billows rose to their utmost height as the shrieking winds heaved them upwards, and then, cutting off their crests, hurled the spray along like driving clouds of snow, and dashed it against the labouring ship, as if impatient to engulf her in that ravening maw which has already swallowed up so many human victims.

But the little vessel faced the tempest n.o.bly, and rose like a sea-mew on the white crest of each wave, while the steersmen--for there were two lashed to the wheel--kept her to the wind. Suddenly the sheet of the fore trysail parted, the ship came up to the wind, and a billow at that moment broke over her, pouring tons of water on her deck, and carrying away the foremast, main-top-masts, and the jib-boom.

"Clear the wreck--down the helm, and let her scud," shouted the captain, who stood by the mizzen-mast, holding on to a belaying-pin. But the captain's voice was drowned by the whistling winds, and, seeing that the men were uncertain what to do, he seized one of the axes which were lashed to the foot of the mast, and began to cut away the ropes which dragged the wreck of the foremast under the lee of the ship. Williams, the mate, and the second mate, followed his example, while Ned sprang to the wheel to see the orders to the steersmen obeyed. In half-an-hour all was clear, and the ship was scudding before the gale under bare poles.

"We've not seen the worst of it," remarked the captain, as he resumed his post on the quarter-deck, and brushed the brine from his whiskers; "I fear, too, that she has received some bad thumps from the wreck of the foremast. You'd better go below, Sinton, and put on a topcoat; its no use gettin' wetter than you can help."

"I'm as wet as I can be, captain; besides, I can work better as I am, if there's anything for me to do."

"Well, there ain't much: you'll have enough to do to keep yourself from being washed overboard. How's her head, Larry?"

"Nor' east an' by east," replied one of the men at the wheel, Larry O'Neil by name--a genuine son of Erin, whose jovial smile of rollicking good humour was modified, but by no means quenched, by the serious circ.u.mstances in which he found himself placed. His comrade, William Jones, who stood on the larboard side of the wheel, was a short, thick-set, stern seaman, whose facial muscles were scarcely capable of breaking into a smile, and certainly failed to betray any of the owner's thoughts or feelings, excepting astonishment. Such pa.s.sions as anger, pity, disgust, fear, and the like, whatever place they might have in Jones's breast, had no visible index on his visage. Both men were sailor-like and powerful, but they were striking contrasts to each other, as they stood--the one sternly, the other smilingly--steering the _Roving Bess_ before that howling storm.

"Is not `nor' east and by east' our direct course for the harbour of San Francisco?" inquired Ned Sinton.

"It is," replied the captain, "as near as I can guess; but we've been blown about so much that I can't tell exactly. Moreover, it's my opinion we can't be far off the coast now; and if this gale holds on I'll have to bring to, at the risk of bein' capsized. Them plaguey coral-reefs, too, are always springin' up in these seas where you least expect 'em. If we go b.u.mp against one as we are goin' now, its all up with us."

"Not a pleasant idea," remarked Ned, somewhat gravely. "Do these storms usually last long?"

Before the captain could reply, the first mate came up and whispered in his ear.