happened.”
“California,” replied Mr Shirley.
“Yes, yes; I know that. California seems to be everything here. But how has it come about? Why are you here, and what has brought me here?”
“California,” repeated Mr Shirley.
“Uncle, I’ll go deranged if you don’t answer me. What do you mean?”
“California,” reiterated Mr Shirley.
At the same moment a stout golden lady with a filigree turban shouted, “for ever!” at the top of a very shrill voice, and immediately the company took up the cry again, filling the cave with deafening sounds.
Ned Sinton gave one look of despair at his relative—then turned and fled.
“Put him out,” shouted the company. “Down with the intruder!”
Ned cast a single glance backward, and beheld the people pushing and buffeting his uncle in a most unceremonious manner. His helmet was knocked down over his eyes, and the coat—so much too small for him—was rendered an easy fit by being ripped up behind to the neck. Ned could not stand this. He was stout of limb and bold as a lion, although not naturally addicted to fighting, so he turned suddenly round and flew to the rescue. Plunging into the midst of the struggling mass of golden creatures, Ned hit out right and left like a young Hercules, and his blows rang upon their metal chests and noses like the sound of sledge-hammers, but without any other effect.
Suddenly he experienced an acute sensation of pain, and—awoke to find himself hammering the bed-post with bleeding knuckles, and his uncle standing beside his bed chuckling immensely.
“O uncle,” cried Ned, sitting up in his bed, and regarding his knuckles with a perplexed expression of countenance, “I’ve had such an extraordinary dream!”
“Ay, Ned,” interrupted his uncle, “and all about California, I’ll be bound.”
“Why, how did you guess that?”
“It needs not a wizard to guess that, lad. I’ve observed that you have read nothing in the newspapers for the last three months but the news from the gold-diggings of California. Your mind has of late been constantly running on that subject, and it is well-known that day-dreams are often reproduced at night. Besides, I heard you shouting the word in your sleep as I entered your room. Were you fighting with gold-diggers, eh! or Indians?”
“Neither, uncle; but I was fighting with very strange beings, I assure you, and—”
“Well, well,” interrupted Mr Shirley, “never mind the dream just now; we shall have it at some other time. I have important matters to talk over with you, my boy. Morton has written to me. Get up and come down as quickly as you can, and we’ll discuss the matter over our breakfast.”
As the door closed after the retreating form of his uncle, Edward Sinton leaped out of bed and into his trousers. During his toilet he wondered what matters of importance Mr Shirley could intend to discuss with him, and felt half inclined to fear, from the grave expression of his uncle’s face when he spoke of it, that something of a disagreeable nature awaited him. But these thoughts were intermingled with reminiscences of the past night. His knuckles, too, kept constantly reminding him of his strange encounter, and, do what he would, he could not banish from his mind the curious incidents of that remarkable golden dream.
CHAPTER TWO.
Our Hero.
We have entered thus minutely into the details of our hero’s dream, because it was the climax to a long series of day-dreams in which he had indulged ever since the discovery of gold in California.
Edward Sinton was a youth of eighteen at the time of which we write, and an orphan. He was tall, strong, broad-shouldered, fair-haired, blue-eyed, Roman-nosed, and gentle as a lamb. This last statement may perhaps appear inconsistent with the fact that, during the whole course of his school-life, he had a pitched battle every week—sometimes two or three in the week. Ned never began a fight, and, indeed, did not like fighting. But some big boys will domineer over little ones, and Ned would not be domineered over; consequently he had to be thrashed. He was possessed, even in boyhood, of an amount of physical courage that would have sufficed for any two ordinary men. He did not boast. He did not quarrel. He never struck the first blow, but, if twenty boys had attacked him, he would have tried to fight them all. He never tyrannised over small boys. It was not his nature to do so; but he was not perfect, any more than you are, dear reader. He sometimes punched small boys’ heads when they worried him, though he never did so without repenting of it, and doing them a kindness afterwards in order to make up. He was very thoughtless, too, and very careless; nevertheless he was fond of books—specially of books of adventure—and studied these like a hero—as he was.
Boys of his own size, or even a good deal bigger, never fought with Ned Sinton. They knew better than that; but they adored him, in some cases envied him, and in all cases trusted and followed him. It was only very big boys who fought with him, and all they got by it was a good deal of hard pummelling before they floored their little adversary, and a good deal of jeering from their comrades for fighting a small boy. From one cause or another, Ned’s visage was generally scratched, often cut, frequently swelled, and almost always black and blue.
But as Ned grew older, the occasions for fighting became less frequent; his naturally amiable disposition improved, (partly owing, no doubt, to the care of his uncle, who was, in every sense of the term, a good old man,) and when he attained the age of fifteen and went to college, and was called “Sinton,” instead of “Ned,” his fighting days were over. No man in his senses would have ventured to attack that strapping youth with the soft blue eyes, the fair hair, the prominent nose, and the firm but smiling lips, or, if he had, he would have had to count on an hour’s extremely hard work, whether the fortune of war went for or against him.
When Ned had been three years at college, his uncle hinted that it was time to think of a profession, and suggested that as he was a first-rate mathematician, and had been fond of mechanics from his childhood, he should turn an engineer. Ned would probably have agreed to this cheerfully, had not a thirst for adventure been created by the stirring accounts which had begun to arrive at this time from the recently-discovered gold-fields of California. His enthusiastic spirit was stirred, not so much by the prospect of making a large fortune suddenly by the finding of a huge nugget—although that was a very pleasant idea—as by the hope of meeting with wild adventures in that imperfectly-known and distant land. And the effect of such dreams was to render the idea of sitting down to an engineer’s desk, or in a mercantile counting-room, extremely distasteful.
Thus it came to pass that Edward Sinton felt indisposed to business, and disposed to indulge in golden visions.
When he entered the breakfast-parlour, his mind was still full of his curious dream.
“Come along, my lad,” cried Mr Shirley, laying down the Bible, and removing his spectacles from a pair of eyes that usually twinkled with a sort of grave humour, but in which there was now an expression of perplexity; “set to work and get the edge off your appetite, and then I’ll read Moxton’s letter.”
When Mr Shirley had finished breakfast, Ned was about half done, having just commenced his third slice of toast. So the old gentleman complimented his nephew
