Over the Rocky Mountains: Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin. Robert Michael Ballantyne
dear mother,” said Will, commencing the fifth slice of toast, under pressure (having eaten the fourth with difficulty), “you have not yet told me about this wonderful estate which everybody seems to know of except myself.”
“Ah! darling Will,” sighed Mrs Osten, “I have avoided the subject as long as possible, for I know it is to be the cause of our being separated again. But there is no help for it, because I promised your dear father when he was dying that I would tell you his wishes in regard to it, and that I would not attempt to dissuade you from doing your duty. Well, you remember uncle Edward, I suppose?”
“His name—yes,” said Will, “but I never knew anything else about him. I had nothing to remember or to forget, except, indeed, that he got the name of being a wild scapegrace, something like myself!”
“Like yourself, darling,” exclaimed the old lady, with a look of indignation—“no indeed! Have not you repented and come back, like a good prodigal son; and didn’t the dear beautiful letter that you wrote from that awful island—what’s its name—where you were all but eaten alive—”
“The coral island,” suggested Will.
“Yes, the coral island—didn’t that dear letter give more delight to your beloved father than any letter he ever received in his life, and more than made up to him for your running away, and cheered him to his last hour, whereas uncle Edward was wicked to the last—at least so it is said, but I don’t know, and it’s not right to speak ill of the dead. Well, as I was going to say, uncle Edward died in some outlandish place in North America, I never can remember the name, but it’s in the papers, so you’ll see it—somewhere on the other side of the something mountains—I forget—”
“Rocky, perhaps.”
“Yes, that’s it, the Rocky Mountains, and I wish they were not so rocky, for your sake, darling, for you’ve got to go there and take possession (or serve yourself heir to, or something of that sort) of the property. Not that it’s large, so they say (I wish with all my heart it did not exist at all), but they tell me there is gold on it, though whether it is lying on the fields or down in holes I’m sure I don’t know, and oh dear, I don’t care, for it entails your going away again, my darling boy.”
Here the poor old lady broke down, and, throwing her arms round Will’s neck—regardless of the fact that in so doing she upset and broke one of her best china tea-cups—wept upon his bosom.
Such was the manner of the announcement of the news in the drawing-room.
In the kitchen the same subject was being discussed by a select party, consisting of Maryann, Mr Richards the coachman, his spouse Jemima—formerly Scrubbins—the baby Richards—who has already been referred to as being reduced in the matter of his ablutions to a bread can—and Larry O’Hale with his faithful Indian friend Bunco.
“To think,” said Maryann, with a quiet laugh, as she handed a cup of tea to Bunco—“to think that I should ever come for to sit at tea with a live red Indian from Ameriky—not that he’s red either, for I’m sure that hany one with eyes in their ’ead could see that he’s only brown.”
“Ah, my dear, that’s ’cause he’s changed colour,” said Larry, pushing in his cup for more tea. “He wasn’t always like that. Sure, when I first know’d Bunco he was scarlet—pure scarlet, only he took a fancy one day, when he was in a wild mood, to run his canoe over the falls of Niagara for a wager, an’, faix, when he came up out o’ the wather after it he was turned brown, an’s bin that same ever since.”
“Gammon,” exclaimed Maryann.
“Sure ye don’t misdoubt me word, Maryann,” said Larry reproachfully; “isn’t it true, Bunco?”
“Yoos a norribable liar, Larry,” answered Bunco with a broad grin.
Richards the coachman, who had been for some minutes too busy with the buttered toast and bacon to do more than listen and chuckle, here burst into a loud guffaw and choked himself partially. Jemima and Maryann also laughed, whereupon the baby, not to be outdone, broke suddenly into a tremendous crow, and waved its fat arms so furiously that it overturned a tea-cup and sent the contents into Bunco’s lap. This created a momentary confusion, and when calm was restored, Mrs Richards asked Maryann “if hanythink noo ’ad turned up in regard to the estate?” which she seemed to know so much about, but in regard to which she was, apparently, so unwilling to be communicative.
“Not so, Jemimar,” said Maryann, with a look of offended dignity, “unwillin’ to speak I am not, though unable I may be—at least I was so until yesterday, but I have come to know a little more about it since Master Will came ’ome while I chanced to be near—”
Maryann hesitated a moment, and Richards, through a mouthful of toast, muttered “the keyhole.”
“Did you speak, sir?” said Maryann, bridling.
“No, oh! no, not by no means,” replied Richards, “only the crust o’ this ’ere toast is rayther ’ard, and I’m apt to growl w’en that’s so.”
“If the crust is ’ard, Mr Richards, your teeth is ’arder, so you ought to scrunch ’em without growling.”
“Brayvo, my dear,” exclaimed Larry, coming to the rescue; “you’re more nor match for him, so be marciful, like a good sowl, an’ let’s hear about this estate, for it seems to me, from what I’ve heard, it must be somewhere in the neighbourhood of Bunco’s native place.”
Maryann, darting a look of mingled defiance and triumph at Richards, who became more than ever devoted to the toast and bacon, proceeded—
“Well, as I was a-sayin’, I ’eard Mrs Osten say to Master Will that his uncle Edward—as was a scape somethin’ or other—had died an’ left a small estate behind the Rocky Mountains in Ameriky or Afriky, I aint sure which.”
“Ameriky, my dear,” observed Larry.
“An’ she said as ’ow they ’ad discovered gold on it, which could be picked up in ’andfuls, an’ it was somewhere near a place called Kally somethin’—”
“Calliforny?” cried Larry.
“Yes, that was it.”
“I towld ye that, Bunco!” exclaimed the Irishman, becoming excited; “go on, dear.”
“Well, it seems there’s some difficulties in the matter, wich I’m sure don’t surprise me, for I never ’eard of things as ’ad to do with estates and law as didn’t create difficulties, and I’m thankful as I’ve got nothin’ to do with none of such things. Well, the end of it all is that, w’en master was dyin’, he made missis swear as she’d urge Master Will to go to see after things hisself, an’ missis, poor dear, she would rather let the estate and all the gold go, if she could only keep the dear boy at ’ome, but she’s faithful to her promise, an’ advises him to go—the sooner the better—because that would let him come back to her all the quicker. Master Will, he vowed at first that he would never more leave her, and I b’lieve he was in earnest, but when she spoke of his father’s wish, he gave in an’ said he would go, if she thought it his dooty so for to do.”
“Hooray!” shouted Larry, jumping up at this point, and performing a species of war-dance for a few moments, and then sitting down and demanding another supply of tea. “Didn’t I tell ye, Bunco, that the order would soon be up anchor an’ away again! It’s Wanderin’ Will he’s been named, an’ Wanderin’ Will he’ll remain, that’s as plain as the nose on me face.”
“No doubt the nose on your face is very plain—the plainest I ever did see,” said Maryann sharply,—“but you’re quite wrong about Master Will, for he’s very anxious to get married, I can tell you, an’ wants to settle down at ’ome, like a sensible man, though it does grieve my ’eart to think of the creetur as has took him in in furrin parts.”
“Get married!” exclaimed Larry, Jemima, and Richards in the same breath.
“Yes, get married,” replied Maryann, very full of the