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“Not exactly,” said Ben with a pleasant smile at his old friend Wilkins, “but I’m very well, thank God, and able to do a little. I wouldn’t have been what I am now but for the care of this dear little nurse.”
Polly was quite pleased with the compliment, and made a liberal offer to supply more tea to any of the company who might want it.
All this, and a great deal more, was corroborated by every one present; moreover, it was told them that there were many other claims which had suddenly turned out well, and that the whole aspect of these diggings had changed for the better.
“And what of Mr Luke?” asked Jack, glancing round the circle.
“Gone,” said the captain, “nobody knows where. He became gloomier and stranger than ever after you went away, and one morning announced his intention to leave us and return to San Francisco. He left, and has not been heard of since. Bob Corkey, too, is off. He got restless and disappointed at our bad luck, said he’d go away prospectin’ on his own hook, and went.”
“Good luck go with him! He was altogether too fond of argifying,” said Simon O’Rook.
“He’s not the only one,” remarked Baldwin Burr, with a grin.
After much consideration and consultation, it was agreed that, in the meantime, the party should remain where they were, and, when their claims began to fail, go off to Grizzly Bear Gulch.
This being decided, Jacob Buckley rose, saying that he was going to visit his friends at Higgins’ store. Jack followed him. When they were alone he said—
“Now, Jacob, don’t go, there’s a good fellow. You saved my life, I may say, and that gives me a claim on you.” Buckley frowned, but said nothing. “If you get among your old mates,” continued Jack, “and begin to taste, you’re a gone man. God has been very good to us. He has made us rich. We may live to be useful, Jacob. Think of it.”
A half sarcastic smile flitted over Buckley’s face as he said, “You didn’t use to be a preacher, Jack; what makes you now so keen to save me, as you call it?”
“I’m not sure what it is that makes me anxious now,” replied Jack, “but I know what made me anxious at first. It was your poor brother Daniel. That night he died, when he whispered in my ear, it was to make me promise to save you from drink and gambling if I could.”
“Did he?” exclaimed the miner vehemently, as he clenched his hands. “O Dan! dear Dan, did you say that at such an hour? Look you, Jack,” he added, turning sharply round, “I’ll not go near the store, and if I am saved it is Dan who has done it, mind that—not you.”
And Buckley held to his word. For months after that he worked with the Samson party—as it was styled—and never once tasted a drop of anything stronger than tea.
During all that time success continued, but Philosopher Jack felt in his heart that no success in digging up gold was at all comparable to that of working with the Lord in helping a brother-sinner to turn from the error of his ways.
As their wealth accumulated, the different members of the party converted it into cash, sent some of it home to the assistance of friends or relatives, and the rest for safe and remunerative investment. For the latter purpose they committed it to the care of Mr Wilkins senior, who, being a trusty and well-known man of business, was left to his own discretion in the selection of investments. Simon O’Rook, however, did not follow the example of his friends. He preferred to keep his gold in his own hands, and, as its bulk increased, stowed it away in a small chest, which, for further security, he buried in a hole in the tent directly under his own sleeping corner.
In addition to his remittances to Mr Wilkins for investment, Edwin Jack sent large sums regularly to his father, for the purpose not only of getting him out of his difficulties, but of enabling him to extend his farming operations. The wheel of fortune, however, had turned upwards with Jack senior, and he did not require these sums, as we shall see.
While things were going on thus prosperously at the other side of the world, a wonderful change—intimately connected with gold—took place in the “Old Country”, which materially altered the circumstances of some of those personages whose names have figured in our tale.
We return once again to the cottage on the Scottish Border. It is not quite so lowly as it was when first introduced to our readers. Although not extensively changed, there is a certain air of comfort and prosperity about it which gives it much the appearance of a dirty boy who has had his face washed and a suit of new clothes put on. It has been whitewashed and partially re-roofed. A trellis-work porch with creepers has been added. The garden bears marks of improvement, and in one part there are four little plots of flower-beds, so conspicuously different in culture and general treatment as to suggest the idea of four different gardens. Inside of Mr Jack’s abode there are also many changes for the better. The rooms are better furnished than they used to be. Several cheap oleograph copies of beautiful pictures adorn the walls, and the best parlour, which used to be kept in a condition of deadly propriety for state occasions only, is evidently used in the course of daily life. A brand-new piano, with a pretty little girl seated before it, suggests advancing refinement, and the expression of the child’s face, while she attempts the impossible task of stretching an octave, indicates despair. There is another little girl seated at a table darning with all the energy of a Martha-like character. She is engaged upon a pair of juvenile socks, which have apparently been worn last by a cart-horse. Books and drawing materials and mathematical instruments on the table betoken progressive education, and, in short, everything without and within the cottage tells, as we have said, of prosperity.
It must not be supposed, however, that all this is due to Philosopher Jack’s good fortune and liberality. When the first letter came from California, telling of the safety of our hero and his friends, Mr Jack was indeed in great material distress, but there was no money in that letter. It was despatched from San Francisco at the time of the arrival of the party, along with letters from the other members, informing their various relations of their deliverance. But if the letter had contained tons of the finest gold it could not have added a feather’s weight to the joy of the old couple, who, like the widow of Nain or the sisters of Bethany, had received their dear lost one direct from the Lord, and, as it were, back from the dead. Then, after an interval, came Captain Samson’s letter enclosing the bill for 1000 pounds, and explaining why Philosopher Jack himself did not write with it. Mr Jack senior thankfully used two hundred of the amount, which was quite sufficient to extricate him from all his difficulties. The balance he put into the nearest bank, to be kept for “the dear boy” on his return.
From that date God sent prosperity to the cottage on the Border. Flocks increased, seasons were no longer bad, grey mares no longer broke their legs, turnips throve, and, in short, everything went well, so that, instead of using the large sums of money which his son frequently sent him, Mr Jack placed them all to “dear Teddie’s” credit in the bank.
In one of these letters, his son mentioned that he had sent still larger sums to the care of Mr Wilkins senior, to be invested for himself. Mr Jack, having consulted with his faithful spouse, drew his son’s gifts from the local bank, went to the city of Blankow, called on Mr Wilkins, and desired him to invest the money in the same concern with the rest. Mr Wilkins purchased shares with it in the Blankow Bank, telling Mr Jack that he considered it one of the best and safest investments in Scotland, that he had invested in it all the funds sent home by his own son and his comrades, and that he himself was a large shareholder. Thus did Mr Jack senior act with all the gifts that Jack junior sent him, saying to Mr Wilkins on each occasion, that, though the dear boy meant him to use the money, he had no occasion to do so, as the Lord had prospered him of late, and given him enough and to spare.
We re-introduce the Jack family to the reader at breakfast-time, not because that was the only noteworthy period of their day, but because it was the time when the parents of the family were wont to talk over the daily plans.
Mr Jack went to the door and shouted, “Breakfast!” in a sonorous tone. Instantly the octave was abandoned and the socks were dropped. Next moment there was a sound like the charge of a squadron of cavalry. It was the boys coming from the farm-yard. The extreme noise of the family’s entry was rendered fully apparent by the appalling calm which ensued when Mr Jack opened the family Bible, and cleared his throat to begin worship. At breakfast the noise began again, but it was more subdued, appetite being too strong for it. In five minutes Dobbin was up to the eyes in a treacle-piece. This was a good opportunity for conversation.
“Maggie,” said Mr Jack, looking up from his plate, “the last bill sent us from the diggin’s by the dear boy makes the sum in my hands up to two thousand pounds. I’ll go to town to-day and give it to Mr Wilkins to invest as usual.”
“Very weel, John,” replied Mrs Jack, “but it’s been runnin’ in my mind that it’s no that safe to pit a’ yer eggs in the same basket. Maybe ye might invest it in somethin’ else.”
“That’s true, Maggie, we shall see,” said Mr Jack, who was at all times a man of few words. As Dobbin became at the moment clamorous for more food, nothing further was said on the subject.
Arrived in the city, John Jack made his way to the office of Mr Wilkins. He found that gentleman with an expression of unwonted resignation on his countenance.
“I’ve brought you more money to invest, Mr Wilkins,” said John Jack, sitting down after wiping his forehead, and producing a fat pocketbook; “I thought of doin’ it in the old way, but my wife and I have been thinkin’ that perhaps it might be wise to put some of the eggs in another basket.”
A very sad and peculiar smile flitted for a moment across Mr Wilkins’s face. “It is plain that you have not heard of the disastrous failure,” he said. “Only last week the Blankow Bank suspended payment, and if the reports as to its liabilities be true, the result will be widespread ruin throughout the country.”
“Do you mean to say that the Bank has failed?” asked Mr Jack, anxiously.
“Yes, and it is feared that most of the shareholders will be ruined. I am one, you know.”
“Will you be ruined, Mr Wilkins?”
“I fear that the first call will be more than I can meet. I trust that you are not personally involved.”
“No, thank God, I’m not,” said Mr Jack, with an increasingly anxious look. “But tell me, Mr Wilkins—for I don’t understand
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