Bruce arrived in town some time after dark, but though very tired and hungry he did not eat until he had started four good stout men after his comrades, whom they met some nine or ten miles out. Poor Ben West could go no further, for his foot was quite painful, and he and Lane both waited and watched for relief, which came at last. It was almost midnight when the relief party arrived. They brought a fine lunch and a bottle of wine, which both enjoyed very much. After the lunch was eaten all hands started for the town, where they arrived just as the day was breaking. The frozen foot proved to be worse than at first supposed to be. It would keep the owner an invalid for at least two weeks. Ben West said: "Here is a pretty mess. My fortune just at my fingers' end and a frozen foot tied up for half a month, when I have so much to do. Why did I not take better care of myself?"
At this time Bruce came to see how Ben West was getting along. He found him nervous and a little feverish. "Just be quiet," said Bruce, "it is the best medicine you can have." After Ben West had paid Lane and Bruce for their claim, Bruce said to West: "If you like I will go with another man, that you may name, and work in your mine until you come to us. For my pay I want fourteen dollars per day and I'll furnish my own grub." The bargain was made. Bruce and the man started the next day, and just sixteen days after Ben West was at his mine.
They had a large pile of pay dirt ready for a clean-up; it was exceedingly rich and several claim buyers had heard about the rich mine and were on the ground to buy it from West. After a great deal of talk West said: "The mine is worth a million, but I want to get out of this country, and the man that pays me five hundred and fifty thousand dollars gets the mine."
An hour afterwards the agent for an English syndicate purchased the mine. Ben West having now made his pile determined to lose no time in getting back to Orangeville, but he intended to stay in San Francisco till he was thoroughly recuperated before going home.
CHAPTER IX.
AN ARRIVAL.
George Combe has said, "Mankind love their young and take charge of them with common accord, yet the love of offspring is much more intense in the female than in the male, and this difference is manifested from earliest infancy. The boy wants his whip, horse, drum, top or sword, but observe the little girl occupied with her doll. She decks it in fine clothes, prepares for it night linen, puts it into the cradle, rocks it, takes it up, feeds it, scolds it, and tells it stories. When she grows older she takes charge of her younger brothers and sisters. Nothing possesses, in her estimation, greater charms than babies. When she has grown to maturity and become herself a mother, with what sweet emotion and gushing tenderness does she caress her little ones."
While the love of offspring is more or less strong in all, yet it does not manifest itself if there are other tendencies predominant in the character. Take a woman in whom the love of dress and society is most active; she will not care for offspring, if her circumstances are such that it would debar her from enjoying style or society; or if the artistic inclination is the strongest in her character she would not want offspring; or if great intellectual tastes are very strong and love of children only moderate, she would not want offspring; or where persons have consecrated themselves fully and unreservedly to a spiritual life in order to become spiritual parents to many, to them offspring would be a hindrance in their work. But where the domestic faculties are the strongest, the home is lonesome without children. In some the maternal instinct is exceedingly strong, for it manifests itself to such an extent as to become the ruling passion; nothing else but offspring can satisfy them. And this maternal passion is expressed in matchless language by Mr. Stephen Phillips:[1] "Lucrezia's sudden outburst of grief and rage against her lonely fate is, poetically speaking, one of the finest passages in the play:"
Giovanni.
Lucrezia! this is that old bitterness.