“To try and think that we are going to start a new life, and that when Esau makes a new home for you, all these household things can be got together by degrees.”
“But it’s ruin, my dear. All these things will go for nothing.”
“They won’t, I tell you,” roared Esau. “How many more times am I to tell you that Dingle will give us fifty pounds for ’em? Him and another man’s joining, and they’re going to put ’em in sales; and if they don’t make so much, we’ve got to pay them, and if they make more, Dingle’s going to pay us. What more do you want?”
“Nothing, my dear; I’ve done,” said Mrs Dean in a resigned tone, such as would have made a bystander think that the whole business was settled. It was not, however, for the next day most likely the whole argument would be gone through again about some trifle.
Meanwhile I had been helping Mr John, and here Mr Dingle’s knowledge came in very helpful, and he devoted every spare minute he had, working so well, that he arranged with one of our well-known auctioneers to take the furniture of the cottage, and triumphantly brought Mr John a cheque for far more than he expected to receive.
One way and another, Mr John was well provided with funds, laughingly telling me he had never been so rich before, as I went with him to his landlord’s to give up the key of the pleasant little house.
For during the rapidly passing days of that fortnight everything had been settled, a passage had been secured for Mrs Dean in the same vessel by which Mr and Mrs John were going, and it had been finally decided that Esau and I were to go by quite a different route. For while they were to go by swift steamer across to Quebec, and from there through Canada with one or other of the waggon-trains right to Fort Elk, on the upper waters of the Fraser, we lads were, after seeing the little party off to Liverpool, to go on board the Albatross, a clipper ship bound from London to the River Plate, and round by Cape Horn to San Francisco, from which port we were to find our way north the best way we could.
There would be no difficulty, we were told, for vessels often sailed from the Golden Gate to the mouth of the Fraser, but our voyage would be slow.
It would be rapid though compared to the land journey across the prairies. Our trip would probably last five months, more if our stay at San Francisco were long; but allowing for halts at the settlements, and the deliberate way in which, for Mrs John’s benefit, the journey was to be made, their trip would extend to a year—probably more.
Mr John had gone through it all with me again and again, reading long extracts from his brother-in-law’s letter written expressly for their guidance, till I knew them pretty well by heart. In these he was told to hasten on to the high and mountainous lands, for it was there the advantage to Mrs John would be. They would find it cold as the autumn passed into winter during their journey, intensely cold, perhaps; but it would be bright and sunshiny as a rule, and the clear pure air of the elevated regions gave health and strength.