“Not they,” said Ernest Wilton carelessly. “‘I care for nobody, no, not I, and nobody cares for me,’” he hummed in a rich baritone voice, although there was a tone of sadness in it that belied the tenor of the words. “I assure you,” he added presently, in one of those sudden bursts of confidence in which some of us are apt to indulge sometimes when we get a sympathetic listener, “that I haven’t written home or heard from thence for more than three years, and they will have thought me dead by this time! I’ve no doubt there is a large parcel of letters and papers awaiting me now in New York, where I told them to address me when I came to America; for I’ve not been back there either since the day I landed, when I started straight across the continent for California, with a gentleman who had an interest in some mines there, with whom I came over in the same steamer from Liverpool; and I have never been eastwards again, or turned my face thither till I came through Oregon as far as this place, which is still considerable to the west, I think, eh?”
And he laughed lightly, as if he did not care to talk much of home or its associations.
“I don’t think it’s quite right, though,” suggested Mr Rawlings in his grave, kind way, “altogether to abandon one’s relatives and friends in that fashion.”
“No?” said the young man inquiringly; and then added more frankly, impressed by the manner of the other, “Well, perhaps it isn’t quite the right thing to do; but I have been a rover almost all my life, and a wanderer from home. Besides, my parents are both dead, and there’s nobody now who particularly cares about me or my welfare in old England.”
“Not anybody?” persisted Mr Rawlings, who thought it strange that such a nice, handsome fellow as the young engineer appeared should be without some tie in the world to hold him to his country.
“I certainly have an uncle and aunt and some cousins,” said Ernest Wilton, acknowledging his relatives as if he were confessing some peccadillo; “and my aunt used to be fond of me as a boy, I remember well.”
“Then I should write to her,” said Mr Rawlings. “When you get as old as I am, you won’t like to feel yourself alone amongst strangers, and without some one to connect you with the past of your childhood.”
“I will write to my aunt, then, as you have reminded me of my shortcomings,” said Ernest Wilton, laughing. “I promise you that at any rate.”
“That’s a good fellow. I’m sure you won’t regret it afterwards,” said Mr Rawlings, who was then proceeding to ask the young engineer something about his journey from California to Dakota when Seth, who had listened patiently to their conversation so far, now interrupted them.
“Come, mister,” said he, addressing Ernest Wilton, “I suggest—”