We shall join them, but let not the reader suppose that we intend to bore him or her with the statistics and details of Californian gold-digging. It is our purpose only to touch lightly on those salient points in the adventures of our wanderers which had a more or less direct bearing on the great issues of their lives.
Chapter Seven.
Failure.
There are times, probably, in the life of all when everything seems to go against one,—when plans and efforts turn out ill, or go wrong, and prospects look utterly black and hopeless. Such a time fell upon Philosopher Jack and his friends some months after their arrival at the gold-diggings.
At first they were moderately successful, and at that time what amazingly golden visions they did indulge!
“A carriage and pair,” soliloquised Watty Wilkins, one evening at supper, while his eyes rested complacently on the proceeds of the day’s labour—a little heap of nuggets and gold-dust, which lay on a sheet of paper beside him; “a carriage and pair, a town house in London, a country house near Bath or Tunbridge Wells, and a shooting-box in the Scotch Highlands. Such is my reasonable ambition.”
“Not bad,” said Philosopher Jack, “if you throw in a salmon river near the shooting-box, and the right to wear the bonnet, plaid, and kilt at pleasure.”
“Not to mention bare legs an’ rheumatiz,” remarked Simon O’Rook, who was busy with the frying-pan. “Sure, if the good Queen herself was to order me to putt on such things, I’d take off me bonnet an’ plaid in excuse that I’d be kilt entirely if she held me to it. All the same I’d obey her, for I’m a loyal subject.”