“I begin by saying that I have been a great sinner, but thank God, I have found Jesus a great Saviour. Let this suffice. I was never given to open up my mind much, and I won’t begin now—at least, not more than I can help. It is right to say, at the outset, that I have been regularly married by a travelling Wesleyan minister to my dear wife, by whom also Eve and her mother were baptized.
“My fall began in disobedience to my mother. Probably this is the case with most ne’er-do-wells. My name is William Liston. My father was a farmer in a wild part of Colorado. He died when I was a little boy, leaving my beloved mother to carry on the farm. I am their only child. My mother loved and served the Lord Christ. And well do I know that my salvation from an ungovernable temper and persistent self-will is the direct answer to her unceasing prayers.
“I left home, against her will, with a party of backwoodsmen, my heart being set on what I once thought would be the free and jolly life of a hunter in the great American wilderness. I have lived to find the truth of that proverb, ‘All is not gold that glitters,’ and of that word, ‘There is no rest, saith my God, to the wicked.’
“I was eighteen when I left home. Since then I have been a homeless wanderer—unless a shifting tent may be considered home! Long after my quitting home, and while staying with a tribe of Indians at the head waters of the Saskatchewan river, I met an Indian girl, whose gentle, loving nature, and pretty face, were so attractive to me that I married her and joined her tribe. The marriage ceremony was, as I have said, confirmed by a Wesleyan minister, whose faithful words made such an impression on me that I resolved to give up my wild life, and return with my wife and child to my old home. My character, however—which is extremely resolute and decided when following the bent of my inclinations, and exceedingly weak and vacillating when running counter to the same—interfered with my good intentions. The removal of the tribe to a more distant part of the land also tended to delay me, and a still more potent hindrance lay in the objection of my wife—who has been faithful and true to me throughout; God bless her! She could not for a long time, see her way to forsake her people.
“Ever since my meeting with the Wesleyan, my mind has been running more or less on the subject of religion, and I have tried to explain it as far as I could to my wife and child, but have found myself woefully ignorant as well as sinful. At last, not long ago, I procured a New Testament from a trapper, and God in mercy opened my eyes to see and my heart to receive the truth as it is in Jesus. Since then I have had less difficulty in speaking to my wife and child, and have been attempting to teach the latter to read English. The former, whose mother and father died lately, has now no objection to go with me to the land of the pale-faces, and it is my present intention to go to my old home on the return of spring. I have not heard of my poor mother since I left her, though at various times I have written to her. It may be that she is dead. I hope not—I even think not, for she was very young when she married my father, and her constitution was strong. But her hair was beginning to silver even before I forsook her—with sorrow, I fear, on my account. Oh! mother! mother! How unavailing is my bitter regret! What would I not give to kneel once more at your feet and confess my sin! This may perhaps be permitted—but come weal, come woe, blessed be God we shall meet again.
“If my prayer is granted, this paper will never be seen by human eyes. If God sees fit to deny me this, and I should die in the wilderness, then I charge the man to whom my packet is given, to take my wife and daughter to Colorado; and if my mother—Mrs William Liston, of Sunny Creek—be still alive, to present them to her with this written paper and miniature. If, on the other hand, she be dead, then let him buy for them an annuity, or otherwise invest four thousand pounds for their benefit, according to the best of his judgment. How to come by the four thousand pounds I will now explain.
“Away in the beautiful and sequestered valley at the head of Lake Wichikagan there stands a stunted pine, near a rock fallen from the cliff above. The spot is not easily found, but my Eve knows it well. It was a favourite resort of ours when we went picnicking together. There is a small hole or dry cave in the cliff just behind the fallen rock. Two feet underneath the soil there will be found a bag containing a set of diamonds worth the sum I have named, with a smaller bag containing five hundred pounds in gold. It may not be amiss to say that both jewels and money have been honestly come by. The money I dug out of the Californian mines, and bought the jewels in a drunken frolic when in Canada—‘for my future wife,’ as I then boasted. My dear wife has never seen them, nor has Eve. They do not know of their existence. The five hundred pounds in gold is to be retained for himself by the man who accepts this trust to enable him to pay his way and carry it out.
“William Liston.”
It is difficult to express the conflict of feelings that assailed me when I had finished reading this remarkable manuscript. For some time Lumley and I gazed at each other in silence.
“You accept the trust, I suppose?” said my friend at last.