Digging for Gold

Digging for Gold, by R.M.
Ballantyne

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Title: Digging for Gold Adventures in California
Author: R.M. Ballantyne
Release Date: June 7, 2007 [EBook #21727]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIGGING
FOR GOLD ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

DIGGING FOR GOLD, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE.
CHAPTER ONE.
ADVENTURES IN CALIFORNIA.

BEGINS WITH DIFFERENCES OF OPINION.
If ever there was a man in this world who was passionately fond of
painting and cut out for a painter, that man was Frank Allfrey; but fate,
in the form of an old uncle, had decided that Frank should not follow
the bent of his inclinations.
We introduce our hero to the reader at the interesting age of eighteen,
but, long before that period of life, he had shown the powerful leaning
of his spirit. All his school-books were covered with heads of dogs,
horses, and portraits of his companions. Most of his story-books were
illustrated with coloured engravings, the colouring of which had been
the work of his busy hand, and the walls of his nursery were decorated
with cartoons, done in charcoal, which partial friends of the family
sometimes declared were worthy of Raphael.
At the age of thirteen, his uncle--for the poor fellow was an orphan--
asked him one day what he would like to be. This was an extraordinary
condescension on the part of Mr Allfrey, senior, who was a grim,
hard-featured man, with little or no soul to speak of, and with an
enormously large ill-favoured body. The boy, although taken by
surprise--for his uncle seldom addressed him on any subject,--answered
promptly, "I'd like to be an artist, sir."
"A what?"
"An artist."
"Get along, you goose!"
This was all that was said at the time, and as it is the only conversation
which is certainly known to have taken place between the uncle and
nephew during the early youth of the latter, we have ventured, at the
risk of being tedious, to give the whole of it.
Frank was one of those unfortunates who are styled "neglected boys."
He was naturally sharp-witted, active in mind and body, good-tempered,
and well disposed, but disinclined to study, and fond of physical

exertion. He might have been a great man had he been looked after in
youth, but no one looked after him. He was an infant when his father
and mother died and left him to the care of his uncle, who cared not for
him, but left him to care for himself, having, as he conceived, done his
duty towards him when he had supplied him with food, clothing, and
lodging, and paid his school fees. No blame, therefore, to poor Frank
that he grew up a half-educated youth, without fixed habits of study or
thought, and with little capacity for close or prolonged mental exertion.
Mr Allfrey entertained the ridiculous idea that there were only three
grand objects of ambition in life, namely, to work, to eat and drink, and
to sleep. At least, if he did not say in definite terms that such was his
belief, he undoubtedly acted as though it were. His mind appeared to
revolve in a sort of small circle. He worked in order that he might eat
and drink; he ate and drank that he might be strengthened for work, and
he slept in order to recruit his energies that he might be enabled to work
for the purposes of eating and drinking. He was a species of
self-blinded human-horse that walked the everlasting round of a
business-mill of his own creating. It is almost unnecessary to add that
he was selfish to the back-bone, and that the only individual who did
not see the fact was himself.
When Frank reached the age of eighteen, Mr Allfrey called him into his
private "study,"--so called because he was in the habit of retiring
regularly at fixed periods every day to study nothing there,--and,
having bidden him sit down, accosted him thus:--
"Well, boy, have you thought over what I said to you yesterday about
fixing upon some profession? You are aware that you cannot expect to
lead a life of idleness in this world. I know that you are fit for nothing,
but fit or not fit, you must take to something without delay."
Frank felt a sensation of indignation at being spoken to thus rudely, and
in his heart he believed that if he was indeed fit for