""Tis a sweet spot!" remarked his uncle, in a low, sad tone, as he entered the open door of the dwelling, and walked deliberately into the drawing-room.
"Now, Ned, sit down--here, opposite that window, where you can see the view--and I"ll tell you how we shall manage. You tell me you have 500 pounds?"
"Yes, uncle."
"Well, your dear mother left you her fortune when she died--it amounts to the small sum of 200 pounds. I never told you of it before, my boy, for reasons of my own. That makes 700 pounds."
"Will that suffice to stock and carry on so large a farm," inquired Ned?
"Not quite," replied Mr Shirley, "but the farm is partly stocked already, so it"ll do. Now, I"ve made arrangements with the proprietor to let you have it for the first year or two rent free. His last tenant"s lease happens to have expired six months ago, and he is anxious to have it let immediately."
Ned opened his eyes very wide at this.
"He says," continued the old gentleman, "that if you can"t manage to make the two ends meet in the course of a year or two, he will extend the _gratis_ lease."
Ned began to think his uncle had gone deranged. "Why, what _do_ you mean," said he, "who is this extraordinary proprietor?"
"He"s an eccentric old fellow, Ned, who lives in London--they call him Shirley, I believe."
"Yourself, uncle!" cried Ned, starting up.
Dear reader, the conversation that followed was so abrupt, exclamatory, interjectional, and occasionally ungrammatical, as well as absurd, that it could not be reduced to writing. We therefore leave it to your imagination. After a time, the uncle and nephew subsided, and again became sane.
"But," said Ned, "I shall have to get a steward--is that what you call him? or overseer, to manage affairs until I am able to do it myself."
"True, Ned; but I have provided one already."
"Indeed!--but I might have guessed that. What shall I have to pay him?
a good round sum, I suppose."
"No," replied Mr Shirley; "he is very moderate in his expectations. He only expects his food and lodging, besides a little care, and attention, and love, particularly in his old age."
"He must be a cautious fellow, to look so far forward," said Ned, laughing. "What"s his name?"
"His name--is Shirley."
"What! yourself again?"
"And why not, nephew? I"ve as much right to count myself fit to superintend a farm, as you had, a year ago, to think yourself able to manage a gold mine. Nay, I have a better right--for I was a farmer the greater part of my life before I went to reside in London. Now, boy, as I went to live in the Great City--which I _don"t_ like--in order to give you a good education, I expect that you"ll take me to the country--which I _do_ like--to be your overseer. I was born and bred here, Ned; this was my father"s property, and, when I am gone, it shall be yours. It is not much to boast of. You won"t be able to spend an idle life of it here; for, although a goodly place, it must be carefully tended if you would make it pay."
"I don"t need to tell _you_," replied Ned, "that I have no desire to lead an idle life. But, uncle, I think your terms are very high."
"How so, boy?"
"_Love_ is a very high price to pay for service," replied Ned. "Your kindness and your generosity in this matter make me very happy and very grateful, and, perhaps, might make me very obedient and extremely attentive; but I cannot give you _love_ at any price. I must refuse you _as an overseer_, but if you will come to me as old Uncle Shirley--"
"Well, well, Ned," interrupted the old gentleman, with a benign smile, "we"ll not dispute about that. Let us now go and take a run round the grounds."
It is needless, dear reader, to prolong our story. Perchance we have taxed your patience too much already--but we cannot close without a word or two regarding the subsequent life of those whose fortunes we have followed so long.
Ned Sinton and old Mr Shirley applied themselves with diligence and enthusiasm to the cultivation of their farm, and to the cultivation of the friendship and good-will of their neighbours all round. In both efforts they were eminently successful.
Ned made many interesting discoveries during his residence at Brixley Hall, chief among which was a certain Louisa Leslie, with whom he fell desperately in love--so desperately that his case was deemed hopeless.
Louisa therefore took pity on him, and became Mrs Sinton, to the unutterable delight of old Mr Shirley--and the cat, both of whom benefited considerably by this addition to the household.
About the time this event occurred, Ned received a letter from Tom Collins, desiring him to purchase a farm for him as near to his own as possible. Tom had been successful as a merchant, and had made a large fortune--as was often the case in those days--in the course of a year or two. At first, indeed, he had had a hard struggle, and was more than once nearly driven, by desperation, to the gaming-table, but Ned"s advice and warnings came back upon him again and again--so he fought against the temptation manfully, and came off victorious. Improved trade soon removed the temptation--perhaps we should say that his heavenly Father took that means to remove it--and at last, as we have said, he made a fortune, as many had done, in like circ.u.mstances, before him. Ned bought a farm three miles from his own, and, in the course of a few months, Tom and he were once more walking together, arm in arm, recalling other days, and--arguing.
Lizette and Louisa drew together like two magnets, the instant they met.
But the best of it was, Tom had brought home Larry O"Neil as his butler, and Mrs Kate O"Neil as his cook while Nelly became his wife"s maid.
Larry, it seems, had not taken kindly to farming in California, the more so that he pitched unluckily on an unproductive piece of land, which speedily swallowed up his little fortune, and refused to yield any return. Larry, therefore, like some men who thought themselves much wiser fellows, p.r.o.nounced the country a wretched one, in reference to agriculture, and returned to San Francisco, where he found Tom Collins, prospering and ready to employ himself and his family.
As butler to an English squire, Larry O"Neil was, according to his own statement, "a continted man." May he long remain so!
Nelly Morgan soon became, out of sight, the sweetest girl in the countryside, and, ere long, one of the best young fellows in the district carried her off triumphantly, and placed her at the head of affairs in his own cottage. We say he was one of the best young fellows--this husband of Nelly"s--but he was by no means the handsomest; many a handsome strapping youth there failed to obtain so good a wife as Nelly. Her husband was a steady, hard working, thriving, good man--and quite good-looking enough for her--so Nelly said.
As for Captain Bunting and Bill Jones, they stuck to each other to the last, like two limpets, and both of them stuck to the sea like fish. No sh.o.r.e-going felicities could tempt these hardy sons of Neptune to forsake their native element again. He had done it once, Bill Jones said, "in one o" the splendidest countries goin", where gold was to be had for the pickin" up, and all sorts o" agues and rheumatizes for nothin"; but w"en things didn"t somehow go all square, an" the anchor got foul with a gale o" adwerse circ.u.mstances springin" up astarn, why, wot then?--go to sea again, of coorse, an" stick to it; them wos _his_ sentiments." As these were also Captain Bunting"s sentiments, they naturally took to the same boat for life.
But, although Captain Bunting and Bill did not live on sh.o.r.e, they occasionally, at long intervals, condescended to revisit the terrestrial globe, and, at such seasons of weakness, made a point of running down to Brixley Hall to see Ned and Tom. Then, indeed, "the light of other days" shone again in retrospect on our adventurers with refulgent splendour; then Larry sank the butler, and came out as the miner--as one of the partners of the "R"yal Bank o" Calyforny"--then Ned and Tom related marvellous adventures, to the admiration of their respective wives, and the captain smote his thigh with frequency and emphasis, to the terror of the cat, and Bill Jones gave utterance to deeply-pregnant sentences, and told how that, on his last voyage to China, he had been up at Pekin, and had heard that Ah-wow had dug up a nugget of gold three times the size of his own head, and had returned to his native land a _millionnaire_, and been made a mandarin, and after that something else, and at last became prime minister of China--so Bill had been _told_, but he wouldn"t vouch for it, no how.
All this, and a great deal more, was said and done on these great and rare occasions--and our quondam gold-hunters fought their battles o"er again, to the ineffable delight of old Mr Shirley, who sat in his easy-chair, and gazed, and smiled, and stared, and laughed, and even wept, and chuckled--but never spoke--he was past that.
In the course of time Ned and Tom became extremely intimate with the pastor of their village, and were at last his right and left-hand men.
This pastor was a man whose aim was to live as his Master had lived before him--he went about doing good--and, of all the happy years our two friends spent, the happiest were those in which they followed in the footsteps and strengthened the hands of this good man, Lizette and Louisa were helpmates to their husbands in this respect, as in all others, and a blessing to the surrounding country.
Ned Sinton"s golden dream was over now, in one sense, but by no means over in another. His sleeping and his waking dreams were still, as of old, tinged with a golden hue, but they had not a metallic ring. The _golden rule_ was the foundation on which his new visions were reared, and that which we are told is _better_ than gold, "yea, than much fine gold," was thenceforth eagerly sought for and coveted by him. As for other matters--he delighted chiefly in the sunshine of Louisa"s smile, and in fields of golden grain.
THE END.