Over the Rocky Mountains: Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin by Ballantyne (desktop ebook reader .txt) 📖

Chapter One. Describes Home-Coming, and shows that Matters whispered in the Drawing-Room are sometimes loudly proclaimed Below-Stairs.

It was late on a winter evening when our hero, William Osten, arrived in England, in company with his two friends and former messmates, Bunco and Larry O’Hale.

When a youth returns to his native land, after a long absence which commenced with his running away to sea, he may perhaps experience some anxieties on nearing the old home; but our hero was not thus troubled, because, his father having died during his absence, and his mother having always been tender-hearted and forgiving, he felt sure of a warm reception.

Our hero was so anxious to see his mother, that he resolved to travel by the night-coach to his native town of B—, leaving his companions to follow by the mail in the morning. Railways, although in use throughout the country, had not at that time cut their way to the town of B—. Travellers who undertook to visit that part of the land did so with feelings somewhat akin to those of discoverers about to set out on a distant voyage. They laid in a stock of provisions for the journey, and provided great supply of wraps for all weathers. When Will Osten reached the coach-office, he found that all the inside places were taken.

“You’ll have to go aloft, sir,” said the coachman, a stout and somewhat facetiously inclined individual, who, observing something of the sailor in Will’s costume and gait, suited his language to his supposed character; “there’s only one berth left vacant, on the fogs’l ’longside o’ myself.”

“Well, I’ll take it,” said Will.

Five minutes afterwards the guard shouted “all right,” and they set off.

“Do you happen to know many of the people in the town of B—?” said Will to the coachman, as they emerged from the suburbs and dashed out upon a long tract of moorland.

“Know many of ’em, sir,” said the man, tipping the off-leader on the flank by way of keeping his hand in; “I should ’ope I does; it’s two year, this very day, since I came to this ’ere part o’ the country, and I’ve got married in B— to a ’ooman as knows everythink and everybody, so, of course, I knows everythink and everybody, too.”

“Then you have heard of a Mrs Osten, no doubt, a widow lady?” said Will.

“Wot, the widder o’ that grumpy old gen’lman as died last year, leavin’, they say, a big estate in furrin parts?”

Will felt a tendency to seize the man by the throat, and tumble him off his box into the road, but on second thoughts he restrained himself and said—

“She is the widow of a gentleman with whom I was intimately acquainted. I did not know anything about his having estates abroad.”

“I axe your pardon, sir,” said the man, a little abashed by Will’s grave manner; “didn’t know they wos friends of yours. No offence, I ’ope. The old lady is raither low since her husband’s death—for it wos somewhat sudden—an’ they do say she’s never got over the runnin’ away of her only son—at least so my wife says, an’ she ought to know, for she’s bin intimate with the family for many years, an’ knows the ooman as nussed the boy—”

“What, Maryann?” exclaimed Will.

“The same. You seems to know ’em all, sir.”

“Yes, I know them well. Is Maryann still with my—with Mrs Osten?”

“Yes, sir, she is, an’ wot’s more, she aint likely to quit in a ’urry. W’y, sir, that ’ooman ’as ’ad no fewer than six hoffers of marriage, an’ ’as refused ’em all for love of the old lady. My wife, she says to me the other night, when she wos a-washin’ of the baby in the big bread can—you see, sir, the washin’ tub’s gone and sprung a leak, an’ so we’re redoosed to the bread can—Well, as I wos a-sayin’, my wife says to me—‘Richards,’ says she, ‘it’s my belief that Marryhann will never marry, for her ’art an’ soul is set upon Mrs Osten, an’ she’s got a strange feelin’ of sartinty that Master Will, as she calls the runaway boy, will come back to comfort ’is mother an’ look arter the furrin estates. No, Richards, mark my words, Maryhann will never marry.’”

“‘It may be so, Jemimar,’ says I,—Did you speak, sir?” said the coachman, turning sharp round on hearing Will utter an exclamation of surprise.

“Is your wife’s name Jemima?”

“Yes, it is; d’you ’appen to know her, too?”

“Well, I think I do, if she is the same person who used to attend upon Mrs Osten—a tall and—thin—and and—somewhat—”

“Stiff sort of woman—hout with it, sir, you’ll not ’urt my feelins. I didn’t marry Jemimar for her beauty, no, nor yet for her money nor her youth, for she aint young, sir—older than myself a long way. I took her for her worth, sir, her sterlin’ qualities. You know, sir, as well as I do, that it aint the fattest an’ youngest ’osses as is the best. Jemimar is a trump, sir, without any nonsense about her. Her capacity for fryin’ ’am, sir, an’ bilin’ potatoes is marvellous, an’ the way she do dress up the baby (we’ve only got one, sir) is the hadmiration of the neighbour’ood.”

“You said something just now about the deceased Mr Osten’s estate. Can you tell me how he came by it?”

“No, sir, I can’t. That’s the only thing that my wife ’as failed to fathom. There’s somethink mysterious about it, I think, for Missis Hosten she won’t speak to Marryhann on the subjec’, an’ all she knows about it is that the lawyer says there’s an estate somewheres in furrin parts as needs lookin’ arter. The lawyer didn’t say that to Maryhann, sir, of course, but she’s got a ’abit of hairin’ ’er ears at key’oles an’ over’ears things now an’ then.”

Further conversation on this point was here stopped by the arrival of the coach at the end of a stage, and when the journey was resumed with fresh horses, Will felt inclined to sleep. He therefore buttoned up his coat tight to the chin, fixed his hat well down on his brows, and put himself into one of those numerous attitudes of torture with which “outsides” were wont to beguile the weary hours of night in coaching days. When the sun rose next morning, Will was still in that state of semi-somnolence which causes the expression of the countenance to become idiotic and the eyes owlish. At last the chimneys of his native town became visible, and in a short time he found himself standing before the well-remembered house tapping at the old door, whose panels—especially near the foot—still bore the deep marks of his own juvenile toes.

It is not necessary to drag the reader through the affecting scene of meeting between mother and son. Two days after his arrival we find them both seated at tea in the old drawing-room drinking out of the old mug, with the name “William” emblazoned on it, in which, in days gone by, he was wont to dip his infantine lips and nose. Not that he had selected this vessel of his own free will, but his mother, who was a romantic old lady, insisted on his using it, in order to bring back to her more vividly the days of his childhood, and Will, in the fulness of his heart, said he would be glad to drink tea out of the coal-scuttle if that would give her pleasure. The good lady even sent to the lumber-room for the old arm-chair of his babyhood, but as neither ingenuity nor perseverance could enable him to squeeze his stout person into that, he was fain to content himself with an ordinary chair.

“Now, dear mother,” said Will, commencing the fifth slice of toast, under pressure (having eaten the fourth with difficulty), “you have not yet told me about this wonderful estate which everybody seems to know of except myself.”

“Ah! darling Will,” sighed Mrs Osten, “I have avoided the subject as long as possible, for I know it is to be the cause of our being separated again. But there is no help for it, because I promised your dear father when he was dying that I would tell you his wishes in regard to it, and that I would not attempt to dissuade you from doing your duty. Well, you remember uncle Edward, I suppose?”

“His name—yes,” said Will, “but I never knew anything else about him. I had nothing to remember or to forget, except, indeed, that he got the name of being a wild scapegrace, something like myself!”

“Like yourself, darling,” exclaimed the old lady, with a look of indignation—“no indeed! Have not you repented and come back, like a good prodigal son; and didn’t the dear beautiful letter that you wrote from that awful island—what’s its name—where you were all but eaten alive—”

“The coral island,” suggested Will.

“Yes, the coral island—didn’t that dear letter give more delight to your beloved father than any letter he ever received in his life, and more than made up to him for your running away, and cheered him to his last hour, whereas uncle Edward was wicked to the last—at least so it is said, but I don’t know, and it’s not right to speak ill of the dead. Well, as I was going to say, uncle Edward died in some outlandish place in North America, I never can remember the name, but it’s in the papers, so you’ll see it—somewhere on the other side of the something mountains—I forget—”

“Rocky, perhaps.”

“Yes, that’s it, the Rocky Mountains, and I wish they were not so rocky, for your sake, darling, for you’ve got to go there and take possession (or serve yourself heir to, or something of that sort) of the property. Not that it’s large, so they say (I wish with all my heart it did not exist at all), but they tell me there is gold on it, though whether it is lying on the fields or down in holes I’m sure I don’t know, and oh dear, I don’t care, for it entails your going away again, my darling boy.”

Here the poor old lady broke down, and, throwing her arms round Will’s neck—regardless of the fact that in so doing she upset and broke one of her best china tea-cups—wept upon his bosom.

Such was the manner of the announcement of the news in the drawing-room.

In the kitchen the same subject was being discussed by a select party, consisting of Maryann, Mr Richards the coachman, his spouse Jemima—formerly Scrubbins—the baby Richards—who has already been referred to as being reduced in the