Digging For Gold

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.