Robert Michael Ballantyne - Digging for Gold - Adventures in California

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 nothing, his sad condition was due much more to his uncle’s neglect than to his own perversity. He did not, however, give utterance to the thought, because he was of a respectful nature; he merely flushed and said,—“Really, uncle, you do me injustice. I may not be fit for much, and every day I live I feel bitterly the evil of a neglected education, but—”

“It’s well, at all events,” interrupted Mr Allfrey, “that you admit the fact of your having neglected it. That gives you some chance of amendment.”

Frank flushed again and drew his breath shortly; after a moment’s silence he went on:—

“But if I am not fit for much, I am certainly fit for something. I have only a smattering of Latin and Greek, it is true, and a very slight knowledge of French, but, if I am to believe my teacher’s reports, I am not a bad arithmetician, and I know a good deal of mathematics, besides being a pretty fair penman.”

“Humph! well, but you know you have said that you don’t want to enter a mercantile or engineer’s office, and a smattering of Latin and Greek will not do for the learned professions. What, therefore, do you propose to yourself, the army, eh? it is the only opening left, because you are now too old for the navy.”

“I wish to be an artist,” said Frank with some firmness.

“I thought so; the old story. No, sir, you shall never be an artist—at least not with my consent. Why, do you suppose that because you can scribble caricatures on the fly-leaves of your books you have necessarily the genius of Rubens or Titian?”

“Not quite,” replied Frank, smiling in spite of himself at the irascibility of the old gentleman, “and yet I presume that Rubens and Titian began to paint before either themselves or others were aware of the fact that they possessed any genius at all.”

“Tut, tut,” cried Mr Allfrey impatiently, “but what have you ever done, boy, to show your ability to paint?”

“I have studied much, uncle,” said Frank eagerly, “although I have said little to you about the matter, knowing your objection to it; but if you would condescend to look at a few of my drawings from nature, I think—”

“Drawing from nature,” cried Mr Allfrey with a look of supreme contempt, “what do I care for nature? What have you to do with nature in this nineteenth century? Nature, sir, is only fit for savages. There is nothing natural now-a-days. Why, what do you suppose would become of my ledger and cash-book, my office and business, if I and my clerks raved about nature as you do? A fig for nature!—the less you study it the better. I never do.”

“Excuse me, sir,” said Frank respectfully, “if I refuse to believe you, because I have heard you frequently express to friends your admiration of the view from your own drawing-room window—”

“Of course you have, you goose, and you ought to have known that that was a mere bit of conventional humbug, because, since one is constrained unavoidably to live in a world full of monstrous contradictions, it is necessary to fall in with its habits. You ought to know that it is customary to express admiration for a fine view.”

“You spoke as if you felt what you said,” replied Frank, “and I am certain that there are thousands of men in the position of yourself and your clerks who delight in nature in all her varied aspects; who, because they unfortunately see so little of her in town, make it their ambition to have cottages in the country when they can afford it, and many of whom decorate their walls with representations of nature.”

“Frank,” said Mr Allfrey, somewhat solemnly, as he turned his gaze full on the animated face of his nephew, “ if I could get you put into a lunatic asylum without a doctor’s certificate I would do so without delay, but, that being impossible just now—although I think it will be not only possible but necessary ere long—I have to make you a final proposal. It is this:– that, as you express such a powerful objection to enter an office in this country, you should go abroad and see whether a three-legged stool is more attractive in foreign parts than it is in England. Now, I happen to have a friend in California. If your geography has not been neglected as much as your Latin, you will remember that this country lies on the western seaboard of North America, not far from those gold-fields which have been recently turning the world upside-down. Will you go?”