"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.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Golden Dream, by R.M. Ballantyne

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