Mrs. Dunbar lives next door to Aunt Louisa in town . She is so sweet . You would n't think to look at her that she had a tragedy in her life , but she has . Aunt Louisa told me the tale . It all happened long , long ago . Interesting things like this all did happen long ago , it seems to me . They never seem to happen now . This was in ' 49 , when people were rushing to the gold fields in California . It was just like a fever , Aunt Louisa says . People took it , right here on the Island ; and a number of young men determined they would go to California . `` It is easy to go to California now ; but it was a very different matter then . There were no railroads across the land , as there are now , and if you wanted to go to California you had to go in a sailing vessel , all the way around Cape Horn . It was a long and dangerous journey ; and sometimes it took over six months . When you got there you had no way of sending word home again except by the same plan . It might be over a year before your people at home heard a word about you -- and fancy what their feelings would be ! `` But these young men did n't think of these things ; they were led on by a golden vision . They made all their arrangements , and they chartered the brig Fanny to take them to California . `` The captain of the Fanny is the hero of my story . His name was Alan Dunbar , and he was young and handsome . Heroes always are , you know , but Aunt Louisa says he really was .
And he was in love -- wildly XXXXX love , -- with Margaret Grant .
across as if in like months of on right to