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 in love , -- with Margaret Grant . Margaret was as beautiful as a dream , with soft blue eyes and clouds of golden hair ; and she loved Alan Dunbar just as much as he loved her . But her parents were bitterly opposed to him , and they had forbidden Margaret to see him or speak to him . They had n't anything against him as a MAN , but they did n't want her to throw herself away on a sailor . `` Well , when Alan Dunbar knew that he must go to California in the Fanny he was in despair . He felt that he could NEVER go so far away for so long and leave his Margaret behind .
And Margaret felt XXXXX she could never let him go .
across against as behind for if in on that to