Читать книгу Wang the Ninth - B. L. Putnam Weale - Страница 12

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For many days no one in the neighbourhood saw or heard of the boy; he had disappeared as utterly as if the ground had swallowed him up. The neighbourhood gossiped about the incident as they loitered about in the evening watching the father sitting motionless and silent at his door. And in the Eastern way the tale grew until it was averred that the father had tried to slay his son with his huge smith's hammer and that he was grimly waiting for the truant's return to carry out his threat. It was said that the boy had fled back to the village whence he had originally come years before in that inconsequential way on a creaking wheelbarrow, and that never would he be seen again.

"Perhaps he has killed himself," suggested the women, always willing to believe the worst. But the men shook their heads, firm in the belief that in this case flight to the ancestral village had been sufficient redress.

Yet could they have only known it, Wang the Ninth was not far away—in fact, less than two miles as the crow flies. He had gone at his fast jog-trot not in through the city gate as they had all supposed (for that was only a feint), but round the city along those desolate outer stretches which recall the sandy deserts of High Asia. On and on he had gone until at last he had come upon a group of humble dwellings made of reeds and mud and placed strategically just where the mighty stone girdle of the capital sweeps round in a giant curve to form the northern face of the rectangle. There he had slowed down his running to a walk; and, cautiously glancing around to see that he was not observed, he had at length walked into the biggest house as bold as brass and announced most casually: "I have come for work."

The men gathered there on the brick k'ang had laughed at him at first; for who had ever heard of entrusting the smuggling of wine to a thirteen-year old boy? For this was their peculiar business: smuggling wine into the city so as to avoid the city-dues. It was not majestic or even very dangerous work, but it required a certain tenacity—and great climbing powers. For it was over the wall of the city that they practised their evasion, carrying to the wine-taverns the yellow wine of the country in leather bottles which were packed on their backs much as a soldier carries his knapsack. Often had Wang the Ninth observed them as they ran crouching to the city wall. He had made inquiries and thoroughly informed himself. So now, in answer to their rough gibes, he said:

"It is true I have never attempted this business, but I have carried concealed bottles very often and I know many tricks. Often have I heard how you climb the wall here at dawn and dusk. I, too, would engage in this enterprise."

Thus had he spoken. Then when they cursed him for his effrontery he had shrugged his shoulders. Presently because he was so persistent they had relented, and declared that if he wanted to risk it, they would try him.

"But would you not show fear?" inquired one in a last doubt.

"Fear!" he retorted. "Who speaks of fear! Give me a day to learn correctly, and I will walk up the wall as a man goes up a rope."

His assurance had completely won the day, as it always does in every affair in life. He was fed and went to sleep on the brick k'ang under the coat of the man who had first spoken in his favour; and on the morrow at grey dawn he went out with three men bearing leather bottles and followed them up the angle of the city wall as easily as if it had been a tree.

"It is nothing," he remarked scornfully as they crouched together on the top of the great rampart to make sure that no guards were about: for the men in the guard-house occasionally made a raid to justify their existence. He spoke thus because he was elated by the giddy sensation of the climb, and he boasted when he should have thanked the generosity of Heaven.

"Wait for the descent," chorussed the others. "That is not so easy even for us who have done it so often. Perhaps you will know fear."

They darted across the broad brick platform to the inner parapet, crouching low as they ran, for there was a guard-house a few hundreds yards away. Without a word the first man went over, then the second, then the third, each making the dizzy descent slowly, cautiously, their backs to the wall at the angle where the buttress juts out squarely—walking down sedately like human flies—which is a trick which may be occasionally seen even to this day, and is possible because of the innumerable crevices which time and water-erosion have worked into the brickwork.

The boy watched them from top, and memorized as well as he could every step, as he studied all the cracks and interstices in the mammoth defence. But when his turn came he found that his stretch was smaller than that of a full-grown man and that the strain was great both on arms and legs. Half-way down he became a little tired and a little afraid. But with iron resolution he conquered the shaking of his knees and the faintness in his heart; and at length won the battle and jumped the last six feet, falling and lying on the ground panting whilst his leather bottles rolled near him.

"It is nothing," he remarked, as his breath returned. "If I were full-grown I could do it with my eyes blindfolded in less than a week. It is nothing and less dangerous than a swaying tree-top."

"This boy has too much courage," said one man morosely. "We have done ill to take him. This courage will lead to rashness. Who knows where it will lead!"

So had spoken the representative of a society so constituted that its safety is held endangered by any one who displays contempt for the all-pervading caution. Wang the Ninth did not know about these things, and certainly would not have cared if he had. He was just a small human animal, amazingly self-reliant and amazingly resourceful. His pride had been deeply hurt by his father's public insult of him. There was consequently a mass of sullen rage deep down in his heart—a mass as solid and as heavy as a cannon-ball. For of all things that you may say, even in the sharpest disputes, there is one which must be sedulously avoided. Between father and son this rule is iron. The father had broken the rule and so it was better for the son to carry leather bottles of wine up the city wall than to remain at his side. Beyond this the boy did not reason much although he medidated endlessly as he worked at his new trade. Sometimes the smugglers were detected by the guards and then there was a confused sauve-qui-peut to the sound of a few shots that made a great deal of noise but were comparatively harmless. Once, however, one of his mates lost courage and fell a considerable distance, breaking some bones and stopping the whole enterprise for days; for the smugglers were at bottom a miserable lot who had lost all real courage through years of stealth.

One day something prompted him to give them the slip, and very calmly he marched down the outer street of the suburb which led to his father's hut watching narrowly to see how his return was taken.

His acquaintances greeted him with cries of astonishment. "Here is Wang the Ninth back again!" they exclaimed, crowding round him. "See, he has a red girdle round his waist and new clothing on his back."

But he shook them off and ran on when they attempted to cross-question him; for he was of a loyal nature and moreover had no intention of allowing the world to know what a nefarious occupation he had been engaged in.

Near his home some of his former play-mates, still secretly admiring his independent attitude and a certain roughness he had sedulously cultivated, said to him in discreet voices:

"You ought to have come sooner. Your father has been sick these many days. Had it not been for the neighbours he would have fared ill indeed. Money and food are lacking."

Now he hastened on. His bravado had vanished and there was gloom in his heart. In some trepidation he opened the door of his father's hut and walked in, watched from the street by all his youthful friends.

Inside, stretched on the rude bed of boards, lay his father, quite motionless and covered in a sheep-skin coat, although the weather was warm.

"I have returned," said the son, coming up to him and speaking in his quick city vernacular which was so unlike his father's slow uncouth country speech. "How has this happened?" he added, bending down now. The resentment within him had faded, for was this not his father?

The sick man only groaned for reply, fixing on him glassy eyes.

"How is it?" repeated the youth in the query which every one in the country uses a dozen times a day, and feeling at a loss what to do. He had never before been confronted with the phenomenon of physical collapse. It left him awkward and chagrined.

"It is fever," mumbled the father at length sighing heavily. "If there were money for medicine it might be better. But the neighbours have given me freely and I cannot borrow more."

"I will attend to it," said the stripling, and with that he marched out again and down the street to a shop with a gaudy gilt front and a massive counter covered with blue cloth.

"Medicine for fever," he said, abruptly putting down a piece of silver, and leaning against the counter to see that full weight was given him. Presently he received twenty-four little packets done up in rough brown paper which were guaranteed to be the very best of the herbalist's art. With these in his hand he marched back and settled down to the task of tending his sick parent. He displayed the same phlegm he had shown in the smuggling of wine. Three times a day he drew water from the common well and lit the fire and boiled congee, and bought things as if he had been trained to housework all his life; for this curious nation is like that—all can settle to any task with patience and ease. But his father instead of getting better, became worse. Sometimes for many hours he lay without speaking or moving, and the boy frowning deeply, became gloomy and very silent.

"It is a bad business," he said to the neighbours when they met him on the street. "He makes no progress."

One night he was awakened from a dead sleep by the man's cries and the thrusting movements of his arms. He sprang up and lit the tallow candle in great alarm. His father was sitting up catching at his throat and gasping for breath, a hideous sight, with his forehead so long unshaven and his queue so unkempt. The boy tried to give him water but the bowl fell from the palsied hand. He picked it up and supported the sufferer but with a sudden twist the man turned over and died.

Wang the Ninth, in the presence of death, cried aloud like a frightened animal and then ran to the door, shouting that his father was dead. He had never seen death come before—it came to him as an injustice rather than a blow. He wished others to measure it as he measured it: wished them to realize the drama. But the neighbours were sunk in sleep and when he beat on their doors he only heard them stir and mutter that the fire-devils which prowl at night were around. Nothing would induce them to open although they must have plainly heard the boy's voice.

So quaking with fear he crept back at last and sat with his head on his knees and his teeth chattering looking at the recumbent motionless figure and waiting for dawn.

When daylight came he went out and the neighbours came willingly enough then, in a never-ending stream to stare and make comments. He mourned loudly, beating himself on the breast and looking very miserable, death being an important and ceremonious event and being so considered by all. As there were no relatives, the headman of the locality came and made a rude inventory, and then reported the case to the coffin-guild who prepared a suitable coffin and sent two men with lime to pack the corpse. All the children of the neighbourhood stood in a crowd together at the door, watching and trying to see every movement, for a burial is like a marriage and never fails to awaken interest, the one being the ending of life, just as the other is its procreation.

For a day or so things remained like that with the coffin in the hut. Then when everything was in order, they dressed him in coarse white mourner's cloth and placed a cap of the same material on his head, and the coffin was lifted up by four men on carrier's poles; and preceded by a fellow blacksmith, who carried paper money to be burnt in imitation shoes of silver (such as the dead man had never dreamed of in his life) and followed by the mourning boy, the coffin was carried to the temple of the locality, pending formal disposal.