Читать книгу A Whaleman's Wife - Frank Thomas Bullen - Страница 5

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A SUDDEN RESOLVE

When Rube came down the next morning and composedly met his father’s and mother’s anxious looks, he had the listless air of a man whose spirit had been broken. There was a droop in his shoulders, a dulness in his eyes that contrasted painfully with the bright alertness of his glance and carriage of the day before. But he said nothing of his blow, and his parents wisely forbore to say anything either, trusting that his young and healthy body would come to the assistance of his mind, and that the wound would soon skin over. Unfortunately for their hopes, his love had been the pivot of his life. While a good farmer, a good son, and a good business man, he had no hobbies, he read little, and, being much alone, he had allowed his passion for Priscilla to become so interwoven with his every thought and action that the knowledge of her loss had been like a rending of soul from body. So he went about his duties like a somnambulist, seeking no comfort, making no confidences, and apparently as insensible to externals as a hypnotised man would be.

In this dull round of daily tasks several weeks passed away, until it happened that he found himself at the village grocery on some trivial errand. There was the usual knot of loungers ready to talk, and absurdly grateful for the coming of any stranger with something fresh to say. As he passed through them with a brief nod of recognition to one and another, and entered the store, he saw standing erect in their midst a tall wiry-looking man, whose face was unfamiliar to him. Pausing for an instant, with the first symptom of interest he had manifested for many days, he heard the stranger say:

‘Yas, ’n’ if enny ov yew fellers hed th’ grit ov a chipmunk, yew wouldn’t take twicet t’ think over yer anser. Wut man’d go on grindin’ mud all his life in a dead-’n’-alive God-fergotten corner like this when he’s got ’n opportoonity of seein’ the world—all th’ world, mind ye, east, west, north, and south—an’ makin’ a small forchin ’s well? I dunno wuts come over the yewth ov Amurica to-day. Sims t’ me they’ve lost their old vim ’n’ push altogether. Well, s’ long, boys; if I kain’t persuade ye I kain’t, ’n’ there’s an eend on ’t, ’n’ I mus’ be gittin’ ’long. But ef enny ov ye wants time t’ make up yer minds, I sh’l be back this way ag’in ter-morrer ev’nin’, ’n’ that’ll be the las’ chance you’ll git, enny ov ye.’

Although he had not heard any of the stranger’s preliminary discourse, and shrank from making inquiries, Rube’s interest was aroused to the highest pitch. He returned to his home with the few words he had heard seething and bubbling in his mind. For he felt that at last here was a way of escape from the almost insupportable deadness of his life. He could not realise that ‘the mind is its own place,’ and so, like a caged animal, seeing a door of hope open to him, he felt an unconquerable longing to flee. He said not a word throughout the evening meal, but that was so much his habit now that it passed unnoticed. Mechanically he bowed his head at ‘worship,’ but his father’s reading of a chapter from the Bible might have been in the original Hebrew for all he understood of it. After gaining the solitude of his room, he sat on the bed, his head on his hands, trying hard to reduce the whirlpool of his thoughts to some definite shape until far into the night, but in vain. Only one idea seemed to stand out sharply and distinctly against the misty tumult: he must go. At last, wearied with mental conflict, he fell backward, dressed as he was, and went to sleep.

He rose unrefreshed, with a racking headache for the first time in his life, and went about his usual round of duties automatically. But his face bore such evident traces of his last night’s conflict that they could not escape his mother’s keen eye. She anxiously inquired after his health, but was met with the careless reply that he was ‘all right.’ She knew better, of course, but it had never been her way to force confidence, and so she manifested no more curiosity. She only looked wistfully at her boy when unobserved by him, and hovered about him as if more than ordinarily solicitous for his comfort. All day long he moved and looked like a man in a dream, every thought, every feeling merged in one idea—escape. Strange, that it never occurred to him how impossible it is for a man to flee from himself.

Without waiting for supper, and as if dreading to be questioned, no sooner was the day’s work done than he strode off to the village grocery, assuming, as he approached it, a most elaborate air of unconcern, and lounging into the midst of the little knot of listless men hanging about the door as if nothing mattered—an attitude common to all of them. He had not long to wait. In about ten minutes after his arrival a brisk footfall was heard, and turning the corner sharply the lean, keen-looking stranger of the previous evening strode into the midst of the group.

‘Evenin’, boys,’ he jerked out, diving into the pockets of his pants at the same time and producing a formidable plug of hard tobacco and a knife. Having provided himself with a fresh cud and passed on the materials to his next neighbour, he proceeded:

‘Wall, boys, hev ye made up yer minds yet? This, as the paestor sez, is the last time ov askin’. Ye’ve got ter speak up now, ’relse stay right whar y’ are f’rever ’n’ ever. ’N’ that, I sh’d say, ’d be ’nough t’ decide fr’anny young man. Veg’tables don’ count anyhaow.’

This short harangue ended, he looked slily at his hearers to see whether he had made any impression upon them, but with the exception of a vacant half laugh or two, accompanied by an uneasy shuffle on the part of the utterers thereof, they might as well all have been deaf for any notice they took of him. But suddenly, to his astonishment (although he was careful not to show it), Rube, who was a stranger to him, stepped forward and said:

‘Wall, stranger, I guess I’ll hitch hosses with ye. When d’ ye start, an’ what’s th’ ’rangements?’

‘Right, my boy, I’m real proud of ye. I’m startin’ this evenin’ as ever is; ’n’ as t’ ’rangements, ye’ve only got ter sign thishyer paper agreein’ t’ join any ship I s’lect f’r ye, ’n’ take a little keepsake from me in the shape of two-an’-a-haef dollars. Then ye’ll pack up yer traps, ’n’ I’ll see ye booked through to Noo Bedford. Yew’ll start first thing in the mornin’.’

Hardly looking at the form of agreement, Rube signed, the stranger being provided with pen and ink, and dropping the money loosely into his pocket, he strode off homewards, leaving the loungers all agape at the idea of Rube Eddy, who was well known to be one of the steadiest and most comfortably established young men in the county, going off at a minute’s notice to foreign lands. Long and earnest was the discussion that followed, all sorts of possible and impossible reasons for the step Rube had taken being brought forward. The stranger lolled at his ease, listening in the hope that Rube’s example might prove contagious, but, to his disappointment, it seemed to have quite a contrary effect. The talkers were like men who had just witnessed one of their number take a plunge into the fathomless abyss, from the brink of which they all drew back with horror. This state of mind soon became evident to the stranger, who, jerking himself to his feet, shook himself, stretched, yawned, and finally said:

‘Wall, boys, kain’t linger with ye always. I’m beginnin’ t’ feel like Rip Van Winkle meself in thishyer slumbersom place. I reckon I shall hev to hurry back to civilisation agen before I go to sleep too. How on airth yew fellers keep ’wake long ’nough t’ eat ’n drink I d’no.’

With this parting shot he turned on his heel and disappeared into the gathering darkness, and they saw him no more.

Meanwhile Rube, his mind a blank, reached home and, hastily ascending to his room, busied himself gathering together his clothing. Good serviceable homespun, most of it, such as would be fit for any work, however rough, that might fall to his lot. Having made it into a compact bundle, with a celerity that raised a dim wonder even in himself, he drew himself up, as if bracing all his fortitude to meet father and mother. Memories of the quiet, pleasant years began to crowd in upon him, but with a gesture as if to crush them back, he deliberately walked down the narrow stairway, whose every step seemed to utter a reproachful creak. Entering the kitchen, he crossed over to the fireside, where his parents sat facing each other and calmly talking over some trivial happening of the day. Standing before them, he waited a moment, while they both looked up at him, and in that one swift glance his mother knew that a crisis had arrived. In a husky voice, that sounded as if it belonged to someone else, he said:

‘Mother, Dad, I’m goin’ away termorrer mornin’. Fergive me fer leavin’ ye like this, but I jest had ter go. I’m no good here any more. I’m goin’ t’ sea, ’n’ when I come back mebbe I’ll be a stronger man. Naow I’m a wuthless, dreamy shote, ’n’ I feel ’s if thishyer quiet easy life ’d certainly drive me mad befo’ very long.’

‘Must you go to-morrow, my son?’ murmured his mother hopelessly, for she knew the breed, knew that once set upon a thing the Eddys were immovable, and yet she felt obliged to make an effort.

‘Yes, mother. ’Greement’s signed, th’ airnest money’s in my pocket, an’ my duds are all packed. I’m goin’, sure.’

‘Rube,’ said his father, ‘we’ve been mighty cluss friends all our lives, an’ we ain’t goin’ ter fall eout naouw, I’m dead shore o’ that. But ye mout ha’ told me wut ye wuz meditatin’. ’T wan’t far t’ me, boy, naow wuz it?’

For all answer Rube reached for his father’s hand and held it tight, while the working of his face showed how hard the simple words had hit him.

The father broke the silence again by saying, ‘Let us pray.’ With a sudden return to his childhood Rube knelt at his mother’s knee, while the old man, as had been his nightly wont ever since he first brought home his young bride, but with an added solemnity born of the shadow of his first bereavement, spoke to his Friend:

‘Father, eour hearts air troubled. Yew’ve brung us along a pleasant road right inter the green valley of comfortable old age. We’ve hed a happy time together, ’n’ this our son hez alwus ben a delight to us. We looked that he sh’d still be so, that he sh’d close eour eyes when we laid us down at last t’ sleep. P’raps we hev been selfish, ’n’ need a lesson to teach us wut it means to spare an only son. He’s goin’ away from us f’r a long time—where, he doesn’t know himself; but however fur he goes, don’t let him get away from you. We don’t ask you t’ spare him t’ us ef it’s necessary we sh’d never see him alive any more; but ef it might be, Father, you know how ’tis yourself, ’n’ therefore you know what it’ll mean t’ us t’ have him back again. Make him through all he’ll have t’ bear such a man as yew’d love to have him, ’n supply his place at home, if it ken be supplied, by a truer sense of yew’re presence with us. Bless my son, O Father, and bless us, f’r yewr Son’s sake. Amen.’

Little more was said, although they sat hand in hand far into the night. Rube wanted nothing that his father could give him, having sufficient money for all his prospective needs; but he accepted his mother’s Bible gratefully, feeling that it would be a palpable link with her. At last they went to bed, where Rube, not from callousness, but from sheer overstrain of mind, slept soundly. His mother lay all through the hours silently praying, while the unhindered tears trickled slowly and continuously down. And his father watched with her.