Читать книгу The Border Kid - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 7
ОглавлениеSome Strange Servitors
Now we must go back to Ricardo, for our chief business is to follow him in his travels, and his adventures, and all the strange things which he met during his young life.
When he rode out of town he felt like an antelope which has been turned loose from a lariat, or like a bird pitched out of a cage. He wanted to dash wildly across the hills, but the quiet, thoughtful face of his companion restrained him. William Benn did not speak a great deal then; neither did he talk much during the whole of the next two days, during which they were cutting across the country as straight as a bird flies. He was a man who seemed to have limitless thoughts, through which he wandered as some people wander through a wilderness; and constantly as they journeyed along, the eye of Benn was dim with that inward look which comes to people who are following intricate trails through their own minds.
Some day, thought Ricardo, he would be allowed to enter fully into the mind of his master and participate in these mysteries. But in the meantime, not a word was expressed to him about the important affairs of William Benn.
“This is a school,” said Ricardo to himself, “in which I shall have to begin by learning a new language.”
He had only the vaguest ideas about business of any kind, but he had read a good many tales, chiefly those of the Near East, in which a poor merchant travels from Damascus to Cairo and sells goods at a great profit, and in two or three efforts suddenly becomes wealthy enough to build a house with fountains and gardens! So wealthy become the merchants of the fairy tales that every now and again a whole shipload of rare goods—silks, spices, the finest bales of stuffs, and barrels of choice wines—could sink to the bottom, and still the lucky fellows grew wealthier and wealthier. So much had these tales grown into the mind of Ricardo that when he was smaller he often had wondered why Antonio Perez had such bad luck, for Antonio went out day after day with his three laden mules, and he returned home night after night, never having found abandoned treasure, never having encountered adventure! Growing older, the boy began to learn that business rarely produces results so suddenly, but still it remained involved in mystery. He continued to think in such terms of miracles as one finds only upon Wall Street, when markets rise and fall. So he waited for the revelation to come, waited impatiently, turning many possibilities through his mind.
They reached rough mountains and journeyed through them by trails which Ricardo knew that he never could remember, if ever he had to retrace his steps to the rear. Then, from a high point, he found himself looking sheer down upon a white town in a green plain, beside a river that lay across it as straight as a sword. Ricardo could see the bridge that arched the river. He even could see the reflection of the white stone pillars and arches; he could see the bell tower of the old mission church; and, straining his sharp eyes, he could see the big bells inside the lantern.
“That is El Real,” said William Benn.
Then they began to descend. They followed a little stream that streaked down the mountain’s sheer face, pointing towards the larger river that watered the plain below. But it could not go arrow straight, for now and again it was dashed aside by the rocks and jagged here and there, like a mountain sheep dropping down a precipice almost sheer.
So they came, down into the foothills. They were so close to the town, by this time, that the church bells plainly sounded, and seemed like melancholy cymbals struck heavily above them, in the sky. Here there were thick woods interspersed with gigantic boulders, and turning suddenly from the trail and going back around one of these monstrous stones, William Benn pressed on through a thicket which seemed absolutely impenetrable even to a man on foot—and might easily, indeed, have become so—yet Benn knew exactly what winding path to take so that a horse and rider actually could pass through the dense wood.
They came out into a charming glade. The forest gave back upon either hand and allowed a pleasant lawn through which ran the stream beside which they had been riding, and which now hung above them in white rags and tatters; but here its violence was subdued and it ran more gently. On the cliff it had sounded like a clashing of swords, but here it was rather like the murmuring and the plucking of harp strings, trying to recover lost music and old airs dissolved in time. Ricardo looked about him, delighted; but neither the tall and gloomy forehead of the woods, nor the white flags of spray set against the cliff, nor the soft green grass, like Irish turf, on which they rode, pleased him so much as the house which he saw.
It had been built on a broad rock hanging over the stream, as though the original builder had wanted to fortify it against attack by giving it loftier walls. But nature had defied his attempt, for a thousand climbing vines, rooting themselves resolutely in the crevices of the rock, now threw up their arms over the sides of the house and joined their fingers at the roof ridge. It smothered, partially, and shut away the windows and so gave the house a half-blind appearance. But with the sun glistening along the ripples of trees and the ten thousand blossoms quivering and breathing with beauty, Ricardo was so moved that he reined his fine bay mare to a halt and stared, agape.
“That is a place where a man could live!” said he.
“That is a place to live or die in,” said William Benn, and something about his voice suggested to the boy a thought so harsh and so frightful that he looked sharply at his master, but did not receive the slightest hint of a word or a glance to enlarge the words.
“You see,” added William Benn after a moment, “how I show you all my secrets. This house, for instance!”
The boy looked at him again, but it was always hard to catch the eye of Benn, for either it was blankly turned inward, or else it stared into the distance, as if it saw thoughts reflected in the mirror of time.
“I didn’t know,” said Ricardo, “that merchants had to have so many secrets!”
“And how do we make money, then?” asked Benn harshly. “If there are no secrets, couldn’t every fool in the world simply lean down and gather up handfuls of gold?”
“That is true!” said Ricardo.
There had been such sudden irritation in the voice of William Benn that Ricardo was afraid to speak to him again. They rode around the side of the house and found a small barn. It was really much more capacious than appeared at the first glance, since one passed down an incline, and half of the barn was sunk into the rock beneath the general surface of the ground.
Never was Ricardo Perez more amazed than by what he beheld in this barn. For he found three rows of box stalls, and in every row there were five stalls, and all but four of those stalls were now occupied. And by what horses!
Ricardo looked upon them with bewildered joy, for he had an instinct for good horseflesh, and this was a thoroughbred strain that he was looking upon. Lean and long of neck, sometimes they were as narrow as swords—but like swords, again, they looked tough and true.
Ricardo stared from one side to the other as he took his own bright bay mare to a stall.
“She’s a weed,” said Benn, looking in at her. “You can keep her if you like her. I bought her because she was good enough to bring you here! But you ought to learn to get the picture of a real horse in your mind. Beauty comes often enough. But service is a lot ahead of looks!”
A little hunchback was at work among the horses. Benn spoke to him shortly and sharply as “Lew,” and the hunchback saluted and never answered a word. Always a salute for his master, but from the corner of his eye he tried to catch the attention of Ricardo with a wink, as much as to say: “We have to listen to this foolish man, but you and I know what rot it all is, don’t we?”
Ricardo was slightly amused by this attitude. And he was half horrified by the deformity of the little man, and half pitying.
They left the barn and went to the house, where the door opened at their approach, and Ricardo saw standing in the shadow the largest man he ever had seen in his life. One could hardly make him out, at first partly because he was a Negro, and partly because his proportions exceeded the expectation of the eye so greatly.
When Ricardo passed him, it was like passing a tower, or a vast, overhanging tree. The man must have been several inches over seven feet. He disguised this height somewhat by wearing thin felt slippers which had no heels, but this was a small paring from such a height. He was not pulled out of shape in one way or another, but appeared to be a perfectly normal man simply of excessive size. As to his weight, Ricardo would hardly have ventured a guess at it! The house was built with such exceeding strength that there was no creaking of floors or even of stairs under the striding of this monster, but nevertheless Ricardo felt a peculiar, slight tremor as the Negro walked. It was literally a crushing sense of bulk. The man could have taken a charging bull by the horns and snapped its neck!
This apparition grinned at his master, entering. His grin was like a flash of lightning in a black sky. Then he rolled his eyes down at Ricardo and took the hand of the boy in a paw which was like the hand of some Egyptian colossus, some black basalt monster which smiles across seven thousand years of desert. So Ricardo felt, looking up at the giant.
Then he went on down the hall with William Benn, who said cheerfully:
“Have you a chill in the middle of your back?”
“Exactly there!” admitted Ricardo, startled. “Why did you ask me that?”
“Because,” replied William Benn, “I hope you will live for a long time in this house, but no matter how long you live here, you’ll have that chill down the back the moment you have Selim behind you.”
“Is he an Arab, or something like that?”
“I don’t know. I think he picked the silly name out of a book. Everything about Selim is big, except his brain!”
