Читать книгу The Long Rifle - Stewart Edward White - Страница 20

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On a rock by a roadside sat Andrew Burnett. The season was early spring: that time when the snow water is but just draining away, the red-winged blackbirds are new arrived in melody, and the wide washed sky is ahum with the vigor of fresh joy in the world. Nevertheless the lad’s expression was somber, his eyes smoldered with a sullen resentment well emphasized by his straight black eyebrows that almost met over the bridge of his nose. He was thinking what a hard time he was having in life; and how downtrodden he was; and what—in the somewhat hazy future—he was going to do about it. This was not an unusual state of mind for his age, which was nineteen.

He was entirely absorbed. He did not hear the liquid-voiced blackbirds and meadow larks. He did not see the red squirrel that chirked and jerked toward him along the rails of the zigzag “snake” fence. He was even wholly unaware of a horseman galloping recklessly through the puddles, until a shower of mud brought him to his feet. He flared into furious resentment; unreasonable, for it was self-evident the horseman was innocent of intention, but natural as the leap of his discontent toward an outlet.

“Look what you’re doing, you dirty whelp!” he shouted.

The horse was thrown on its haunches; turned; walked slowly back; brought to a stand. The rider leaned forward in his saddle.

“What did you say?” he challenged softly.

His appearance further inflamed the other’s anger. His clothing was of fine quality and in the height of prevailing fashion; his mount was self-evidently an animal of blood; the very expression of his finely featured, faintly disdainful face, the lift of his long, white hands raised the bristles on the country boy’s contempt for the city macaroni. The fact that the stranger was also a lad, apparently not far from his own age, helped not at all.

Andrew repeated his sentiment.

“You tom fool, how could I see you, sitting there like a bump on a log!” retorted the horseman.

This was not unreasonable; but Andrew was in no mood for reason. He expanded his original idea. The city boy leaped nimbly from his horse. They fought whole-heartedly. Andrew was obviously the stronger: the stranger’s quickness and certainty of movement equalized matters. They inflicted some damage on one another; thrashed about considerably; finally locked and went to earth. The horse trotted away, his reins dangling. The combatants struggled a moment or so without perceptible advantage to either, rolled down the low bank, and plumped into a puddle. The icy shock of the water tore them apart. They arose dripping. Andrew, his dogged slow spirit catching its fuel fully, was in dash to resume. But the other was laughing.

“We’re a sweet pair!” he cried. “Now why in tarnation were we both so cross? I’m not usually a crochety person. Are you?”

Andrew stopped, his mouth falling open. This was too abrupt for one of his disposition.

“Or are you?” enquired the other. “I don’t believe it. ’Tain’t reasonable. I didn’t see you, you know. And why should I go off at half cock? That ain’t reasonable either. Of course you were startled. Don’t blame you.”

“I take back the ‘dirty whelp,’ ” conceded Andrew gruffly.

“Never mind about the ‘dirty,’ ” amended the other. He glanced down humorously at his dripping finery, “And I take back——”

“Never mind the ‘tom fool,’ ” interposed Andrew. “Reckon we’re a pair of them.”

“So that’s all right. My name is Russell Braidwood. I live in Philadelphia.”

“Mine is Andy Burnett. I live at the farm yonder, up the lane.”

“Well, what made you so cross?” enquired Russell.

“I’m sick of the farm,” replied Andy, falling somber again.

“The same with me.”

“What?”

“I’m sick of Philadelphia.”

They sat together on the rock. The warm spring sun steamed from their drenched garments. Overfield the blackbirds and the meadow larks distilled its brightness into song. A first bobolink overflowed its rapture. Drop after rapid drop small water tinklings drained away the last of winter from the world. The red squirrel curved the sweep of his tail over his back and clasped his little hands to his head in an ecstatic worship of the fresh flood of life in the springtime. Of these things the two lads, absorbed in one another, had no consciousness; but now in the new expansiveness of feeling they flooded in.

Why was Andy sick of the farm? Well, there was his stepfather, who was harsh and stern in religion, and rigid in discipline, and strong for the duty youth owed to those who had brought it into the world.

“Only he did not bring me into the world,” interpolated Andy.

“Your mother?” asked Russell.

“My mother is dead,” replied Andy briefly.

But that might be borne, and the hard, iron, grinding, endless work, and the lack of all amusement so necessary to youth. It was the future, the dull gray appalling future. The same thing over and over. And for what? A living, hardly wrung. And at the end of life the acres still demanding, still grudging, and the bent back of age, and possibly resignation. Like iron walls pressing in closer and closer.

Why not break away from it?

“There’s my grandmother. You do not know my grandmother. I can’t desert her. And anyway I’m not of age. He wouldn’t let me go. I’m too valuable to him,” said Andy bitterly. “The only reason I’m here now is because he’s gone to town for the day. You don’t know him, either.”

It was all very black. To youth two years until the coming of age was forever. To youth the inevitable passing away of age does not occur.

But Russell? How could he be sick of Philadelphia? A great city; leisure; amusement; money in his pocket; fine clothes; a horse to ride; position; family; the silver spoon in the mouth? This was difficult to understand.

Russell’s bright face darkened. He brushed these things aside. How did they count when one is in prison? In prison to position. Doing the same things over and over. One sickens of them, no matter how they glitter. In prison all one’s life; sitting inside a cage while the world flashes by outside.

“They are set on my going into the Business, won’t hear of anything else!” he cried bitterly, “Great-grandfather started the bank, and the Family have carried it on ever since. Sitting in an office at a desk. Just the same as being locked in by a jailer. God, I hate it! Next year: that’s when my term begins!”

“Why don’t you just break away?” Andy repeated the question that had been asked himself.

“I can’t. There’s the family. You don’t know the family.”

They contemplated their several hopelessness; and the world deepened to deep gloom in which the blackbirds, and the meadow larks, and the single bobolink, and the sunshine and the little water tinklings were not. As for the red squirrel, he had gone away.

“Hullo,” cried Russell, making a belated discovery. “My horse is gone!”

“Oh, that’s all right,” Andy reassured him. “This is our lane to the barn. We’ll find him at the gates. Come on up to the house and we’ll catch him.”