Роберт Льюис Стивенсон - Kidnapped / Похищенный. Книга для чтения на английском языке

Much rain fell in the night; and the next morning there blew a bitter wintry wind out of the northwest, driving scattered clouds. I made my way to the side of the burn, and had a plunge in a deep whirling pool. All aglow from my bath, I sat down once more beside the fire, which I replenished, and began gravely to consider my position.

There was now no doubt about my uncle’s enmity. But I was young and spirited, and like most lads that have been country-bred, I had a great opinion of my shrewdness. He had met me with treachery and violence; it would be a fine consummation to take the upper hand, and drive him like a herd of sheep.

Presently, all swollen with conceit, I went upstairs and gave my prisoner his liberty. He gave me good-morning civilly; and I gave the same to him, smiling down upon him, from the heights of my sufficiency. Soon we were set to breakfast, as it might have been the day before.

‘Well, sir,’ said I, with a jeering tone, ‘have you nothing more to say to me? It will be time, I think, to understand each other. You took me for a country Johnnie Raw [25] Johnnie Raw – простачок, дурачок , with no more mother-wit or courage than a porridge-stick. I took you for a good man, or no worse than others at the least. It seems we were both wrong. What cause you have to fear me, to cheat me, and to attempt my life?’

I saw by his face that he had no lie ready for me, though he was hard at work preparing one; and I think I was about to tell him so, when we were interrupted by a knocking at the door.

Bidding my uncle sit where he was, I went to open it, and found on the doorstep a half-grown boy in sea-clothes. He had no sooner seen me than he began to dance some steps of the sea-hornpipe [26] sea-hornpipe – хорнпайп, английский матросский танец, обычно сольный , snapping his fingers in the air and footing it right cleverly. For all that, he was blue with the cold; and there was something in his face, a look between tears and laughter, that was highly pathetic and consisted ill with this gaiety of manner.

I asked him soberly to name his pleasure. ‘If you have no business at all, I will even be so unmannerly as to shut you out.’

‘Stay, brother!’ he cried. ‘I’ve brought a letter from old Heasyoasy to Mr. Belflower.’ He showed me a letter as he spoke. ‘And I say, mate,’ he added, ‘I’m mortal hungry.’

‘Well,’ said I, ‘come into the house, and you shall have a bite if I go empty for it.’

With that I brought him in and set him down to my own place, where he fell-to greedily on the remains of breakfast. Meanwhile, my uncle had read the letter and sat thinking; then, suddenly, he got to his feet with a great air of liveliness, and pulled me apart into the farthest corner of the room. ‘Read that,’ said he, and put the letter in my hand. Here it is, lying before me as I write:

‘The Hawes Inn, at the Queensferry [27] Queensferry (South Queensferry, The Ferry) – Квинсферри, деревенька к западу от Эдинбурга. Расположена на берегу залива Ферт-оф-Форт (в Северном море) .

‘Sir, – I lie here with my hawser up and down, and send my cabin-boy to informe. If you have any further commands for over-seas, today will be the last occasion, as the wind will serve us well out of the firth. I will not seek to deny that I have had crosses with your doer [28] doer = agent ( примеч. авт. ) , Mr. Rankeillor; of which, if not speedily redd up, you may looke to see some losses follow. I have drawn a bill upon you, as per margin, and am, sir, your most obedt., humble servant,

‘You see, Davie,’ resumed my uncle, as soon as he saw that I had done, ‘I have a venture with this man Hoseason, the captain of a trading brig, the Covenant [29] Covenant – Завет , of Dysart. Now, if you and me was to walk over with yon lad, I could see the captain at the Hawes, or maybe on board the Covenant if there was papers to be signed; and so far from a loss of time, we can jog on to the lawyer, Mr. Rankeillor’s. After a’ that’s come and gone, ye would be swier [30] swier = Unwilling ( примеч. авт. ) to believe me upon my naked word; but ye’ll believe Rankeillor. He’s factor to half the gentry in these parts; an auld [31] auld = old – ( шотл. ) старый man, forby: highly respeckit [32] respeckit = respected – ( шотл. ) уважаемый , and he kenned your father.’

I stood awhile and thought. Once there, I believed I could force on the visit to the lawyer, even if my uncle were now insincere in proposing it; and, perhaps, in the bottom of my heart, I wished a nearer view of the sea and ships. One thing with another, I made up my mind.

‘Very well,’ says I, ‘let us go to the Ferry.’

Uncle Ebenezer never said a word the whole way; and I was thrown for talk on the cabin-boy. He told me his name was Ransome, and that he had followed the sea since he was nine, but could not say how old he was, as he had lost his reckoning. He showed me tattoo marks; and boasted of many wild and bad things that he had done: stealthy thefts, false accusations, ay, and even murder; but all with such a dearth of likelihood in the details, and such a weak and crazy swagger in the delivery, as disposed me rather to pity than to believe him.

I asked him of the brig (which he declared was the finest ship that sailed) and of Captain Hoseason, in whose praises he was equally loud. It was a man that minded for nothing either in heaven or earth; rough, fierce, unscrupulous, and brutal; and all this my poor cabin-boy had taught himself to admire as something seamanlike and manly. He would only admit one flaw in his idol. ‘He ain’t no seaman,’ he admitted. ‘That’s Mr. Shuan that navigates the brig; he’s the finest seaman in the trade, only for drink; and I tell you I believe it! Why, look’ere;’ and turning down his stocking he showed me a great, raw, red wound that made my blood run cold. ‘He done that – Mr. Shuan done it,’ he said, with an air of pride.

‘What!’ I cried, ‘You are no slave, to be so handled!’

‘No,’ said the poor moon-calf, changing his tune at once, ‘and so he’ll find. See’ere;’ and he showed me a great case-knife, which he told me was stolen.

I have never felt such pity for anyone in this wide world as I felt for that half-witted creature, and it began to come over me that the brig Covenant (for all her pious name) was little better than a hell upon the seas.

‘In Heaven’s name,’ cried I, ‘can you find no reputable life on shore?’

‘O, no,’ says he, winking and looking very sly, ‘they would put me to a trade!’

I asked him what trade could be so dreadful as the one he followed, where he ran the continual peril of his life, not alone from wind and sea, but by the horrid cruelty of those who were his masters. He said it was very true; and then began to praise the life, and tell what a pleasure it was to get on shore with money in his pocket, and spend it like a man, and buy apples, and swagger, and surprise what he called stick-in-the-mud boys.

Just then we came to the top of the hill, and looked down on the Ferry and the Hope. I could see the building which they called the Hawes Inn.

The boat had just gone north with passengers. A skiff, however, lay beside the pier, with some seamen sleeping on the thwarts; this, as Ransome told me, was the brig’s boat waiting for the captain; and about half a mile off, and all alone in the anchorage, he showed me the Covenant herself. There was a sea-going bustle on board; yards were swinging into place; and as the wind blew from that quarter, I could hear the song of the sailors as they pulled upon the ropes. After all I had listened to upon the way, I looked at that ship with an extreme abhorrence; and from the bottom of my heart I pitied all poor souls that were condemned to sail in her.