Array Коллектив авторов - 30 лучших рассказов британских писателей / 30 Best British Short Stories

‘Quiet!’ said shoemaker indignantly. ‘Quiet you call him, coming home at three o’clock every morning as drunk as a magistrate and waking up the whole house with his noise.’

‘Why, it can’t be Joshua!’ I said, for I knew him for one of the most respectable young ghosts in the village.

‘Joshua it is,’ said shoemaker; ‘and one of these nights he’ll find himself out in the street if he isn’t careful.’

This kind of talk shocked me, I can tell you, for I don’t like to hear a man abusing his own family, and I could hardly believe that a steady youngster like Joshua had taken to drink. But just then in came butcher Aylwin in such a temper that he could hardly drink his beer. ‘The young puppy! the young puppy!’ he kept on saying; and it was some time before shoemaker and I found out that he was talking about his ancestor that fell at Senlac.

‘Drink?’ said shoemaker hopefully, for we all like company in our misfortunes, and butcher nodded grimly.

‘The young noodle,’ he said, emptying his tankard.

Well, after that I kept my ears open, and it was the same story all over the village. There was hardly a young man among all the ghosts of Fairfield who didn’t roll home in the small hours of the morning the worse for liquor. I used to wake up in the night and hear them stumble past my house, singing outrageous songs. The worst of it was that we couldn’t keep the scandal to ourselves and the folk at Greenhill began to talk of ‘sodden Fairfield’ and taught their children to sing a song about us:

’Sodden Fairfield, sodden Fairfield, has no use for bread-and-butter, Rum for breakfast, rum for dinner, rum for tea, and rum for supper!’

We are easy-going in our village, but we didn’t like that.

Of course we soon found out where the young fellows went to get the drink, and landlord was terribly cut up that his tenant should have turned out so badly, but his wife wouldn’t hear of parting with the brooch, so that he couldn’t give the Captain notice to quit. But as time went on, things grew from bad to worse, and at all hours of the day you would see those young reprobates sleeping it off on the village green. Nearly every afternoon a ghost-wagon used to jolt down to the ship with a lading of rum, and though the older ghosts seemed inclined to give the Captain’s hospitality the go-by, the youngsters were neither to hold nor to bind.

So one afternoon when I was taking my nap I heard a knock at the door, and there was parson looking very serious, like a man with a job before him that he didn’t altogether relish. ‘I’m going down to talk to the Captain about all this drunkenness in the village, and I want you to come with me,’ he said straight out.

I can’t say that I fancied the visit much, myself, and I tried to hint to parson that as, after all, they were only a lot of ghosts it didn’t very much matter.

‘Dead or alive, I’m responsible for the good conduct,’ he said, ‘and I’m going to do my duty and put a stop to this continued disorder. And you are coming with me John Simmons.’ So I went, parson being a persuasive kind of man.

We went down to the ship, and as we approached her I could see the Captain tasting the air on deck. When he saw parson he took off his hat very politely and I can tell you that I was relieved to find that he had a proper respect for the cloth. Parson acknowledged his salute and spoke out stoutly enough. ‘Sir, I should be glad to have a word with you.’

‘Come on board, sir; come on board,’ said the Captain, and I could tell by his voice that he knew why we were there. Parson and I climbed up an uneasy kind of ladder, and the Captain took us into the great cabin at the back of the ship, where the bay-window was. It was the most wonderful place you ever saw in your life, all full of gold and silver plate, swords with jewelled scabbards, carved oak chairs, and great chests that look as though they were bursting with guineas. Even parson was surprised, and he did not shake his head very hard when the Captain took down some silver cups and poured us out a drink of rum. I tasted mine, and I don’t mind saying that it changed my view of things entirely. There was nothing betwixt and between about that rum, and I felt that it was ridiculous to blame the lads for drinking too much of stuff like that. It seemed to fill my veins with honey and fire.

Parson put the case squarely to the Captain, but I didn’t listen much to what he said; I was busy sipping my drink and looking through the window at the fishes swimming to and fro over landlord’s turnips. Just then it seemed the most natural thing in the world that they should be there, though afterwards, of course, I could see that that proved it was a ghost-ship.

But even then I thought it was queer when I saw a drowned sailor float by in the thin air with his hair and beard all full of bubbles. It was the first time I had seen anything quite like that at Fairfield.

All the time I was regarding the wonders of the deep parson was telling Captain Roberts how there was no peace or rest in the village owing to the curse of drunkenness, and what a bad example the youngsters were setting to the older ghosts. The Captain listened very attentively, and only put in a word now and then about boys being boys and young men sowing their wild oats. But when parson had finished his speech he filled up our silver cups and said to parson, with a flourish, ‘I should be sorry to cause trouble anywhere where I have been made welcome, and you will be glad to hear that I put to sea tomorrow night. And now you must drink me a prosperous voyage.’ So we all stood up and drank the toast with honour, and that noble rum was like hot oil in my veins.

After that Captain showed us some of the curiosities he had brought back from foreign parts, and we were greatly amazed, though afterwards I couldn’t clearly remember what they were. And then I found myself walking across the turnips with parson, and I was telling him of the glories of the deep that I had seen through the window of the ship. He turned on me severely. ‘If I were you, John Simmons,’ he said, ‘I should go straight home to bed.’ He has a way of putting things that wouldn’t occur to an ordinary man, has parson, and I did as he told me.

Well, next day it came on to blow, and it blew harder and harder, till about eight o’clock at night I heard a noise and looked out into the garden. I dare say you won’t believe me, it seems a bit tall even to me, but the wind had lifted the thatch of my pigsty into the widow’s garden a second time. I thought I wouldn’t wait to hear what widow had to say about it, so I went across the green to the ‘Fox and Grapes’, and the wind was so strong that I danced along on tiptoe like a girl at the fair. When I got to the inn landlord had to help me shut the door; it seemed as though a dozen goats were pushing against it to come in out of the storm.

‘It’s a powerful tempest,’ he said, drawing the beer. ‘I hear there’s a chimney down at Dickory End.’

‘It’s a funny thing how these sailors know about the weather,’ I answered. ‘When Captain said he was going tonight, I was thinking it would take a capful of wind to carry the ship back to sea, but now here’s more than a capful.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said landlord, ‘it’s tonight he goes true enough, and, mind you, though he treated me handsome over the rent, I’m not sure it’s a loss to the village. I don’t hold with gentrice who fetch their drink from London instead of helping local traders to get their living.’

‘But you haven’t got any rum like his,’ I said, to draw him out.

His neck grew red above his collar, and I was afraid I’d gone too far; but after a while he got his breath with a grunt.

‘John Simmons,’ he said, ‘if you’ve come down here this windy night to talk a lot of fool’s talk, you’ve wasted a journey.’