章节正文
without looking up, "Sit down."
The little man took it calmly, deposited himself in a chair and
his bag between his feet, and looked about him daintily at our
rough quarters. I made a move to go, whereupon Tim laid down his
magazine, yawned, stretched his arms over his head, and sighed.
"Don't go, Harry," he begged. "Well, Case," he addressed the
barrister, "what is it this time? Must be something devilish
important to bring you--how many thousand miles is it--into such
a country as this."
"It is important, Mr. Clare," stated the lawyer in his dry
sing-song tones; "but my journey might have been avoided had you
paid some attention to my letters."
"Letters!" repeated Tim, opening his eyes. "My dear chap, I've
had no letters."
"Addressed as usual to your New York bankers."
Tim laughed softly. "Where they are, with my last two quarters'
allowance. I especially instructed them to send me no mail. One
spends no money in this country." He paused, pulling his
moustache. "I'm truly sorry you had to come so far," he
continued, "and if your business is, as I suspect, the old one of
inducing me to return to my dear uncle's arms, I assure you the
mission will prove quite fruitless. Uncle Hillary and I could
never live in the same county, let alone the same house."
"And yet your uncle, the Viscount Mar, was very fond of you,"
ventured Case. "Your allowances--"
"Oh, I grant you his generosity in MONEY affairs--"
"He has continued that generosity in the terms of his will, and
those terms I am here to communicate to you."
"Uncle Hillary is dead!" cried Tim.
"He passed away the sixteenth of last June."
A slight pause ensued.
"I am ready to hear you," said Tim soberly, at last.
The barrister stooped and began to fumble with his bag.
"No, not that!" cried Tim, with some impatience. "Tell me in
your own words."
The lawyer sat back and pressed his finger points together over
his stomach.
"The late Viscount," said he, "has been graciously pleased to
leave you in fee simple his entire estate of Staghurst, together
with its buildings, rentals, and privileges. This, besides the
residential rights, amounts to some ten thousands pounds sterling
per annum."
"A little less than fifty thousand dollars a year, Harry," Tim
shot over his shoulder at me.
"There is one condition," put in the lawyer.
"Oh, there is!" exclaimed Tim, his crest falling. "Well, knowing
my Uncle Hillary--"
"The condition is not extravagant," the lawyer hastily
interposed. "It merely entails continued residence in England,
and a minimum of nine months on the estate. This provision is
absolute, and the estate reverts in its discontinuance, but may I
be permitted to observe that the majority of men, myself among
the number, are content to spend the most of their lives, not
merely in the confines of a kingdom, but between the four walls
of a room, for much less than ten thousand pounds a year. Also
that England is not without its attractions for an Englishman,
and that Staghurst is a country place of many possibilities."
The Honourable Timothy had recovered from his first surprise.
"And if the conditions are not complied with?" he inquired.
"Then the estate reverts to the heirs at law, and you receive an
annuity of one hundred pounds, payable quarterly."
"May I ask further the reason for this extraordinary condition?"
"My distinguishedclient never informed me," replied the lawyer,
"but"--and a twinkle appeared in his eye--"as an occasional
disburser of funds--Monte Carlo--"
Tim burst out laughing.
"Oh, but I recognise Uncle Hillary there!" he cried. "Well, Mr.
Case, I am sure Mr. Johnson, the owner of this ranch, can put you
up, and to-morrow we'll start back."
He returned after a few minutes to find me sitting' smoking a
moody pipe. I liked Tim, and I was sorry to have him go. Then,
too, I was ruffled, in the senseless manner of youth, by the
sudden altitude to which his changed fortunes had lifted him.
He stood in the middle of the room, surveying me, then came
across and laid his arm on my shoulder.
"Well," I growled, without looking up, "you're a very rich man
now, Mr. Clare."
At that he jerked me bodily out of my seat and stood me up in the
centre of the room, the Irish blazing out of his eyes.
"Here, none of that!" he snapped. "You damn little fool! Don't
you 'Mr. Clare' me!"
So in five minutes we were talking it over. Tim was very much
excited at the prospect. He knew Staghurst well, and told me all
about the big stone house, and the avenue through the trees; and
the hedge-row roads, and the lawn with its peacocks, and the
round green hills, and the labourers' cottages.
"It's home," said he, "and I didn't realise before how much I
wanted to see it. And I'll be a man of weight there, Harry, and
it'll be mighty good."
We made all sorts of plans as to how I was going to visit him
just as soon as I could get together the money for the passage.
He had the delicacy not to offer to let me have it; and that
clinched my trust and love of him.
The next day he drove away with Tony and the dapper little
lawyer. I am not ashamed to say that I watched the buckboard
until it disappeared in the mirage.
I was with Buck Johnson all that summer, and the following
winter, as well. We had our first round-up, found the natural
increase much in excess of the loss by Indians, and extended our
holdings up over the Rock Creek country. We witnessed the start
of many Indian campaigns, participated in a few little brushes
with the Chiricahuas, saw the beginning of the cattle-rustling.
A man had not much opportunity to think of anything but what he
had right on hand, but I found time for a few speculations on
Tim. I wondered how he looked now, and what he was doing, and
how in blazes he managed to get away with fifty thousand a year.
And then one Sunday in June, while I was lying on my bunk, Tim
pushed open the door and walked in. I was young, but I'd seen a
lot, and I knew the expression of his face. So I laid low and
said nothing.
In a minute the door opened again, and Buck Johnson himself came
in.
"How do," said he; "I saw you ride up."
"How do you do," replied Tim.
"I know all about you," said Buck, without any preliminaries;
"your man, Case, has wrote me. I don't know your reasons, and I
don't want to know--it's none of my business--and I ain't goin'
to tell you just what kind of a damn fool I think you are--that's
none of my business, either. But I want you to understand
without question how you stand on the ranch."
"Quite good, sir," said Tim very quietly.
"When you were out here before I was glad to have you here as a
sort of guest. Then you were what I've heerd called a gentleman
of leisure. Now you're nothin' but a remittance man. Your
money's nothin' to me, but the principle of the thing is. The
country is plumb pestered with remittance men, doin' nothin', and
I don't aim to run no home for incompetents. I had a son of a
duke drivin' wagon for me; and he couldn't drive nails in a
snowbanks. So don't you herd up with the idea that you can come
on this ranch and loaf."
"I don't want to loaf," put in Tim, "I want a job."
"I'm willing to give you a job," replied Buck, "but it's jest an
ordinary cow-puncher's job at forty a month. And if you don't
fill your saddle, it goes to someone else."
"That's satisfactory," agreed Tim.
"All right," finished Buck, "so that's understood. Your friend
Case wanted me to give you a lot of advice. A man generally has
about as much use for advice as a cow has for four hind legs."
He went out.
"For God's sake, what's up?" I cried, leaping from my bunk.
"Hullo, Harry," said he, as though he had seen me the day before,
"I've come back."
"How come back?" I asked. "I thought you couldn't leave the
estate. Have they broken the will?"
"No," said he.
"Is the money lost?"
"No."
"Then what?"
"The long and short of it is, that I couldn't afford that estate
and that money."
"What do you mean?"
"I've given it up."
"Given it up! What for?"
"To come back here."
I took this all in slowly.
"Tim Clare," said I at last, "do you mean to say that you have
given up an English estate and fifty thousand dollars a year to
be a remittance man at five hundred, and a cow-puncher on as much
more?"
"Exactly," said he.
"Tim," I adjured him solemnly, "you are a damn fool!"
"Maybe," he agreed.
"Why did you do it?" I begged.
He walked to the door and looked out across the desert to where
the mountains hovered like soap-bubbles on the horizon. For a
long time he looked; then whirled on me.
"Harry," said he in a low voice, "do you remember the camp we
made on the shoulder of the mountain that night we were caught
out? And do you remember how the dawn came up on the big snow
peaks across the way--and all the canon below us filled with
whirling mists--and the steel stars leaving us one by one? Where
could I find room for that in English paddocks? And do you
recall the day we trailed across the Yuma deserts, and the sun
beat into our skulls, and the dry, brittle hills looked like
papier-mache, and the grey sage-bush ran off into the rise of the
hills; and then came sunset and the hard, dry mountains grew
filmy, like gauze veils of many colours, and melted and glowed
and faded to slate blue, and the stars came out? The English
hills are rounded and green and curried, and the sky is near, and
the stars only a few miles up. And do you recollect that dark
night when old Loco and his warriors were camped at the base of
Cochise's Stronghold, and we crept down through the velvet dark
wondering when we would be discovered, our mouths sticky with
excitement, and the little winds blowing?"
He walked up and down a half-dozen times, his breast heaving.
"It's all very well for the man who is brought up to it, and
who has seen nothing else. Case can exist in four walls; he
has been brought up to it and knows nothing different. But a
man like me--
"They wanted me to canter between hedge-row,--I who have ridden
the desert where the sky over me and the plain under me were
bigger than the Islander's universe! They wanted me to oversee
little farms--I who have watched the sun rising over half a
world! Talk of your ten thou' a year and what it'll buy! You
know, Harry, how it feels when a steer takes the slack of your
rope, and your pony sits back! Where in England can I buy that?
You know the rising and the falling of days, and the boundless
spaces where your heart grows big, and the thirst of the desert
and the hunger of the trail, and a sun that shines and fills
the sky, and a wind that blows fresh from the wide places!
Where in parcelled, snug, green, tight little England could I
The little man took it calmly, deposited himself in a chair and
his bag between his feet, and looked about him daintily at our
rough quarters. I made a move to go, whereupon Tim laid down his
magazine, yawned, stretched his arms over his head, and sighed.
"Don't go, Harry," he begged. "Well, Case," he addressed the
barrister, "what is it this time? Must be something devilish
important to bring you--how many thousand miles is it--into such
a country as this."
"It is important, Mr. Clare," stated the lawyer in his dry
sing-song tones; "but my journey might have been avoided had you
paid some attention to my letters."
"Letters!" repeated Tim, opening his eyes. "My dear chap, I've
had no letters."
"Addressed as usual to your New York bankers."
Tim laughed softly. "Where they are, with my last two quarters'
allowance. I especially instructed them to send me no mail. One
spends no money in this country." He paused, pulling his
moustache. "I'm truly sorry you had to come so far," he
continued, "and if your business is, as I suspect, the old one of
inducing me to return to my dear uncle's arms, I assure you the
mission will prove quite fruitless. Uncle Hillary and I could
never live in the same county, let alone the same house."
"And yet your uncle, the Viscount Mar, was very fond of you,"
ventured Case. "Your allowances--"
"Oh, I grant you his generosity in MONEY affairs--"
"He has continued that generosity in the terms of his will, and
those terms I am here to communicate to you."
"Uncle Hillary is dead!" cried Tim.
"He passed away the sixteenth of last June."
A slight pause ensued.
"I am ready to hear you," said Tim soberly, at last.
The barrister stooped and began to fumble with his bag.
"No, not that!" cried Tim, with some impatience. "Tell me in
your own words."
The lawyer sat back and pressed his finger points together over
his stomach.
"The late Viscount," said he, "has been graciously pleased to
leave you in fee simple his entire estate of Staghurst, together
with its buildings, rentals, and privileges. This, besides the
residential rights, amounts to some ten thousands pounds sterling
per annum."
"A little less than fifty thousand dollars a year, Harry," Tim
shot over his shoulder at me.
"There is one condition," put in the lawyer.
"Oh, there is!" exclaimed Tim, his crest falling. "Well, knowing
my Uncle Hillary--"
"The condition is not extravagant," the lawyer hastily
interposed. "It merely entails continued residence in England,
and a minimum of nine months on the estate. This provision is
absolute, and the estate reverts in its discontinuance, but may I
be permitted to observe that the majority of men, myself among
the number, are content to spend the most of their lives, not
merely in the confines of a kingdom, but between the four walls
of a room, for much less than ten thousand pounds a year. Also
that England is not without its attractions for an Englishman,
and that Staghurst is a country place of many possibilities."
The Honourable Timothy had recovered from his first surprise.
"And if the conditions are not complied with?" he inquired.
"Then the estate reverts to the heirs at law, and you receive an
annuity of one hundred pounds, payable quarterly."
"May I ask further the reason for this extraordinary condition?"
"My distinguishedclient never informed me," replied the lawyer,
"but"--and a twinkle appeared in his eye--"as an occasional
disburser of funds--Monte Carlo--"
Tim burst out laughing.
"Oh, but I recognise Uncle Hillary there!" he cried. "Well, Mr.
Case, I am sure Mr. Johnson, the owner of this ranch, can put you
up, and to-morrow we'll start back."
He returned after a few minutes to find me sitting' smoking a
moody pipe. I liked Tim, and I was sorry to have him go. Then,
too, I was ruffled, in the senseless manner of youth, by the
sudden altitude to which his changed fortunes had lifted him.
He stood in the middle of the room, surveying me, then came
across and laid his arm on my shoulder.
"Well," I growled, without looking up, "you're a very rich man
now, Mr. Clare."
At that he jerked me bodily out of my seat and stood me up in the
centre of the room, the Irish blazing out of his eyes.
"Here, none of that!" he snapped. "You damn little fool! Don't
you 'Mr. Clare' me!"
So in five minutes we were talking it over. Tim was very much
excited at the prospect. He knew Staghurst well, and told me all
about the big stone house, and the avenue through the trees; and
the hedge-row roads, and the lawn with its peacocks, and the
round green hills, and the labourers' cottages.
"It's home," said he, "and I didn't realise before how much I
wanted to see it. And I'll be a man of weight there, Harry, and
it'll be mighty good."
We made all sorts of plans as to how I was going to visit him
just as soon as I could get together the money for the passage.
He had the delicacy not to offer to let me have it; and that
clinched my trust and love of him.
The next day he drove away with Tony and the dapper little
lawyer. I am not ashamed to say that I watched the buckboard
until it disappeared in the mirage.
I was with Buck Johnson all that summer, and the following
winter, as well. We had our first round-up, found the natural
increase much in excess of the loss by Indians, and extended our
holdings up over the Rock Creek country. We witnessed the start
of many Indian campaigns, participated in a few little brushes
with the Chiricahuas, saw the beginning of the cattle-rustling.
A man had not much opportunity to think of anything but what he
had right on hand, but I found time for a few speculations on
Tim. I wondered how he looked now, and what he was doing, and
how in blazes he managed to get away with fifty thousand a year.
And then one Sunday in June, while I was lying on my bunk, Tim
pushed open the door and walked in. I was young, but I'd seen a
lot, and I knew the expression of his face. So I laid low and
said nothing.
In a minute the door opened again, and Buck Johnson himself came
in.
"How do," said he; "I saw you ride up."
"How do you do," replied Tim.
"I know all about you," said Buck, without any preliminaries;
"your man, Case, has wrote me. I don't know your reasons, and I
don't want to know--it's none of my business--and I ain't goin'
to tell you just what kind of a damn fool I think you are--that's
none of my business, either. But I want you to understand
without question how you stand on the ranch."
"Quite good, sir," said Tim very quietly.
"When you were out here before I was glad to have you here as a
sort of guest. Then you were what I've heerd called a gentleman
of leisure. Now you're nothin' but a remittance man. Your
money's nothin' to me, but the principle of the thing is. The
country is plumb pestered with remittance men, doin' nothin', and
I don't aim to run no home for incompetents. I had a son of a
duke drivin' wagon for me; and he couldn't drive nails in a
snowbanks. So don't you herd up with the idea that you can come
on this ranch and loaf."
"I don't want to loaf," put in Tim, "I want a job."
"I'm willing to give you a job," replied Buck, "but it's jest an
ordinary cow-puncher's job at forty a month. And if you don't
fill your saddle, it goes to someone else."
"That's satisfactory," agreed Tim.
"All right," finished Buck, "so that's understood. Your friend
Case wanted me to give you a lot of advice. A man generally has
about as much use for advice as a cow has for four hind legs."
He went out.
"For God's sake, what's up?" I cried, leaping from my bunk.
"Hullo, Harry," said he, as though he had seen me the day before,
"I've come back."
"How come back?" I asked. "I thought you couldn't leave the
estate. Have they broken the will?"
"No," said he.
"Is the money lost?"
"No."
"Then what?"
"The long and short of it is, that I couldn't afford that estate
and that money."
"What do you mean?"
"I've given it up."
"Given it up! What for?"
"To come back here."
I took this all in slowly.
"Tim Clare," said I at last, "do you mean to say that you have
given up an English estate and fifty thousand dollars a year to
be a remittance man at five hundred, and a cow-puncher on as much
more?"
"Exactly," said he.
"Tim," I adjured him solemnly, "you are a damn fool!"
"Maybe," he agreed.
"Why did you do it?" I begged.
He walked to the door and looked out across the desert to where
the mountains hovered like soap-bubbles on the horizon. For a
long time he looked; then whirled on me.
"Harry," said he in a low voice, "do you remember the camp we
made on the shoulder of the mountain that night we were caught
out? And do you remember how the dawn came up on the big snow
peaks across the way--and all the canon below us filled with
whirling mists--and the steel stars leaving us one by one? Where
could I find room for that in English paddocks? And do you
recall the day we trailed across the Yuma deserts, and the sun
beat into our skulls, and the dry, brittle hills looked like
papier-mache, and the grey sage-bush ran off into the rise of the
hills; and then came sunset and the hard, dry mountains grew
filmy, like gauze veils of many colours, and melted and glowed
and faded to slate blue, and the stars came out? The English
hills are rounded and green and curried, and the sky is near, and
the stars only a few miles up. And do you recollect that dark
night when old Loco and his warriors were camped at the base of
Cochise's Stronghold, and we crept down through the velvet dark
wondering when we would be discovered, our mouths sticky with
excitement, and the little winds blowing?"
He walked up and down a half-dozen times, his breast heaving.
"It's all very well for the man who is brought up to it, and
who has seen nothing else. Case can exist in four walls; he
has been brought up to it and knows nothing different. But a
man like me--
"They wanted me to canter between hedge-row,--I who have ridden
the desert where the sky over me and the plain under me were
bigger than the Islander's universe! They wanted me to oversee
little farms--I who have watched the sun rising over half a
world! Talk of your ten thou' a year and what it'll buy! You
know, Harry, how it feels when a steer takes the slack of your
rope, and your pony sits back! Where in England can I buy that?
You know the rising and the falling of days, and the boundless
spaces where your heart grows big, and the thirst of the desert
and the hunger of the trail, and a sun that shines and fills
the sky, and a wind that blows fresh from the wide places!
Where in parcelled, snug, green, tight little England could I
- calmly [´kɑ:mli]
ad.平静地；无风浪地 (初中英语单词) - lawyer [´lɔ:jə] n.律师；法学家 (初中英语单词)
- opening [´əupəniŋ] n.开放；开端 a.开始的 (初中英语单词)
- softly [´sɔftli] ad.软化地；柔和地 (初中英语单词)
- suspect [´sʌspekt, sə´spekt] v.怀疑；觉得 n.嫌疑犯 (初中英语单词)
- estate [i´steit] n.财产；庄园；等级 (初中英语单词)
- residence [´rezidəns] n.居住(期间)；住宅 (初中英语单词)
- provision [prə´viʒən] n.供应；规定；条款 (初中英语单词)
- honourable [´ɔnərəbəl] a.荣誉的；正直的 (初中英语单词)
- extraordinary [ik´strɔ:dinəri] a.非常的；额外的 (初中英语单词)
- twinkle [´twiŋkl] vi.&n.闪烁；眨眼 (初中英语单词)
- altitude [´æltitju:d] n.高度；海拨 (初中英语单词)
- prospect [´prɔspekt, prəs´pekt] n.景色；境界 v.勘察 (初中英语单词)
- ashamed [ə´ʃeimd] a.惭愧；不好意思 (初中英语单词)
- excess [´ekses] n.超过 a.过分的 (初中英语单词)
- indian [´indiən] a.印度的 n.印度人 (初中英语单词)
- beginning [bi´giniŋ] n.开始，开端；起源 (初中英语单词)
- willing [´wiliŋ] a.情愿的，乐意的 (初中英语单词)
- saddle [´sædl] n.鞍子 v.装鞍(于) (初中英语单词)
- horizon [hə´raizən] n.地平线；范围；视野 (初中英语单词)
- sunset [´sʌnset] n.日落；晚霞 (初中英语单词)
- velvet [´velvit] n.&a.天鹅绒(般的) (初中英语单词)
- thirst [θə:st] n.渴，口渴；渴望 (初中英语单词)
- hunger [´hʌŋgə] n.饥饿；渴望 (初中英语单词)
- repeated [ri´pi:tid] a.反复的；重复的 (高中英语单词)
- generosity [,dʒenə´rɔsiti] n.慷慨；慷慨的行为 (高中英语单词)
- communicate [kə´mju:nikeit] vi.通讯；传达；传播 (高中英语单词)
- minimum [´miniməm] n.最小量 a.最小的 (高中英语单词)
- distinguished [di´stiŋgwiʃt] a.卓越的，著名的 (高中英语单词)
- client [´klaiənt] n.委托人；顾客 (高中英语单词)
- mighty [´maiti] a.强有力的 ad.很 (高中英语单词)
- delicacy [´delikəsi] n.精美；娇弱，微妙 (高中英语单词)
- leisure [´leʒə] n.空闲；悠闲；安定 (高中英语单词)
- solemnly [´sɔləmli] ad.严肃地，庄严地 (高中英语单词)
- whereupon [,weərə´pɔn] ad.在什么上面；因此 (英语四级单词)
- soberly [´səubəli] ad.严肃地；清醒地 (英语四级单词)
- fumble [´fʌmbəl] v.&n.摸索；接漏球 (英语四级单词)
- impatience [im´peiʃəns] n.不耐烦，急躁 (英语四级单词)
- graciously [´greiʃəsli] ad.仁慈地，和蔼庄重地 (英语四级单词)
- senseless [´sensləs] a.无知觉的；愚蠢的 (英语四级单词)
- bodily [´bɔdili] a.身体的 ad.亲自 (英语四级单词)
- recollect [rekə´lekt] v.重新集合；恢复 (英语四级单词)
- stronghold [´strɔŋhəuld] n.要塞；根据地 (英语四级单词)
- extended [iks´tendid] a.伸长的；广大的 (英语六级单词)
- sticky [´stiki] a.胶粘的；顽固的 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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