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Lady Baltimore-Part7_Owen Wister(1860-1938)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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dine the drunken dukes, and make poor chambermaids envious a thousand



miles inland!"

"There should be a high tariff on drunken dukes," I said.



"You'll never get it!" he declared. "It's the Republican party whose

daughters marry them."



I rocked with enjoyment where I sat; he was so refreshing. And I agreed

with him so well. "You're every bit as good as Miss Beaufain," I cried.



"Oh, no; oh, no! But I often think if we could only deport the negroes

and Newport together to one of our distant islands, how happily our two



chief problems would be solved!"

I still rocked. "Newport would, indeed, enjoy your plan for it. Do go



on!" I entreated him But he had, for the moment, ceased; and I rose to

stretch my legs and saunter among the old headstones and the wafted



fragrance.

His aunt (or his cousin, or whichever of them it had been) was certainly



right as to his inheriting a pleasant and pointed gift of speech; and a

responsive audience helps us all. Such an audience I certainly was for



young John Mayrant, yet beneath the animation that our talk had filled

his eyes with lay (I seemed to see or feel) that other mood all the time,



the mood which had caused the girl behind the counter to say to me that

he was "anxious about something." The unhappy youth, I was gradually to



learn, was much more than that--he was in a tangle of anxieties. He

talked to me as a sick man turns in bed from pain; the pain goes on, but



the pillow for a while is cool.

Here there broke upon us a little interruption, so diverting, so utterly



like the whole quaint tininess of Kings Port, that I should tell it to

you, even if it did not bear directly upon the matter which was beginning



so actively to concern me--the love difficulties of John Mayrant.

It was the letter-carrier.



We had come, from our secluded seats, round a corner, and so by the

vestry door and down the walk beside the church, and as I read to myself



the initials upon the stones wherewith the walk was paved, I drew near

the half-open gateway upon Worship Street. The postman was descending the



steps of the post-office opposite. He saw me through the gate and paused.

He knew me, too! My face, easily marked out amid the resident faces he



was familiar with, had at once caught his attention; very likely he, too,

had by now learned that I was interested in the battle of Cowpens; but I



did not ask him this. He crossed over and handed me a letter.

"No use," he said most politely, "takin' it away down to Mistress



Trevise's when you're right here, sir. Northern mail eight hours late

to-day," he added, and bowing, was gone upon his route.



My home letter, from a man, an intimaterunning mate of mine, soon had my

full attention, for on the second page it said:--



"I have just got back from accompanying her to Baltimore. One of us went

as far as Washington with her on the train. We gave her a dinner



yesterday at the March Hare by way of farewell. She tried our new

toboggan fire-escape on a bet. Clean from the attic, my boy. I imagine



our native girls will rejoice at her departure. However, nobody's engaged

to her, at least nobody here. How many may fancy themselves so elsewhere



I can't say. Her name is Hortense Rieppe."

I suppose I must have been silent after finishing this letter.



"No bad news, I trust?" John Mayrant inquired.

I told him no; and presently we had resumed our seats in the quiet charm



of the flowers.

I now spoke with an intention. "What a lot you seem to have seen and



suffered of the advanced Newport!"

The intentionwrought its due and immediate effect. "Yes. There was no



choice. I had gone to Newport upon--upon an urgent matter, which took me

among those people."



He dwelt upon the pictures that came up in his mind. But he took me away

again from the "urgent matter."



"I saw," he resumed more briskly, "fifteen or twenty--most amazing,

sir!--young men, some of them not any older than I am, who had so many



millions that they could easily--" he paused, casting about for some

expression adequate--"could buy Kings Port and put it under a glass case



in a museum--my aunts and all--and never know it!" He livened with

disrespectful mirth over his own picture of his aunts, purchased by



millionaire steel or coal for the purposes of public edification.

"And a very good thing if they could be," I declared.



He wondered a moment. "My aunts? Under a glass case?"

"Yes, indeed--and with all deference be it said! They'd be more



invaluable, more instructive, than the classics of a thousand libraries."

He was prepared not to be pleased. "May I ask to whom and for what?"



"Why, you ought to see! You've just been saying it yourself. They would

teach our bulging automobilists, our unlicked boy cubs, our alcoholic






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