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Tales and Fantasies-Part3_ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON(1850-1894)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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been the chamber of inquisition and the scene of punishment;

but it stuck so rigorously in his mind that he must instantly



approach the door and prove its untruth. As he went, he

struck upon a drawer left open in the business table. It was



the money-drawer, a measure of his father's disarray: the

money-drawer - perhaps a pointing providence! Who is to



decide, when even divines differ between a providence and a

temptation? or who, sitting calmly under his own vine, is to



pass a judgment on the doings of a poor, hunted dog,

slavishly afraid, slavishly rebellious, like John Nicholson



on that particular Sunday? His hand was in the drawer,

almost before his mind had conceived the hope; and rising to



his new situation, he wrote, sitting in his father's chair

and using his father's blotting-pad, his pitifulapology and



farewell:-

'MY DEAR FATHER, - I have taken the money, but I will pay it



back as soon as I am able. You will never hear of me again.

I did not mean any harm by anything, so I hope you will try



and forgive me. I wish you would say good-bye to Alexander

and Maria, but not if you don't want to. I could not wait to



see you, really. Please try to forgive me. Your

affectionate son,



JOHN NICHOLSON.'

The coins abstracted and the missive written, he could not be



gone too soon from the scene of these transgressions; and

remembering how his father had once returned from church, on



some slight illness, in the middle of the second psalm, he

durst not even make a packet of a change of clothes. Attired



as he was, he slipped from the paternal doors, and found

himself in the cool spring air, the thin spring sunshine, and



the great Sabbath quiet of the city, which was now only

pointed by the cawing of the rooks. There was not a soul in



Randolph Crescent, nor a soul in Queensferry Street; in this

outdoor privacy and the sense of escape, John took heart



again; and with a pathetic sense of leave-taking, he even

ventured up the lane and stood awhile, a strange peri at the



gates of a quaintparadise, by the west end of St. George's

Church. They were singing within; and by a strange chance,



the tune was 'St. George's, Edinburgh,' which bears the name,

and was first sung in the choir of that church. 'Who is this



King of Glory?' went the voices from within; and, to John,

this was like the end of all Christian observances, for he



was now to be a wild man like Ishmael, and his life was to be

cast in homeless places and with godless people.



It was thus, with no rising sense of the adventurous, but in

mere desolation and despair, that he turned his back on his



native city, and set out on foot for California, with a more

immediate eye to Glasgow.



CHAPTER IV - THE SECOND SOWING

IT is no part of mine to narrate the adventures of John



Nicholson, which were many, but simply his more momentous

misadventures, which were more than he desired, and, by human



standards, more than he deserved; how he reached California,

how he was rooked, and robbed, and beaten, and starved; how



he was at last taken up by charitable folk, restored to some

degree of self-complacency, and installed as a clerk in a



bank in San Francisco, it would take too long to tell; nor in

these episodes were there any marks of the peculiar



Nicholsonic destiny, for they were just such matters as

befell some thousands of other young adventurers in the same



days and places. But once posted in the bank, he fell for a

time into a high degree of good fortune, which, as it was



only a longer way about to fresh disaster, it behooves me to

explain.



It was his luck to meet a young man in what is technically

called a 'dive,' and thanks to his monthly wages, to



extricate this new acquaintance from a position of present

disgrace and possible danger in the future. This young man



was the nephew of one of the Nob Hill magnates, who run the

San Francisco Stock Exchange, much as more humble



adventurers, in the corner of some public park at home, may

be seen to perform the simple artifice of pea and thimble:






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