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The Silverado Squatters-Part12_ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON(1850-1894)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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story of the mine. We were surrounded by so many evidences

of expense and toil, we lived so entirely in the wreck of



that great enterprise, like mites in the ruins of a cheese,

that the idea of the old din and bustlehaunted our repose.



Our own house, the forge, the dump, the chutes, the rails,

the windlass, the mass of broken plant; the two tunnels, one



far below in the green dell, the other on the platform where

we kept our wine; the deep shaft, with the sun-glints and the



water-drops; above all, the ledge, that great gaping slice

out of the mountain shoulder, propped apart by wooden wedges,



on whose immediate margin, high above our heads, the one tall

pine precariously nodded - these stood for its greatness;



while, the dog-hutch, boot-jacks, old boots, old tavern

bills, and the very beds that we inherited from bygone



miners, put in human touches and realized for us the story of

the past.



I have sat on an old sleeper, under the thick madronas near

the forge, with just a look over the dump on the green world



below, and seen the sun lying broad among the wreck, and

heard the silence broken only by the tinkling water in the



shaft, or a stir of the royal family about the battered

palace, and my mind has gone back to the epoch of the



Stanleys and the Chapmans, with a grand TUTTI of pick and

drill, hammer and anvil, echoing about the canyon; the



assayer hard at it in our dining-room; the carts below on the

road, and their cargo of red mineral bounding and thundering



down the iron chute. And now all gone - all fallen away into

this sunny silence and desertion: a family of squatters



dining in the assayer's office, making their beds in the big

sleeping room erstwhile so crowded, keeping their wine in the



tunnel that once rang with picks.

But Silverado itself, although now fallen in its turn into



decay, was once but a mushroom, and had succeeded to other

mines and other flitting cities. Twenty years ago, away down



the glen on the Lake County side there was a place, Jonestown

by name, with two thousand inhabitants dwelling under canvas,



and one roofed house for the sale of whiskey. Round on the

western side of Mount Saint Helena, there was at the same



date, a second large encampment, its name, if it ever had

one, lost for me. Both of these have perished, leaving not a



stick and scarce a memory behind them. Tide after tide of

hopeful miners have thus flowed and ebbed about the mountain,



coming and going, now by lone prospectors, now with a rush.

Last, in order of time came Silverado, reared the big mill,



in the valley, founded the town which is now represented,

monumentally, by Hanson's, pierced all these slaps and shafts



and tunnels, and in turn declined and died away.

"Our noisy years seem moments in the wake



Of the eternal silence."

As to the success of Silverado in its time of being, two



reports were current. According to the first, six hundred

thousand dollars were taken out of that great upright seam,



that still hung open above us on crazy wedges. Then the

ledge pinched out, and there followed, in quest of the



remainder, a great drifting and tunnelling in all directions,

and a great consequent effusion of dollars, until, all



parties being sick of the expense, the mine was deserted, and

the town decamped. According to the second version, told me



with much secrecy of manner, the whole affair, mine, mill,

and town, were parts of one majestic swindle. There had



never come any silver out of any portion of the mine; there

was no silver to come. At midnight trains of packhorses



might have been observed winding by devious tracks about the

shoulder of the mountain. They came from far away, from



Amador or Placer, laden with silver in "old cigar boxes."

They discharged their load at Silverado, in the hour of



sleep; and before the morning they were gone again with their

mysterious drivers to their unknown source. In this way,



twenty thousand pounds' worth of silver was smuggled in under

cover of night, in these old cigar boxes; mixed with



Silverado mineral; carted down to the mill; crushed,

amalgated, and refined, and despatched to the city as the



proper product of the mine. Stock-jobbing, if it can cover




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