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The Silverado Squatters-Part14_ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON(1850-1894)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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These carried him to that great highroad, the railway; and

the railway served him as far as to the head of the shaft.



But from thence to the spring and back again he made the best

of his unaided way, staggering among the stones, and wading



in low growth of the calcanthus, where the rattlesnakes lay

hissing at his passage. Yet I liked to draw water. It was



pleasant to dip the gray metal pail into the clean,

colourless, cool water; pleasant to carry it back, with the



water ripping at the edge, and a broken sunbeam quivering in

the midst.



But the extreme roughness of the walking confined us in

common practice to the platform, and indeed to those parts of



it that were most easily accessible along the line of rails.

The rails came straight forward from the shaft, here and



there overgrown with little green bushes, but still entire,

and still carrying a truck, which it was Sam's delight to



trundle to and fro by the hour with various ladings. About

midway down the platform, the railroad trended to the right,



leaving our house and coasting along the far side within a

few yards of the madronas and the forge, and not far of the



latter, ended in a sort of platform on the edge of the dump.

There, in old days, the trucks were tipped, and their load



sent thundering down the chute. There, besides, was the only

spot where we could approach the margin of the dump.



Anywhere else, you took your life in your right hand when you

came within a yard and a half to peer over. For at any



moment the dump might begin to slide and carry you down and

bury you below its ruins. Indeed, the neighbourhood of an



old mine is a place beset with dangers. For as still as

Silverado was, at any moment the report of rotten wood might



tell us that the platform had fallen into the shaft; the dump

might begin to pour into the road below; or a wedge slip in



the great upright seam, and hundreds of tons of mountain bury

the scene of our encampment.



I have already compared the dump to a rampart, built

certainly by some rude people, and for prehistoric wars. It



was likewise a frontier. All below was green and woodland,

the tall pines soaring one above another, each with a firm



outline and full spread of bough. All above was arid, rocky,

and bald. The great spout of broken mineral, that had dammed



the canyon up, was a creature of man's handiwork, its

material dug out with a pick and powder, and spread by the



service of the tracks. But nature herself, in that upper

district, seemed to have had an eye to nothing besides



mining; and even the natural hill-side was all sliding gravel

and precariousboulder. Close at the margin of the well



leaves would decay to skeletons and mummies, which at length

some stronger gust would carry clear of the canyon and



scatter in the subjacent woods. Even moisture and decaying

vegetable matter could not, with all nature's alchemy,



concoct enough soil to nourish a few poor grasses. It is the

same, they say, in the neighbourhood of all silver mines; the



nature of that precious rock being stubborn with quartz and

poisonous with cinnabar. Both were plenty in our Silverado.



The stones sparkled white in the sunshine with quartz; they

were all stained red with cinnabar. Here, doubtless, came



the Indians of yore to paint their faces for the war-path;

and cinnabar, if I remember rightly, was one of the few



articles of Indian commerce. Now, Sam had it in his

undisturbed possession, to pound down and slake, and paint



his rude designs with. But to me it had always a fine

flavour of poetry, compounded out of Indian story and



Hawthornden's allusion:

"Desire, alas! I desire a Zeuxis new,



From Indies borrowing gold, from Eastern skies

Most bright cinoper . . ."



Yet this is but half the picture; our Silverado platform has

another side to it. Though there was no soil, and scarce a



blade of grass, yet out of these tumbled gravel-heaps and

broken boulders, a flower garden bloomed as at home in a



conservatory. Calcanthus crept, like a hardy weed, all over

our rough parlour, choking the railway, and pushing forth its



rusty, aromatic cones from between two blocks of shattered




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