The Pioneers. Джеймс Фенимор Купер

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СКАЧАТЬ braggers. Just as you have got a thing done, if they see it likely to be successful, they are always for interfering; and then it’s tea to one but they lay claim to half, or even all of the credit. You may remember, Aggy, when I painted the sign of the bold dragoon for Captain Hollister there was that fellow, who was about town laying brick-dust on the houses, came one day and offered to mix what I call the streaky black, for the tail and mane; and then, because it looks like horse hair, he tells everybody that the sign was painted by himself and Squire Jones. If Marmaduke don’t send that fellow off the Patent, he may ornament his village with his own hands for me”, Here Richard paused a moment, and cleared his throat by a loud hem, while the negro, who was all this time busily engaged in preparing the sleigh, proceeded with his work in respectful silence. Owing to the religious scruples of the Judge, Aggy was the servant of Richard, who had his services for a time,[7] and who, of course, commanded a legal claim to the respect of the young negro. But when any dispute between his lawful and his real master occurred, the black felt too much deference for both to express any opinion.

      In the mean while, Richard continued watching the negro as he fastened buckle after buckle, until, stealing a look of consciousness toward the other, he continued: “Now, if that young man who was in your sleigh is a real Connecticut settler, he will be telling everybody how he saved my horses, when, if he had let them alone for half a minute longer, I would have brought them in much better, without upsetting, with the whip amid rein – it spoils a horse to give him his heal, I should not wonder if I had to sell the whole team, just for that one jerk he gave them”, Richard paused and hemmed; for his conscience smote him a little for censuring a man who had just saved his life. “Who is the lad, Aggy – I don’t remember to have seen him before?”

      The black recollected the hint about Santa Claus; and, while he briefly explained how they had taken up the person in question on the top of the mountain, he forbore to add anything concerning the accident or the wound, only saying that he believed the youth was a stranger. It was so usual for men of the first rank to take into their sleighs any one they found toiling through the snow, that Richard was perfectly satisfied with this explanation. He heard Aggy with great attention, and then remarked: “Well, if the lad has not been spoiled by the people in Templeton he may be a modest young man, and, as he certainly meant well, I shall take some notice of him – perhaps he is land-hunting – I say, Aggy, maybe he is out hunting?”

      “Eh! yes, massa Richard”, said the black, a little confused; for, as Richard did all the flogging, he stood in great terror of his master, in the main – ” Yes, sir, I b’lieve he be.”

      “Had he a pack and an axe?”

      “No, sir, only he rifle.”

      “Rifle!” exclaimed Richard, observing the confusion of The negro, which now amounted to terror. “By Jove, he killed the deer! I knew that Marmaduke couldn’t kill a buck on the jump – how was it, Aggy? Tell me all about it, and I’ll roast ‘Duke quicker than he can roast his saddle – how was it, Aggy? the lad shot the buck, and the Judge bought it, ha! and he is taking the youth down to get the pay?”

      The pleasure of this discovery had put Richard in such a good humor, that the negro’s fears in some measure vanished, and he remembered the stocking of Santa Claus. After a gulp or two, he made out to reply;

      “You forgit a two shot, sir?”

      “Don’t lie, you black rascal!” cried Richard, stepping on the snow-bank to measure the distance from his lash to the negro’s back; “speak truth, or I trounce you.” While speaking, the stock was slowly rising in Richard’s right hand, and the lash drawing through his left, in the scientific manner with which drummers apply the cat; and Agamemnon, after turning each side of himself toward his master, and finding both equally unwilling to remain there, fairly gave in. In a very few words he made his master acquainted with the truth, at the same time earnestly conjuring Richard to protect him from the displeasure of thc lodge I’ll do it, boy, I’ll do it”, cried the other, rubbing his hands with delight; “say nothing, but leave me to manage ‘Duke. I have a great mind to leave the deer on the hill, and to make the fellow send for his own carcass; but no, I will let Marmaduke tell a few bounces about it before I come out upon him. Come, hurry in, Aggy, I must help to dress the lad’s wound; this Yankee[8] doctor knows nothing of surgery – I had to hold out Milligan’s leg for him, while he cut it off.

      Richard was now seated on the stool again, and, the black taking the hind seat, the steeds were put in motion toward home, As they dashed down the hill on a fast trot, the driver occasionally turned his face to Aggy, and continued speaking; for, notwithstanding their recent rupture, the most perfect cordiality was again existing between them, “This goes to prove that I turned the horses with the reins, for no man who is shot in the right shoulder can have strength enough to bring round such obstinate devils. I knew I did it from the first; but I did not want to multiply words with Marmaduke about it. – Will you bite, you villain? – hip, boys, hip! Old Natty, too, that is the best of it! – Well, well – ’Duke will say no more about my deer – and the Judge fired both barrels, and hit nothing but a poor lad who was behind a pine-tree. I must help that quack to take out the buckshot for the poor fellow.” In this manner Richard descended the mountain; the bells ringing, and his tongue going, until they entered the village, when the whole attention of the driver was devoted to a display of his horsemanship, to the admiration of all the gaping women and children who thronged the windows to witness the arrival of their landlord and his daughter.

      Chapter V

      “Nathaniel’s coat, sir, was not fully made,

      And Gabriel’s pumps were all unpink’d i’ th' heel;

      There was no link to color Peter’s hat,

      And Walter’s dagger was not come from sheathing;

      There were none fine, but Adam, Ralph, and Gregory.”

– Shakespeare.

      After winding along the side of the mountain, the road, on reaching the gentle declivity which lay at the base of the hill, turned at a right angle to its former course, and shot down an inclined plane, directly into the village of Templeton. The rapid little stream that we have already mentioned was crossed by a bridge of hewn timber, which manifested, by its rude construction and the unnecessary size of its framework, both the value of Labor and the abundance of materials. This little torrent, whose dark waters gushed over the limestones that lined its bottom, was nothing less than one of the many sources of the Susquehanna; a river to which the Atlantic herself has extended an arm in welcome. It was at this point that the powerful team of Mr. Jones brought him up to the more sober steeds of our travellers. A small hill was risen, and Elizabeth found herself at once amidst the incongruous dwellings of the village. The street was of the ordinary width, notwithstanding the eye might embrace, in one view, thousands and tens of thousands of acres, that were yet tenanted only by the beasts of the forest. But such had been the will of her father, and such had also met the wishes of his followers. To them the road that made the most rapid approaches to the condition of the old, or, as they expressed it, the down countries, was the most pleasant; and surely nothing could look more like civilization than a city, even if it lay in a wilderness! The width of the street, for so it was called, might have been one hundred feet; but the track for the sleighs was much more limited. On either side of the highway were piled huge heaps of logs, that were daily increasing rather than diminishing in size, notwithstanding the enormous fires that might be seen through every window.

      The last object at which Elizabeth gazed when they renewed their journey, after their encountre with Richard, was the sun, as it expanded in the refraction of the horizon, and over whose disk the dark umbrage of a pine was stealing, while it slowly sank behind the western hills. But his setting rays darted along the openings of the mountain he was on, and lighted the shining covering of the birches, until their smooth СКАЧАТЬ