Kidnapped / Похищенный. Книга для чтения на английском языке. Роберт Льюис Стивенсон

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СКАЧАТЬ I was both so impatient for a nearer look of the sea, and so sickened by the closeness of the room, that when he told me to ‘run down-stairs and play myself awhile,’ I was fool enough to take him at his word. Away I went, therefore, leaving the two men sitting down to a bottle.

      Even so far up the firth, the smell of the sea-water was exceedingly salt and stirring; the Covenant, besides, was beginning to shake out her sails, which hung upon the yards in clusters; and the spirit of all that I beheld put me in thoughts of far voyages and foreign places.

      Ransome soon came out of the inn and ran to me, crying for a bowl of punch. I told him I would give him no such thing, for neither he nor I was of an age for such indulgences. ‘But a glass of ale you may have, and welcome,’ said I. He mopped and mowed at me, and called me names; but he was glad to get the ale, for all that; and presently we were set down at a table in the front room of the inn, and both eating and drinking with a good appetite.

      Here it occurred to me that, as the landlord was a man of that county, I might do well to make a friend of him. I offered him a share, as was much the custom in those days; but he was far too great a man to sit with such poor customers as Ransome and myself, and he was leaving the room, when I called him back to ask if he knew Mr. Rankeillor.

      ‘Hoot, ay,’ says he, ‘and a very honest man. And, O, by-the-by,’ says he, ‘was it you that came in with Ebenezer?’ And when I had told him yes, ‘Ye’ll be no friend of his?’ he asked, meaning, in the Scottish way, that I would be no relative.

      I told him no, none.

      ‘I thought not,’ said he, ‘and yet ye have a kind of gliff[34] of Mr. Alexander.’ I said it seemed that Ebenezer was ill-seen in the country.

      ‘Nae doubt,’ said the landlord. ‘He’s a wicked auld man, and there’s many would like to see him girning in the tow[35]. Jennet Clouston and mony mair that he has harried out of house and hame. And yet he was ance[36] a fine young fellow, too. But that was before the sough[37] gaed abroad about Mr. Alexander, that was like the death of him.’

      ‘And what was it?’ I asked.

      ‘Ou, just that he had killed him,’ said the landlord.

      ‘Did ye never hear that?’

      ‘And what would he kill him for?’ said I.

      ‘And what for, but just to get the place,’ said he.

      ‘The place?’ said I. ‘The Shaws?’

      ‘Nae other place that I ken,’ said he.

      ‘Ay, man?’ said I. ‘Is that so? Was my – was Alexander the eldest son?’

      ‘Deed[38] was he,’ said the landlord. ‘What else would he have killed him for?’ And with that he went away, as he had been impatient to do from the beginning.

      Of course, I had guessed it a long while ago; but it is one thing to guess, another to know; and I sat stunned with my good fortune, and could scarce grow to believe that the same poor lad who had trudged in the dust from Ettrick Forest not two days ago, was now one of the rich of the earth.

      I sat staring before me out of the inn window and my eye lighted on Captain Hoseason down on the pier among his seamen, and speaking with some authority. And presently he came marching back towards the house, with no mark of a sailor’s clumsiness, but carrying his fine, tall figure with a manly bearing, and still with the same sober, grave expression on his face. I wondered if it was possible that Ransome’s stories could be true, and half disbelieved them; they fitted so ill with the man’s looks. But indeed, he was neither so good as I supposed him, nor quite so bad as Ransome did; for, in fact, he was two men, and left the better one behind as soon as he set foot on board his vessel.

      The next thing, I heard my uncle calling me, and found the pair in the road together. It was the captain who addressed me, and that with an air (very flattering to a young lad) of grave equality.

      ‘Sir,’ said he, ‘Mr. Balfour tells me great things of you; and for my own part, I like your looks. I wish I was for longer here, that we might make the better friends; but we’ll make the most of what we have. Ye shall come on board my brig for half an hour, till the ebb sets, and drink a bowl with me.’

      Now, I longed to see the inside of a ship more than words can tell; but I was not going to put myself in jeopardy, and I told him my uncle and I had an appointment with a lawyer.

      ‘Ay, ay,’ said he, ‘he passed me word of that. But, ye see, the boat’ll set ye ashore at the town pier, and that’s but a penny stonecast from Rankeillor’s house.’ And here he suddenly leaned down and whispered in my ear: ‘Take care of the old tod[39]; he means mischief. Come aboard till I can get a word with ye.’ And then, passing his arm through mine, he set off towards his boat. When we were at the boat-side he handed me in. I did not dream of hanging back; I thought (the poor fool!) that I had found a good friend and helper, and I was rejoiced to see the ship.

      As soon as we were alongside, Hoseason, declaring that he and I must be the first aboard, ordered a tackle to be sent down from the main-yard. In this I was whipped into the air and set down again on the deck, where the captain stood ready waiting for me, and instantly slipped back his arm under mine.

      ‘But where is my uncle?’ said I suddenly.

      ‘Ay,’ said Hoseason, with a sudden grimness, ‘that’s the point.’

      I felt I was lost. With all my strength, I plucked myself clear of him and ran to the bulwarks. Sure enough, there was the boat pulling for the town, with my uncle sitting in the stern. I gave a piercing cry – ‘Help, help! Murder!’ – so that both sides of the anchorage rang with it, and my uncle turned round where he was sitting, and showed me a face full of cruelty and terror.

      It was the last I saw. Already strong hands had been plucking me back from the ship’s side; and now a thunderbolt seemed to strike me; I saw a great flash of fire, and fell senseless.

      Chapter VII

      I Go to Sea in the Brig Covenant of Dysart

      I came to myself in darkness, in great pain, bound hand and foot, and deafened by many unfamiliar noises. The whole world now heaved giddily up, and now rushed giddily downward; and so sick and hurt was I in body, and my mind so much confounded, that it took me a long while, chasing my thoughts up and down, and ever stunned again by a fresh stab of pain, to realise that I must be lying somewhere bound in the belly of that unlucky ship, and that the wind must have strengthened to a gale. To my other pains and distresses, there was added the sickness of an unused landsman on the sea.

      I had no measure of time; day and night were alike in that ill-smelling cavern of the ship’s bowels where, I lay; but sleep at length stole from me the consciousness of sorrow.

      I was awakened by the light of a hand-lantern shining in my face. A small man of about thirty, with green eyes and a tangle of fair hair, stood looking down at me.

      ‘Well,’ said he, ‘how goes it?’

      I answered by a sob; and my visitor then felt my pulse and temples, and set himself to wash and dress the wound upon my scalp.

      ‘Ay,’ СКАЧАТЬ