A Chosen Few: Short Stories. Frank Richard Stockton

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      Our trip to Europe was made a few months after this, and was mainly on our son Herbert’s account. He, poor fellow, was in great trouble, and so, therefore, were we. He had become engaged, with our full consent, to a young lady in our town, the daughter of a gentleman whom we esteemed very highly. Herbert was young to be engaged to be married, but as we felt that he would never find a girl to make him so good a wife, we were entirely satisfied, especially as it was agreed on all hands that the marriage was not to take place for some time. It seemed to us that, in marrying Janet Gilbert, Herbert would secure for himself, in the very beginning of his career, the most important element of a happy life. But suddenly, without any reason that seemed to us justifiable, Mr. Gilbert, the only surviving parent of Janet, broke off the match; and he and his daughter soon after left the town for a trip to the West.

      This blow nearly broke poor Herbert’s heart. He gave up his professional studies and came home to us, and for a time we thought he would be seriously ill. Then we took him to Europe, and after a Continental tour of a month or two we left him, at his own request, in Göttingen, where he thought it would do him good to go to work again. Then we went down to the little town in Italy where my story first finds us. My wife had suffered much in mind and body on her son’s account, and for this reason I was anxious that she should take outdoor exercise, and enjoy as much as possible the bracing air of the country. I had brought with me both my little machines. One was still in my knapsack, and the other I had fastened to the inside of an enormous family trunk. As one is obliged to pay for nearly every pound of his baggage on the Continent, this saved me a great deal of money. Everything heavy was packed into this great trunk—books, papers, the bronze, iron, and marble relics we had picked up, and all the articles that usually weigh down a tourist’s baggage. I screwed up the negative-gravity apparatus until the trunk could be handled with great ease by an ordinary porter. I could have made it weigh nothing at all, but this, of course, I did not wish to do. The lightness of my baggage, however, had occasioned some comment, and I had overheard remarks which were not altogether complimentary about people travelling around with empty trunks; but this only amused me.

      Desirous that my wife should have the advantage of negative gravity while taking our walks, I had removed the machine from the trunk and fastened it inside of the basket, which she could carry under her arm. This assisted her wonderfully. When one arm was tired she put the basket under the other, and thus, with one hand on my arm, she could easily keep up with the free and buoyant steps my knapsack enabled me to take. She did not object to long tramps here, because nobody knew that she was not a walker, and she always carried some wine or other refreshment in the basket, not only because it was pleasant to have it with us, but because it seemed ridiculous to go about carrying an empty basket.

      There were English-speaking people stopping at the hotel where we were, but they seemed more fond of driving than walking, and none of them offered to accompany us on our rambles, for which we were very glad. There was one man there, however, who was a great walker. He was an Englishman, a member of an Alpine Club, and generally went about dressed in a knickerbocker suit, with gray woollen stockings covering an enormous pair of calves. One evening this gentleman was talking to me and some others about the ascent of the Matterhorn, and I took occasion to deliver in pretty strong language my opinion upon such exploits. I declared them to be useless, foolhardy, and, if the climber had any one who loved him, wicked.

      “Even if the weather should permit a view,” I said, “what is that compared to the terrible risk to life? Under certain circumstances,” I added (thinking of a kind of waistcoat I had some idea of making, which, set about with little negative-gravity machines, all connected with a conveniently handled screw, would enable the wearer at times to dispense with his weight altogether), “such ascents might be divested of danger, and be quite admissible; but ordinarily they should be frowned upon by the intelligent public.”

      The Alpine Club man looked at me, especially regarding my somewhat slight figure and thinnish legs.

      “It’s all very well for you to talk that way,” he said, “because it is easy to see that you are not up to that sort of thing.”

      “In conversations of this kind,” I replied, “I never make personal allusions; but since you have chosen to do so, I feel inclined to invite you to walk with me to-morrow to the top of the mountain to the north of this town.”

      “I’ll do it,” he said, “at any time you choose to name.” And as I left the room soon afterward I heard him laugh.

      The next afternoon, about two o’clock, the Alpine Club man and myself set out for the mountain.

      “What have you got in your knapsack?” he said.

      “A hammer to use if I come across geological specimens, a field-glass, a flask of wine, and some other things.”

      “I wouldn’t carry any weight, if I were you,” he said.

      “Oh, I don’t mind it,” I answered, and off we started.

      The mountain to which we were bound was about two miles from the town. Its nearest side was steep, and in places almost precipitous, but it sloped away more gradually toward the north, and up that side a road led by devious windings to a village near the summit. It was not a very high mountain, but it would do for an afternoon’s climb.

      “I suppose you want to go up by the road,” said my companion.

      “Oh no,” I answered, “we won’t go so far around as that. There is a path up this side, along which I have seen men driving their goats. I prefer to take that.”

      “All right, if you say so,” he answered, with a smile; “but you’ll find it pretty tough.”

      After a time he remarked:

      “I wouldn’t walk so fast, if I were you.”

      “Oh, I like to step along briskly,” I said. And briskly on we went.

      My wife had screwed up the machine in the knapsack more than usual, and walking seemed scarcely any effort at all. I carried a long alpenstock, and when we reached the mountain and began the ascent, I found that with the help of this and my knapsack I could go uphill at a wonderful rate. My companion had taken the lead, so as to show me how to climb. Making a détour over some rocks, I quickly passed him and went ahead. After that it was impossible for him to keep up with me. I ran up steep places, I cut off the windings of the path by lightly clambering over rocks, and even when I followed the beaten track my step was as rapid as if I had been walking on level ground.

      “Look here!” shouted the Alpine Club man from below, “you’ll kill yourself if you go at that rate! That’s no way to climb mountains.”

      “It’s my way!” I cried. And on I skipped.

      Twenty minutes after I arrived at the summit my companion joined me, puffing, and wiping his red face with his handkerchief.

      “Confound it!” he cried, “I never came up a mountain so fast in my life.”

      “You need not have hurried,” I said, coolly.

      “I was afraid something would happen to you,” he growled, “and I wanted to stop you. I never saw a person climb in such an utterly absurd way.”

      “I don’t see why you should call it absurd,” I said, smiling with an air of superiority. “I arrived here in a perfectly comfortable condition, neither heated nor wearied.”

      He made no answer, but walked off to a little distance, fanning himself СКАЧАТЬ