‘Be as one that knoweth and yet holdeth his tongue.’
The little town of Algeciras lies, as many know, within sight of Gibraltar, and separated from that stronghold by a broad bay. It is on the mainland of Spain, and in direct communication by road with the great port of Cadiz. Another road, little better than a bridle-path, runs northward1 to Ximena and through the corkwood forests of that plain towards the mountain ranges that rise between Ronda and the sea.
By this bridle-path, it is whispered, a vast smuggled2 commerce has ever found passage to the mainland, and scarce a boatman or passenger lands at Algeciras from Gibraltar but carries somewhere on his person as much tobacco as he may hope to conceal3 with safety. Algeciras, with its fair white houses, its prim4 church, and sleepy quay5, where the blue waters lap and sparkle in innocent sunlight, is, it is to be feared, a town of small virtue6 and the habitation of scoundrels. For this is the stronghold of those contrabandistas whom song and legend have praised as the boldest, the merriest, and most romantic of law-breakers. Indeed, in this country the man who can boast of a smuggling7 ancestry8 holds high his head and looks down on honest folk.
The ‘Granville’ having dropped anchor to the north of the rough stone pier9, was soon disburdened of her passengers—the ladies going ashore10 with undisguised delight, and leaving behind them many gracious messages of thanks to the gentleman whose gallantry had resulted so disastrously11; for Conyngham was still in bed, though now nearly recovered. Truth to tell, he did not hurry to make his appearance in the general cabin, and came on deck a few hours after the departure of the ladies, whose gratitude12 he desired to avoid.
Two days of the peerless sunshine of these southern waters completely restored him to health, and he prepared to go ashore. It was afternoon when his boat touched the beach, and the idlers, without whom no Mediterranean13 seaboard is complete, having passed the heat of the day in a philosophic14 apathy15 amounting in many cases to a siesta16, now roused themselves sufficiently17 to take a dignified18 and indifferent interest in the new arrival. A number of boys, an old soldier, several artillerymen from the pretty and absolutely useless fort, a priest and a female vendor19 of oranges put themselves out so much as to congregate20 in a little knot at the spot where Conyngham landed.
‘Body of Bacchus!’ said the priest, with a pinch of snuff poised21 before his long nose, ‘an Englishman—see his gold watch chain.’
This remark called forth22 several monosyllabic sounds, and the onlookers23 watched the safe discharge of Conyngham’s personal effects with a characteristic placidity25 of demeanour which was at once tolerant and gently surprised. That any one should have the energy to come ashore when he was comfortable on board, or leave the shore when amply provided there with sunshine, elbowroom, and other necessaries of life, presented itself to them as a fact worthy26 of note but not of emulation27. The happiest man is he who has reduced the necessities of life to a minimum.
‘The English, see you, travel for pleasure,’ said the old soldier, nodding his head in the direction of Gibraltar, pink and shimmering28 across the bay.
The priest brushed some stray grains of snuff from the front of his faded cassock—once black, but now of a greeny brown. He was a singularly tall man, gaunt and grey, with deep lines drawn29 downwards30 from eye to chin. His mouth was large and tender, with a humorous corner ever awaiting a jest. His eyes were sombre and deeply shaded by grey brows, but one of them had a twinkle lurking31 and waiting, as in the corner of his mouth.
‘Everyone stretches his legs according to the length of his coverlet,’ he said, and, turning, he courteously32 raised his hat to Conyngham, who passed at that moment on his way to the hotel. The little knot of onlookers broke up, and the boys wandered towards the fort, before the gate of which a game at bowls was in progress.
‘The Padre has a hungry look,’ reflected Conyngham. ‘Think I’ll invite him to dinner.’
For Geoffrey Horner had succeeded in conveying more money to the man who had taken his sins upon himself, and while Conyngham possessed34 money he usually had the desire to spend it.
Conyngham went to the Fonda de la Marina, which stands to-day—a house of small comfort and no great outward cleanliness; but, as in most Spanish inns, the performance was better than the promise, and the bedroom offered to the traveller was nothing worse than bare and ill furnished. With what Spanish he at this time possessed the Englishman made known his wants, and inquired of the means of prosecuting35 his journey to Ronda.
‘You know the Captain-General Vincente of Ronda?’ he asked.
‘But . . . yes—by reputation. Who does not in Andalusia?’ replied the host, a stout36 man, who had once cooked for a military mess at Gibraltar, and professed37 himself acquainted with the requirements of English gentlemen.
‘I have a letter to General Vincente, and must go to Ronda as soon as possible. These are stirring times in Spain.’
The man’s bland38 face suddenly assumed an air of cunning, and he glanced over his shoulder to see that none overheard.
‘Your Excellency is right,’ he answered. ‘But for such as myself one side is as good as another—is it not so? Carlist or Christino—the money is the same.’
‘But here in the South there are no Carlists.’
‘Who knows?’ said the innkeeper with outspread hands. ‘Anything that his Excellency requires shall be forthcoming,’ he added grandiosely39. ‘This is the dining-room, and here at the side a little saloon where the ladies sit. But at present we have only gentlemen in the hotel—it being the winter time.’
‘Then you have other guests?’ inquired Conyngham.
‘But . . . yes—always. In Algeciras there are always travellers. Noblemen—like his Excellency—for pleasure. Others—for commerce, the Government—the politics.’
‘No flies enter a shut mouth, my friend,’ said a voice at the door, and both turned to see standing40 in the doorway41 the priest who had witnessed Conyngham’s arrival.
‘Pardon, se?or,’ said the old man, coming forward with his shabby hat in his hand. ‘Pardon my interruption. I came at an opportune42 moment, for I heard the word politics.’
He turned and shook a lean finger at the innkeeper, who was backing towards the door with many bows.
‘Ah, bad Miguel,’ he said, ‘will you make it impossible for gentlemen to put up at your execrable inn? The man’s cooking is superior to his discretion43, se?or. I, too, am a traveller, and for the moment a guest here. I have the honour. My name is Concha—the Padre Concha—a priest, as you see.’
‘Glad to meet you,’ he said. ‘I saw you as I came along. My name is Conyngham, and I am an Englishman, as you hear. I know very little Spanish.’
‘That will come—that will come,’ said the priest, moving towards the window. ‘Perhaps too soon, if you are going to stay any length of time in this country. Let me advise you—do not learn our language too quickly.’
He shook his head and moved towards the open window.
‘See to your girths before you mount, eh? Here is the verandah, where it is pleasant in the afternoon. Shall we be seated? That chair has but three legs—allow me! this one is better.’
He spoke45 with the grave courtesy of his countrymen. For every Spaniard, even the lowest muleteer, esteems46 himself a gentleman, and knows how to act as such. The Padre Concha had a pleasant voice, and a habit of gesticulating slowly with one large and not too clean hand, that suggested the pulpit. He had led the way to a spacious47 verandah, where there were small tables and chairs, and at the outer corners orange trees in square green boxes.
‘We will have a bottle of wine—is it not so?—yes,’ he said, and gravely clapped his hands together to summon the waiter—an Oriental custom still in use in the Peninsula.
The wine was brought and duly uncorked, during which ceremony the priest waited and watched with the preoccupied48 air of a host careful for the entertainment of his guest. He tasted the wine critically.
‘It might be worse,’ he said. ‘I beg you to excuse it not being better.’
There was something simple in the old man’s manner that won Conyngham’s regard.
‘The wine is excellent,’ he said. ‘It is my welcome to Spain.’
‘Ah! Then this is your first visit to this country,’ the priest said indifferently, his eyes wandering to the open sea, where a few feluccas lay becalmed.
‘Yes.’
Conyngham turned and looked towards the sea also. It was late in the afternoon, and a certain drowsiness49 of the atmosphere made conversation, even between comparative strangers, a slower, easier matter than with us in the brisk North. After a moment the Englishman turned with, perhaps, the intention of studying his companion’s face, only to find the deep grey eyes fixed50 on his own.
‘Spain,’ said the Padre, ‘is a wonderful country, rich, beautiful, with a climate like none in Europe; but God and the devil come to closer quarters here than elsewhere. Still for a traveller, for pleasure, I think this country is second to none.’
‘I am not exactly a traveller for pleasure, my father.’
‘Ah!’ and Concha drummed idly on the table with his fingers.
‘I left England in haste,’ added Conyngham lightly.
‘Ah!’
‘And it will be inexpedient for me to return for some months to come. I thought of taking service in the army, and have a letter to General Vincente, who lives at Ronda, as I understand, sixty miles from here across the mountains.’
‘Yes,’ said the priest thoughtfully, ‘Ronda is sixty miles from here—across the mountains.’
He was watching a boat which approached the shore from the direction of Gibraltar. The wind having dropped, the boatmen had lowered the sail and were now rowing, giving voice to a song which floated across the smooth sea sleepily. It was an ordinary Algeciras wherry built to carry a little cargo51, and perhaps a dozen passengers, a fishing boat that smelt52 strongly of tobacco. The shore was soon reached, and the passengers, numbering half a dozen, stepped over the gunwale on to a small landing stage. One of them was better dressed than his companions, a smart man with a bright flower in the buttonhole of his jacket, carrying the flowing cloak brightly lined with coloured velvet53 without which no Spaniard goes abroad at sunset. He looked towards the hotel, and was evidently speaking of it with a boatman whose attitude was full of promise and assurance.
The priest rose and emptied his glass.
‘I must ask you to excuse me. Vespers wait for no man, and I hear the bell,’ he said with a grave bow, and went indoors.
Left to himself, Conyngham lapsed54 into the easy reflections of a man whose habit it is to live for the present, leaving the future and the past to take care of themselves. Perhaps he thought, as some do, that the past dies—which is a mistake. The past only sleeps, and we carry it with us through life, slumbering55. Those are wise who bear it gently so that it may never be aroused.
The sun had set, and Gibraltar, a huge couchant lion across the bay, was fading into the twilight56 of the East when a footstep in the dining-room made Conyngham turn his head, half expecting the return of Father Concha. But in the doorway, and with the evident intention of coming towards himself, Conyngham perceived a handsome dark-faced man of medium height, with a smart moustache brushed upward, clever eyes, and the carriage of a soldier. This stranger unfolded his cloak, for in Spain it is considered ill-mannered to address a stranger and remain cloaked.
‘Se?or,’ he said, with a gesture of the hat, courteous33 and yet manly57 enough to savour more of the camp than the court, ‘se?or, I understand you are journeying to Ronda.’
‘Yes.’
‘I, too, intended to go across the mountains, and hoped to arrive here in time to accompany friends who I learn have already started on their journey. But I have received letters which necessitate58 my return to Malaga. You have already divined that I come to ask a favour.’
He brought forward a chair and sat down, drawing from his pocket a silver cigarette case, which he offered to the Englishman. There was a certain picturesqueness59 in the man’s attitude and manner. His face and movements possessed a suggestion of energy which seemed out of place here in the sleepy South, and stamped him as a native not of dreamy Andalusia, but of La Mancha perhaps, where the wit of Spain is concentrated, or of fiery61 Catalonia, where discontent and unrest are in the very atmosphere of the brown hills. This was a Spanish gentleman in the best sense of the word, as scrupulous62 in personal cleanliness as any Englishman, polished, accomplished63, bright and fascinating, and yet carrying with him a subtle air of melancholy64 and romance which lingers still among the men and women of aristocratic Spain.
‘’Tis but to carry a letter,’ he explained, ‘and to deliver it into the hand of the person to whom it is addressed. Ah, I would give five years of life to touch that hand with my lips.’
He sighed, gave a little laugh which was full of meaning, and yet quite free from self-consciousness, and lighted a fresh cigarette. Then, after a little pause, he produced the letter from an inner pocket and laid it on the table in front of Conyngham. It was addressed, ‘To the Se?orita J. B.,’ and had a subtle scent65 of mignonette. The envelope was of a delicate pink.
‘A love letter,’ said Conyngham bluntly.
‘Ah! you do not understand,’ he said, ‘in that cold country of the North. If you stay in Spain, perhaps some dark-eyed one will teach you. But,’ and his manner changed with theatrical67 rapidity, as he laid his slim hand on the letter, ‘if, when you see her you love her, I will kill you.’
Conyngham laughed and held out his hand for the letter.
‘It is insufficiently68 addressed,’ he said practically. ‘How shall I find the lady?’
‘Her name is Barenna, the Se?orita Barenna; that is sufficient in Ronda.’
Conyngham took up the letter and examined it. ‘It is of importance?’ he said.
‘Of the utmost.’
‘And of value?’
‘Of the greatest value in the world to me.’
The Spaniard rose and took up his cloak, which he had thrown over the back of the nearest chair, not forgetting to display a picturesque60 corner of its bright lining69.
‘You swear you will deliver it, only with your own hand, only to the hand of the Se?orita Barenna? And—you will observe the strictest secrecy70?’
‘Oh, yes,’ answered Conyngham carelessly, ‘if you like.’
The Spaniard turned, and, leaning one hand on the table, looked almost fiercely into his companion’s face. ‘You are an Englishman,’ he said, ‘and an Englishman’s word—is it not known all the world over? In the North, in my country, where Wellington fought, the peasants still say “word of an Englishman” instead of an oath.’
He threw his cloak over his shoulder, and stood looking down at his companion with a little smile as if he were proud of him.
‘There!’ he said. ‘Adios. My name is Larralde, but that is of no consequence. Adios!’
With a courteous bow he took his leave, and Conyngham presently saw him walking down to the landing stage. It seemed that this strange visitor was about to depart as abruptly71 as he had come. Conyngham rose and walked to the edge of the verandah, where he stood watching the departure of the boat in which his new friend had taken passage.
While he was standing there, the old priest came quietly out of the open window of the dining room. He saw the letter lying on the table where Conyngham had left it. He approached, his shabby old shoes making no sound on the wooden flooring, and read the address written on the pink and scented72 envelope. When the Englishman at length turned, he was alone on the verandah, with the wine bottle, the empty glasses, and the letter.
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收听单词发音
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1
northward
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| adv.向北；n.北方的地区 | |
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smuggled
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| 水货 | |
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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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prim
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| adj.拘泥形式的，一本正经的；n.循规蹈矩，整洁；adv.循规蹈矩地，整洁地 | |
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quay
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| n.码头，靠岸处 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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7
smuggling
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| n.走私 | |
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ancestry
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| n.祖先，家世 | |
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pier
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| n.码头；桥墩，桥柱；[建]窗间壁，支柱 | |
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ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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disastrously
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| ad.灾难性地 | |
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gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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Mediterranean
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| adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的 | |
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philosophic
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| adj.哲学的，贤明的 | |
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15
apathy
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| n.漠不关心，无动于衷；冷淡 | |
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siesta
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| n.午睡 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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18
dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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vendor
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| n.卖主；小贩 | |
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congregate
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| v.(使)集合，聚集 | |
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poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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onlookers
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| n.旁观者，观看者( onlooker的名词复数 ) | |
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onlooker
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| n.旁观者，观众 | |
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placidity
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| n.平静，安静，温和 | |
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26
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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27
emulation
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| n.竞争；仿效 | |
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shimmering
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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downwards
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| adj./adv.向下的（地），下行的（地） | |
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lurking
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| 潜在 | |
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32
courteously
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| adv.有礼貌地，亲切地 | |
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courteous
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| adj.彬彬有礼的，客气的 | |
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34
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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prosecuting
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| 检举、告发某人( prosecute的现在分词 )； 对某人提起公诉； 继续从事（某事物）； 担任控方律师 | |
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professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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bland
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| adj.淡而无味的，温和的，无刺激性的 | |
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grandiosely
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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42
opportune
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| adj.合适的，适当的 | |
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discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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46
esteems
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| n.尊敬，好评( esteem的名词复数 )v.尊敬( esteem的第三人称单数 )；敬重；认为；以为 | |
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spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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preoccupied
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| adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
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49
drowsiness
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| n.睡意；嗜睡 | |
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50
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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51
cargo
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| n.(一只船或一架飞机运载的)货物 | |
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52
smelt
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| v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼 | |
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53
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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54
lapsed
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| adj.流失的，堕落的v.退步( lapse的过去式和过去分词 )；陷入；倒退；丧失 | |
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55
slumbering
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| 微睡，睡眠（slumber的现在分词形式） | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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57
manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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58
necessitate
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| v.使成为必要，需要 | |
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picturesqueness
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picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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61
fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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62
scrupulous
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| adj.审慎的，小心翼翼的，完全的，纯粹的 | |
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63
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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65
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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66
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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67
theatrical
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| adj.剧场的，演戏的；做戏似的，做作的 | |
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68
insufficiently
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| adv.不够地，不能胜任地 | |
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69
lining
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| n.衬里，衬料 | |
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70
secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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71
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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scented
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| adj.有香味的；洒香水的；有气味的v.嗅到(scent的过去分词) | |
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