"Do you often have these visitations?" Ogden inquired of Judge Henry. Our host was giving us whiskey in his office, and Dr. MacBride, while we smoked apart from the ladies, had repaired to his quarters in the foreman's house previous to the service which he was shortly to hold.
The Judge laughed. "They come now and then through the year. I like the bishop1 to come. And the men always like it. But I fear our friend will scarcely please them so well."
"You don't mean they'll--"
"Oh, no. They'll keep quiet. The fact is, they have a good deal better manners than he has, if he only knew it. They'll be able to bear him. But as for any good he'll do--"
"I doubt if he knows a word of science," said I, musing2 about the Doctor.
"Science! He doesn't know what Christianity is yet. I've entertained many guests, but none--The whole secret," broke off Judge Henry, "lies in the way you treat people. As soon as you treat men as your brothers, they are ready to acknowledge you--if you deserve it--as their superior. That's the whole bottom of Christianity, and that's what our missionary3 will never know."
There was a somewhat heavy knock at the office door, and I think we all feared it was Dr. MacBride. But when the Judge opened, the Virginian was standing4 there in the darkness.
"So!" The Judge opened the door wide. He was very hearty5 to the man he had trusted. "You're back at last."
"I came to repawt."
While they shook hands, Ogden nudged me. "That the fellow?" I nodded. "Fellow who kicked the cook off the train?" I again nodded, and he looked at the Virginian, his eye and his stature6.
Judge Henry, properly democratic, now introduced him to Ogden.
The New Yorker also meant to be properly democratic. "You're the man I've been hearing such a lot about."
But familiarity is not equality. "Then I expect yu' have the advantage of me, seh," said the Virginian, very politely. "Shall I repawt to-morro'?" His grave eyes were on the Judge again. Of me he had taken no notice; he had come as an employee to see his employer.
"Yes, yes; I'll want to hear about the cattle to-morrow. But step inside a moment now. There's a matter--" The Virginian stepped inside, and took off his hat. "Sit down. You had trouble--I've heard something about it," the Judge went on.
The Virginian sat down, grave and graceful7. But he held the brim of his hat all the while. He looked at Ogden and me, and then back at his employer. There was reluctance8 in his eye. I wondered if his employer could be going to make him tell his own exploits in the presence of us outsiders; and there came into my memory the Bengal tiger at a trained-animal show I had once seen.
"You had some trouble," repeated the Judge.
"Well, there was a time when they maybe wanted to have notions. They're good boys." And he smiled a very little.
Contentment increased in the Judge's face. "Trampas a good boy too?"
But this time the Bengal tiger did not smile. He sat with his eye fastened on his employer.
The Judge passed rather quickly on to his next point. "You've brought them all back, though, I understand, safe and sound, without a scratch?"
The Virginian looked down at his hat, then up again at the Judge, mildly. "I had to part with my cook."
There was no use; Ogden and myself exploded. Even upon the embarrassed Virginian a large grin slowly forced itself. "I guess yu' know about it," he murmured. And he looked at me with a sort of reproach. He knew it was I who had told tales out of school.
"I only want to say," said Ogden, conciliatingly, "that I know I couldn't have handled those men."
The Virginian relented. "Yu' never tried, seh."
The Judge had remained serious; but he showed himself plainly more and more contented9. "Quite right," he said. "You had to part with your cook. When I put a man in charge, I put him in charge. I don't make particulars my business. They're to be always his. Do you understand?"
"Thank yu'." The Virginian understood that his employer was praising his management of the expedition. But I don't think he at all discerned--as I did presently--that his employer had just been putting him to a further test, had laid before him the temptation of complaining of a fellow-workman and blowing his own trumpet10, and was delighted with his reticence11. He made a movement to rise.
"I haven't finished," said the Judge. "I was coming to the matter. There's one particular--since I do happen to have been told. I fancy Trampas has learned something he didn't expect."
This time the Virginian evidently did not understand, any more than I did. One hand played with his hat, mechanically turning it round.
The Judge explained. "I mean about Roberts."
A pulse of triumph shot over the Southerner's face, turning it savage12 for that fleeting13 instant. He understood now, and was unable to suppress this much answer. But he was silent.
"You see," the Judge explained to me, "I was obliged to let Roberts, my old foreman, go last week. His wife could not have stood another winter here, and a good position was offered to him near Los Angeles."
I did see. I saw a number of things. I saw why the foreman's house had been empty to receive Dr. MacBride and me. And I saw that the Judge had been very clever indeed. For I had abstained14 from telling any tales about the present feeling between Trampas and the Virginian; but he had divined it. Well enough for him to say that "particulars" were something he let alone; he evidently kept a deep eye on the undercurrents at his ranch15. He knew that in Roberts, Trampas had lost a powerful friend. And this was what I most saw, this final fact, that Trampas had no longer any intervening shield. He and the Virginian stood indeed man to man.
"And so," the Judge continued speaking to me, "here I am at a very inconvenient16 time without a foreman. Unless," I caught the twinkle in his eyes before he turned to the Virginian, "unless you're willing to take the position yourself. Will you?"
I saw the Southerner's hand grip his hat as he was turning it round. He held it still now, and his other hand found it and gradually crumpled17 the soft crown in. It meant everything to him: recognition, higher station, better fortune, a separate house of his own, and--perhaps--one step nearer to the woman he wanted. I don't know what words he might have said to the Judge had they been alone, but the Judge had chosen to do it in our presence, the whole thing from beginning to end. The Virginian sat with the damp coming out on his forehead, and his eyes dropped from his employer's.
"Thank yu'," was what he managed at last to say.
"Well, now, I'm greatly relieved!" exclaimed the Judge, rising at once. He spoke18 with haste, and lightly. "That's excellent. I was in some thing of a hole," he said to Ogden and me; "and this gives me one thing less to think of. Saves me a lot of particulars," he jocosely19 added to the Virginian, who was now also standing up. "Begin right off. Leave the bunk20 house. The gentlemen won't mind your sleeping in your own house."
Thus he dismissed his new foreman gayly. But the new foreman, when he got outside, turned back for one gruff word,--"I'll try to please yu'." That was all. He was gone in the darkness. But there was light enough for me, looking after him, to see him lay his hand on a shoulder-high gate and vault21 it as if he had been the wind. Sounds of cheering came to us a few moments later from the bunk house. Evidently he had "begun right away," as the Judge had directed. He had told his fortune to his brother cow-punchers, and this was their answer.
"I wonder if Trampas is shouting too?" inquired Ogden.
"Hm!" said the Judge. "That is one of the particulars I wash my hands of."
I knew that he entirely22 meant it. I knew, once his decision taken of appointing the Virginian his lieutenant23 for good and all, that, like a wise commander-in-chief, he would trust his lieutenant to take care of his own business.
"Well," Ogden pursued with interest, "haven't you landed Trampas plump at his mercy?"
The phrase tickled24 the Judge. "That is where I've landed him!" he declared. "And here is Dr. MacBride."
1 bishop | |
n.主教,(国际象棋)象 | |
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2 musing | |
n. 沉思,冥想 adj. 沉思的, 冥想的 动词muse的现在分词形式 | |
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3 missionary | |
adj.教会的,传教(士)的;n.传教士 | |
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4 standing | |
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的 | |
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5 hearty | |
adj.热情友好的;衷心的;尽情的,纵情的 | |
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6 stature | |
n.(高度)水平,(高度)境界,身高,身材 | |
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7 graceful | |
adj.优美的,优雅的;得体的 | |
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8 reluctance | |
n.厌恶,讨厌,勉强,不情愿 | |
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9 contented | |
adj.满意的,安心的,知足的 | |
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10 trumpet | |
n.喇叭,喇叭声;v.吹喇叭,吹嘘 | |
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11 reticence | |
n.沉默,含蓄 | |
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12 savage | |
adj.野蛮的;凶恶的,残暴的;n.未开化的人 | |
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13 fleeting | |
adj.短暂的,飞逝的 | |
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14 abstained | |
v.戒(尤指酒),戒除( abstain的过去式和过去分词 );弃权(不投票) | |
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15 ranch | |
n.大牧场,大农场 | |
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16 inconvenient | |
adj.不方便的,令人感到麻烦的 | |
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17 crumpled | |
adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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18 spoke | |
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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19 jocosely | |
adv.说玩笑地,诙谐地 | |
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20 bunk | |
n.(车、船等倚壁而设的)铺位;废话 | |
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21 vault | |
n.拱形圆顶,地窖,地下室 | |
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22 entirely | |
ad.全部地,完整地;完全地,彻底地 | |
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23 lieutenant | |
n.陆军中尉,海军上尉;代理官员,副职官员 | |
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24 tickled | |
(使)发痒( tickle的过去式和过去分词 ); (使)愉快,逗乐 | |
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