Bab Bab 19 · 第19章

Two or three days and nights went by; I reckon I might say they swum

by, they slid along so quiet and smooth and lovely. Here is the way we

put in the time. It was a monstrous big river down there—sometimes a

mile and a half wide; we run nights, and laid up and hid daytimes; soon

as night was most gone we stopped navigating and tied up—nearly always

in the dead water under a tow-head; and then cut young cottonwoods and

willows, and hid the raft with them. Then we set out the lines. Next we

slid into the river and had a swim, so as to freshen up and cool off;

then we set down on the sandy bottom where the water was about knee

deep, and watched the daylight come. Not a sound anywheres—perfectly

still—just like the whole world was asleep, only sometimes the

bullfrogs a-cluttering, maybe. The first thing to see, looking away

over the water, was a kind of dull line—that was the woods on t’other

side; you couldn’t make nothing else out; then a pale place in the sky;

then more paleness spreading around; then the river softened up away

off, and warn’t black any more, but gray; you could see little dark

spots drifting along ever so far away—trading scows, and such things;

and long black streaks—rafts; sometimes you could hear a sweep

screaking; or jumbled up voices, it was so still, and sounds come so

far; and by-and-by you could see a streak on the water which you know

by the look of the streak that there’s a snag there in a swift current

which breaks on it and makes that streak look that way; and you see the

mist curl up off of the water, and the east reddens up, and the river,

and you make out a log-cabin in the edge of the woods, away on the bank

on t’other side of the river, being a woodyard, likely, and piled by

them cheats so you can throw a dog through it anywheres; then the nice

breeze springs up, and comes fanning you from over there, so cool and

fresh and sweet to smell on account of the woods and the flowers; but

sometimes not that way, because they’ve left dead fish laying around,

gars and such, and they do get pretty rank; and next you’ve got the

full day, and everything smiling in the sun, and the song-birds just

going it!

A little smoke couldn’t be noticed now, so we would take some fish off

of the lines and cook up a hot breakfast. And afterwards we would watch

the lonesomeness of the river, and kind of lazy along, and by-and-by

lazy off to sleep. Wake up by-and-by, and look to see what done it, and

maybe see a steamboat coughing along up-stream, so far off towards the

other side you couldn’t tell nothing about her only whether she was a

stern-wheel or side-wheel; then for about an hour there wouldn’t be

nothing to hear nor nothing to see—just solid lonesomeness. Next you’d

see a raft sliding by, away off yonder, and maybe a galoot on it

chopping, because they’re most always doing it on a raft; you’d see the

axe flash and come down—you don’t hear nothing; you see that axe go up

again, and by the time it’s above the man’s head then you hear the

_k’chunk!_—it had took all that time to come over the water. So we

would put in the day, lazying around, listening to the stillness. Once

there was a thick fog, and the rafts and things that went by was

beating tin pans so the steamboats wouldn’t run over them. A scow or a

raft went by so close we could hear them talking and cussing and

laughing—heard them plain; but we couldn’t see no sign of them; it made

you feel crawly; it was like spirits carrying on that way in the air.

Jim said he believed it was spirits; but I says:

“No; spirits wouldn’t say, ‘Dern the dern fog.’”

Soon as it was night out we shoved; when we got her out to about the

middle we let her alone, and let her float wherever the current wanted

her to; then we lit the pipes, and dangled our legs in the water, and

talked about all kinds of things—we was always naked, day and night,

whenever the mosquitoes would let us—the new clothes Buck’s folks made

for me was too good to be comfortable, and besides I didn’t go much on

clothes, nohow.

Sometimes we’d have that whole river all to ourselves for the longest

time. Yonder was the banks and the islands, across the water; and maybe

a spark—which was a candle in a cabin window; and sometimes on the

water you could see a spark or two—on a raft or a scow, you know; and

maybe you could hear a fiddle or a song coming over from one of them

crafts. It’s lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all

speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at

them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened.

Jim he allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened; I judged it

would have took too long to _make_ so many. Jim said the moon could a

_laid_ them; well, that looked kind of reasonable, so I didn’t say

nothing against it, because I’ve seen a frog lay most as many, so of

course it could be done. We used to watch the stars that fell, too, and

see them streak down. Jim allowed they’d got spoiled and was hove out

of the nest.

Once or twice of a night we would see a steamboat slipping along in the

dark, and now and then she would belch a whole world of sparks up out

of her chimbleys, and they would rain down in the river and look awful

pretty; then she would turn a corner and her lights would wink out and

her powwow shut off and leave the river still again; and by-and-by her

waves would get to us, a long time after she was gone, and joggle the

raft a bit, and after that you wouldn’t hear nothing for you couldn’t

tell how long, except maybe frogs or something.

After midnight the people on shore went to bed, and then for two or

three hours the shores was black—no more sparks in the cabin windows.

These sparks was our clock—the first one that showed again meant

morning was coming, so we hunted a place to hide and tie up right away.

One morning about daybreak I found a canoe and crossed over a chute to

the main shore—it was only two hundred yards—and paddled about a mile

up a crick amongst the cypress woods, to see if I couldn’t get some

berries. Just as I was passing a place where a kind of a cowpath

crossed the crick, here comes a couple of men tearing up the path as

tight as they could foot it. I thought I was a goner, for whenever

anybody was after anybody I judged it was _me_—or maybe Jim. I was

about to dig out from there in a hurry, but they was pretty close to me

then, and sung out and begged me to save their lives—said they hadn’t

been doing nothing, and was being chased for it—said there was men and

dogs a-coming. They wanted to jump right in, but I says:

“Don’t you do it. I don’t hear the dogs and horses yet; you’ve got time

to crowd through the brush and get up the crick a little ways; then you

take to the water and wade down to me and get in—that’ll throw the dogs

off the scent.”

They done it, and soon as they was aboard I lit out for our tow-head,

and in about five or ten minutes we heard the dogs and the men away

off, shouting. We heard them come along towards the crick, but couldn’t

see them; they seemed to stop and fool around a while; then, as we got

further and further away all the time, we couldn’t hardly hear them at

all; by the time we had left a mile of woods behind us and struck the

river, everything was quiet, and we paddled over to the tow-head and hid

in the cottonwoods and was safe.

One of these fellows was about seventy or upwards, and had a bald head

and very gray whiskers. He had an old battered-up slouch hat on, and a

greasy blue woollen shirt, and ragged old blue jeans britches stuffed

into his boot-tops, and home-knit galluses—no, he only had one. He had

an old long-tailed blue jeans coat with slick brass buttons flung over

his arm, and both of them had big, fat, ratty-looking carpet-bags.

The other fellow was about thirty, and dressed about as ornery. After

breakfast we all laid off and talked, and the first thing that come out

was that these chaps didn’t know one another.

“What got you into trouble?” says the baldhead to t’other chap.

“Well, I’d been selling an article to take the tartar off the teeth—and

it does take it off, too, and generly the enamel along with it—but I

stayed about one night longer than I ought to, and was just in the act

of sliding out when I ran across you on the trail this side of town,

and you told me they were coming, and begged me to help you to get off.

So I told you I was expecting trouble myself, and would scatter out

_with_ you. That’s the whole yarn—what’s yourn?

“Well, I’d ben a-runnin’ a little temperance revival thar, ’bout a

week, and was the pet of the women folks, big and little, for I was

makin’ it mighty warm for the rummies, I _tell_ you, and takin’ as much

as five or six dollars a night—ten cents a head, children and niggers

free—and business a-growin’ all the time, when somehow or another a

little report got around last night that I had a way of puttin’ in my

time with a private jug on the sly. A nigger rousted me out this

mornin’, and told me the people was getherin’ on the quiet with their

dogs and horses, and they’d be along pretty soon and give me ’bout half

an hour’s start, and then run me down if they could; and if they got me

they’d tar and feather me and ride me on a rail, sure. I didn’t wait

for no breakfast—I warn’t hungry.”

“Old man,” said the young one, “I reckon we might double-team it

together; what do you think?”

“I ain’t undisposed. What’s your line—mainly?”

“Jour printer by trade; do a little in patent medicines;

theater-actor—tragedy, you know; take a turn to mesmerism and

phrenology when there’s a chance; teach singing-geography school for a

change; sling a lecture sometimes—oh, I do lots of things—most anything

that comes handy, so it ain’t work. What’s your lay?”

“I’ve done considerble in the doctoring way in my time. Layin’ on o’

hands is my best holt—for cancer and paralysis, and sich things; and I

k’n tell a fortune pretty good when I’ve got somebody along to find out

the facts for me. Preachin’s my line, too, and workin’ camp-meetin’s,

and missionaryin’ around.”

Nobody never said anything for a while; then the young man hove a sigh

and says:

“Alas!”

“What ’re you alassin’ about?” says the baldhead.

“To think I should have lived to be leading such a life, and be

degraded down into such company.” And he begun to wipe the corner of

his eye with a rag.

“Dern your skin, ain’t the company good enough for you?” says the

baldhead, pretty pert and uppish.

“Yes, it _is_ good enough for me; it’s as good as I deserve; for who

fetched me so low when I was so high? _I_ did myself. I don’t blame

_you_, gentlemen—far from it; I don’t blame anybody. I deserve it all.

Let the cold world do its worst; one thing I know—there’s a grave

somewhere for me. The world may go on just as it’s always done, and

take everything from me—loved ones, property, everything; but it can’t

take that. Some day I’ll lie down in it and forget it all, and my poor

broken heart will be at rest.” He went on a-wiping.

“Drot your pore broken heart,” says the baldhead; “what are you heaving

your pore broken heart at _us_ f’r? _We_ hain’t done nothing.”

“No, I know you haven’t. I ain’t blaming you, gentlemen. I brought

myself down—yes, I did it myself. It’s right I should suffer—perfectly

right—I don’t make any moan.”

“Brought you down from whar? Whar was you brought down from?”

“Ah, you would not believe me; the world never believes—let it

pass—’tis no matter. The secret of my birth—”

“The secret of your birth! Do you mean to say—”

“Gentlemen,” says the young man, very solemn, “I will reveal it to you,

for I feel I may have confidence in you. By rights I am a duke!”

Jim’s eyes bugged out when he heard that; and I reckon mine did, too.

Then the baldhead says: “No! you can’t mean it?”

“Yes. My great-grandfather, eldest son of the Duke of Bridgewater, fled

to this country about the end of the last century, to breathe the pure

air of freedom; married here, and died, leaving a son, his own father

dying about the same time. The second son of the late duke seized the

titles and estates—the infant real duke was ignored. I am the lineal

descendant of that infant—I am the rightful Duke of Bridgewater; and

here am I, forlorn, torn from my high estate, hunted of men, despised

by the cold world, ragged, worn, heart-broken, and degraded to the

companionship of felons on a raft!”

Jim pitied him ever so much, and so did I. We tried to comfort him, but

he said it warn’t much use, he couldn’t be much comforted; said if we

was a mind to acknowledge him, that would do him more good than most

anything else; so we said we would, if he would tell us how. He said we

ought to bow when we spoke to him, and say “Your Grace,” or “My Lord,”

or “Your Lordship”—and he wouldn’t mind it if we called him plain

“Bridgewater,” which, he said, was a title anyway, and not a name; and

one of us ought to wait on him at dinner, and do any little thing for

him he wanted done.

Well, that was all easy, so we done it. All through dinner Jim stood

around and waited on him, and says, “Will yo’ Grace have some o’ dis or

some o’ dat?” and so on, and a body could see it was mighty pleasing to

him.

But the old man got pretty silent by-and-by—didn’t have much to say,

and didn’t look pretty comfortable over all that petting that was going

on around that duke. He seemed to have something on his mind. So, along

in the afternoon, he says:

“Looky here, Bilgewater,” he says, “I’m nation sorry for you, but you

ain’t the only person that’s had troubles like that.”

“No?”

“No you ain’t. You ain’t the only person that’s ben snaked down

wrongfully out’n a high place.”

“Alas!”

“No, you ain’t the only person that’s had a secret of his birth.” And,

by jings, _he_ begins to cry.

“Hold! What do you mean?”

“Bilgewater, kin I trust you?” says the old man, still sort of sobbing.

“To the bitter death!” He took the old man by the hand and squeezed it,

and says, “That secret of your being: speak!”

“Bilgewater, I am the late Dauphin!”

You bet you, Jim and me stared this time. Then the duke says:

“You are what?”

“Yes, my friend, it is too true—your eyes is lookin’ at this very

moment on the pore disappeared Dauphin, Looy the Seventeen, son of Looy

the Sixteen and Marry Antonette.”

“You! At your age! No! You mean you’re the late Charlemagne; you must

be six or seven hundred years old, at the very least.”

“Trouble has done it, Bilgewater, trouble has done it; trouble has

brung these gray hairs and this premature balditude. Yes, gentlemen,

you see before you, in blue jeans and misery, the wanderin’, exiled,

trampled-on, and sufferin’ rightful King of France.”

Well, he cried and took on so that me and Jim didn’t know hardly what

to do, we was so sorry—and so glad and proud we’d got him with us, too.

So we set in, like we done before with the duke, and tried to comfort

_him_. But he said it warn’t no use, nothing but to be dead and done

with it all could do him any good; though he said it often made him

feel easier and better for a while if people treated him according to

his rights, and got down on one knee to speak to him, and always called

him “Your Majesty,” and waited on him first at meals, and didn’t set

down in his presence till he asked them. So Jim and me set to

majestying him, and doing this and that and t’other for him, and

standing up till he told us we might set down. This done him heaps of

good, and so he got cheerful and comfortable. But the duke kind of

soured on him, and didn’t look a bit satisfied with the way things was

going; still, the king acted real friendly towards him, and said the

duke’s great-grandfather and all the other Dukes of Bilgewater was a

good deal thought of by _his_ father, and was allowed to come to the

palace considerable; but the duke stayed huffy a good while, till

by-and-by the king says:

“Like as not we got to be together a blamed long time on this h-yer

raft, Bilgewater, and so what’s the use o’ your bein’ sour? It’ll only

make things oncomfortable. It ain’t my fault I warn’t born a duke, it

ain’t your fault you warn’t born a king—so what’s the use to worry?

Make the best o’ things the way you find ’em, says I—that’s my motto.

This ain’t no bad thing that we’ve struck here—plenty grub and an easy

life—come, give us your hand, Duke, and le’s all be friends.”

The duke done it, and Jim and me was pretty glad to see it. It took

away all the uncomfortableness and we felt mighty good over it, because

it would a been a miserable business to have any unfriendliness on the

raft; for what you want, above all things, on a raft, is for everybody

to be satisfied, and feel right and kind towards the others.

It didn’t take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn’t no

kings nor dukes at all, but just low-down humbugs and frauds. But I

never said nothing, never let on; kept it to myself; it’s the best way;

then you don’t have no quarrels, and don’t get into no trouble. If they

wanted us to call them kings and dukes, I hadn’t no objections, ’long

as it would keep peace in the family; and it warn’t no use to tell Jim,

so I didn’t tell him. If I never learnt nothing else out of pap, I

learnt that the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let

them have their own way.