a millionaire of rough-and-ready(粗犷的百万富翁)

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A MILLIONAIRE OF ROUGH-AND-READY
1
A MILLIONAIRE OF
ROUGH-AND-READY
by BRET HARTE
A MILLIONAIRE OF ROUGH-AND-READY
2
PROLOGUE
There was no mistake this time: he had struck gold at last!
It had lain there before him a moment ago--a misshapen piece of
brown-stained quartz, interspersed with dull yellow metal; yielding
enough to have allowed the points of his pick to penetrate its
honeycombed recesses, yet heavy enough to drop from the point of his
pick as he endeavored to lift it from the red earth.
He was seeing all this plainly, although he found himself, he knew not
why, at some distance from the scene of his discovery, his heart foolishly
beating, his breath impotently hurried. Yet he was walking slowly and
vaguely; conscious of stopping and staring at the landscape, which no
longer looked familiar to him. He was hoping for some instinct or force
of habit to recall him to himself; yet when he saw a neighbor at work in an
adjacent claim, he hesitated, and then turned his back upon him. Yet only
a moment before he had thought of running to him, saying, "By Jingo!
I've struck it," or "D--n it, old man, I've got it"; but that moment had
passed, and now it seemed to him that he could scarce raise his voice, or,
if he did, the ejaculation would appear forced and artificial. Neither
could he go over to him coolly and tell his good fortune; and, partly from
this strange shyness, and partly with a hope that another survey of the
treasure might restore him to natural expression, he walked back to his
tunnel.
Yes; it was there! No mere "pocket" or "deposit," but a part of the
actual vein he had been so long seeking. It was there, sure enough, lying
beside the pick and the debris of the "face" of the vein that he had exposed
sufficiently, after the first shock of discovery, to assure himself of the fact
and the permanence of his fortune. It was there, and with it the refutation
of his enemies' sneers, the corroboration of his friends' belief, the practical
demonstration of his own theories, the reward of his patient labors. It
was there, sure enough. But, somehow, he not only failed to recall the
first joy of discovery, but was conscious of a vague sense of responsibility
and unrest. It was, no doubt, an enormous fortune to a man in his
circumstances: perhaps it meant a couple of hundred thousand dollars, or
A MILLIONAIRE OF ROUGH-AND-READY
3
more, judging from the value of the old Martin lead, which was not as rich
as this, but it required to be worked constantly and judiciously. It was
with a decided sense of uneasiness that he again sought the open sunlight
of the hillside. His neighbor was still visible on the adjacent claim; but
he had apparently stopped working, and was contemplatively smoking a
pipe under a large pine-tree. For an instant he envied him his apparent
contentment. He had a sudden fierce and inexplicable desire to go over
to him and exasperate his easy poverty by a revelation of his own new-
found treasure. But even that sensation quickly passed, and left him
staring blankly at the landscape again.
As soon as he had made his discovery known, and settled its value, he
would send for his wife and her children in the States. He would build a
fine house on the opposite hillside, if she would consent to it, unless she
preferred, for the children's sake, to live in San Francisco. A sense of a
loss of independence--of a change of circumstances that left him no longer
his own master-- began to perplex him, in the midst of his brightest
projects. Certain other relations with other members of his family, which
had lapsed by absence and his insignificance, must now be taken up anew.
He must do something for his sister Jane, for his brother William, for his
wife's poor connections. It would be unfair to him to say that he
contemplated those things with any other instinct than that of generosity;
yet he was conscious of being already perplexed and puzzled.
Meantime, however, the neighbor had apparently finished his pipe, and,
knocking the ashes out of it, rose suddenly, and ended any further
uncertainty of their meeting by walking over directly towards him. The
treasure-finder advanced a few steps on his side, and then stopped
irresolutely.
"Hollo, Slinn!" said the neighbor, confidently.
"Hollo, Masters," responded Slinn, faintly. From the sound of the
two voices a stranger might have mistaken their relative condition. "What
in thunder are you mooning about for? What's up?" Then, catching
sight of Slinn's pale and anxious face, he added abruptly, "Are you sick?"
Slinn was on the point of telling him his good fortune, but stopped.
The unlucky question confirmed his consciousness of his physical and
A MILLIONAIRE OF ROUGH-AND-READY
4
mental disturbance, and he dreaded the ready ridicule of his companion.
He would tell him later; Masters need not know WHEN he had made the
strike. Besides, in his present vagueness, he shrank from the brusque,
practical questioning that would be sure to follow the revelation to a man
of Masters' temperament.
"I'm a little giddy here," he answered, putting his hand to his head,
"and I thought I'd knock off until I was better."
Masters examined him with two very critical gray eyes. "Tell ye
what, old man!--if you don't quit this dog-goned foolin' of yours in that
God-forsaken tunnel you'll get loony! Times you get so tangled up in
follerin' that blind lead o' yours you ain't sensible!"
Here was the opportunity to tell him all, and vindicate the justice of his
theories! But he shrank from it again; and now, adding to the confusion,
was a singular sense of dread at the mental labor of explanation. He only
smiled painfully, and began to move away. "Look you!" said Masters,
peremptorily, "ye want about three fingers of straight whiskey to set you
right, and you've got to take it with me. D--n it, man, it may be the last
drink we take together! Don't look so skeered! I mean--I made up my
mind about ten minutes ago to cut the whole d--d thing, and light out for
fresh diggings. I'm sick of getting only grub wages out o' this bill. So
that's what I mean by saying it's the last drink you and me'll take together.
You know my ways: sayin' and doin' with me's the same thing."
It was true. Slinn had often envied Masters' promptness of decision
and resolution. But he only looked at the grim face of his interlocutor
with a feeble sense of relief. He was GOING. And he, Slinn, would not
have to explain anything!
He murmured something about having to go over to the settlement on
business. He dreaded lest Masters should insist upon going into the
tunnel.
"I suppose you want to mail that letter," said Masters, drily. "The mail
don't go till to-morrow, so you've got time to finish it, and put it in an
envelope."
Following the direction of Masters' eyes, Slinn looked down and saw,
to his utter surprise, that he was holding an unfinished pencilled note in his
A MILLIONAIRE OF ROUGH-AND-READY
5
hand. How it came there, when he had written it, he could not tell; he
dimly remembered that one of his first impulses was to write to his wife,
but that he had already done so he had forgotten. He hastily concealed
the note in his breast- pocket, with a vacant smile. Masters eyed him half
contemptuously, half compassionately.
"Don't forget yourself and drop it in some hollow tree for a letter-box,"
be said. "Well--so long!--since you won't drink. Take care of yourself,"
and, turning on his heel, Masters walked away.
Slinn watched him as he crossed over to his abandoned claim, saw him
gather his few mining utensils, strap his blanket over his back, lift his hat
on his long-handled shovel as a token of farewell, and then stride light-
heartedly over the ridge.
He was alone now with his secret and his treasure. The only man in
the world who knew of the exact position of his tunnel had gone away
forever. It was not likely that this chance companion of a few weeks
would ever remember him or the locality again; he would now leave his
treasure alone--for even a day perhaps--until he had thought out some plan
and sought out some friend in whom to confide. His secluded life, the
singular habits of concentration which had at last proved so successful had,
at the same time, left him few acquaintances and no associates. And in
all his well-laid plans and patiently-digested theories for finding the
treasure, the means and methods of working it and disposing of it had
never entered.
And now, at the hour when he most needed his faculties, what was the
meaning of this strange benumbing of them!
Patience! He only wanted a little rest--a little time to recover himself.
There was a large boulder under a tree in the highway of the settlement--a
sheltered spot where he had often waited for the coming of the stage-coach.
He would go there, and when he was sufficiently rested and composed he
would go on.
Nevertheless, on his way he diverged and turned into the woods, for no
other apparent purpose than to find a hollow tree. "A hollow tree." Yes!
that was what Masters had said; he remembered it distinctly; and
something was to be done there, but what it was, or why it should be done,
A MILLIONAIRE OF ROUGH-AND-READY
6
he could not tell. However, it was done, and very luckily, for his limbs
could scarcely support him further, and reaching that boulder he dropped
upon it like another stone.
And now, strange to say, the uneasiness and perplexity which had
possessed him ever since he had stood before his revealed wealth dropped
from him like a burden laid upon the wayside. A measureless peace stole
over him, in which visions of his new-found fortune, no longer a trouble
and perplexity, but crowned with happiness and blessing to all around him,
assumed proportions far beyond his own weak, selfish plans. In its even-
handed benefaction, his wife and children, his friends and relations, even
his late poor companion of the hillside, met and moved harmoniously
together; in its far-reaching consequences there was only the influence of
good. It was not strange that this poor finite mind should never have
conceived the meaning of the wealth extended to him; or that conceiving it
he should faint and falter under the revelation. Enough that for a few
minutes he must have tasted a joy of perfect anticipation that years of
actual possession might never bring.
The sun seemed to go down in a rosy dream of his own happiness, as
he still sat there. Later, the shadows of the trees thickened and
surrounded him, and still later fell the calm of a quiet evening sky with
far-spaced passionless stars, that seemed as little troubled by what they
looked upon as he was by the stealthy creeping life in the grasses and
underbrush at his feet. The dull patter of soft little feet in the soft dust of
the road, the gentle gleam of moist and wondering little eyes on the
branches and in the mossy edges of the boulder, did not disturb him. He
sat patiently through it all, as if he had not yet made up his mind.
But when the stage came with the flashing sun the next morning, and
the irresistible clamor of life and action, the driver suddenly laid his four
spirited horses on their haunches before the quiet spot. The express
messenger clambered down from the box, and approached what seemed to
be a heap of cast-off clothes upon the boulder.
"He don't seem to be drunk," he said, in reply to a querulous
interrogation from the passengers. "I can't make him out. His eyes are
open, but he cannot speak or move. Take a look at him, Doc."
A MILLIONAIRE OF ROUGH-AND-READY
7
A rough unprofessional-looking man here descended from the inside
of the coach, and, carelessly thrusting aside the other curious passengers,
suddenly leant over the heap of clothes in a professional attitude.
"He is dead," said one of the passengers.
The rough man let the passive head sink softly down again. "No such
luck for him," he said curtly, but not unkindly. "It's a stroke of paralysis--
and about as big as they make 'em. It's a toss-up if he ever speaks or
moves again as long as he lives."
A MILLIONAIRE OF ROUGH-AND-READY
8
CHAPTER I
When Alvin Mulrady announced his intention of growing potatoes
and garden "truck" on the green slopes of Los Gatos, the mining
community of that region, and the adjacent hamlet of "Rough-and-
Ready," regarded it with the contemptuous indifference usually shown by
those adventurers towards all bucolic pursuits. There was certainly no
active objection to the occupation of two hillsides, which gave so little
promise to the prospector for gold that it was currently reported that a
single prospector, called "Slinn," had once gone mad or imbecile through
repeated failures. The only opposition came, incongruously enough,
from the original pastoral owner of the soil, one Don Ramon Alvarado,
whose claim for seven leagues of hill and valley, including the now
prosperous towns of Rough-and-Ready and Red Dog, was met with simple
derision from the squatters and miners. "Looks ez ef we woz goin' to
travel three thousand miles to open up his d--d old wilderness, and then
pay for the increased valoo we give it--don't it? Oh, yes, certainly!" was
their ironical commentary. Mulrady might have been pardoned for
adopting this popular opinion; but by an equally incongruous sentiment,
peculiar, however, to the man, he called upon Don Ramon, and actually
offered to purchase the land, or "go shares" with him in the agricultural
profits. It was alleged that the Don was so struck with this concession
that he not only granted the land, but struck up a quaint reserved
friendship for the simple-minded agriculturist and his family. It is
scarcely necessary to add that this intimacy was viewed by the miners with
the contempt that it deserved. They would have been more
contemptuous, however, had they known the opinion that Don Ramon
entertained of their particular vocation, and which he early confided to
Mulrady.
"They are savages who expect to reap where they have not sown; to
take out of the earth without returning anything to it but their precious
carcasses; heathens, who worship the mere stones they dig up." "And
was there no Spaniard who ever dug gold?" asked Mulrady, simply. "Ah,
A MILLIONAIRE OF ROUGH-AND-READY
9
there are Spaniards and Moors," responded Don Ramon, sententiously.
"Gold has been dug, and by caballeros; but no good ever came of it.
There were Alvarados in Sonora, look you, who had mines of SILVER,
and worked them with peons and mules, and lost their money--a gold mine
to work a silver one--like gentlemen! But this grubbing in the dirt with
one's fingers, that a little gold may stick to them, is not for caballeros.
And then, one says nothing of the curse."
"The curse!" echoed Mary Mulrady, with youthful feminine
superstition. "What is that?"
"You knew not, friend Mulrady, that when these lands were given to
my ancestors by Charles V., the Bishop of Monterey laid a curse upon any
who should desecrate them. Good! Let us see! Of the three
Americanos who founded yonder town, one was shot, another died of a
fever--poisoned, you understand, by the soil--and the last got himself
crazy of aguardiente. Even the scientifico,* who came here years ago
and spied into the trees and the herbs: he was afterwards punished for his
profanation, and died of an accident in other lands. But," added Don
Ramon, with grave courtesy, "this touches not yourself. Through me,
YOU are of the soil."
* Don Ramon probably alluded to the eminent naturalist Douglas,
who visited California before the gold excitement, and died of an accident
in the Sandwich Islands.
Indeed, it would seem as if a secure if not a rapid prosperity was the
result of Don Ramon's manorial patronage. The potato patch and market
garden flourished exceedingly; the rich soil responded with magnificent
vagaries of growth; the even sunshine set the seasons at defiance with
extraordinary and premature crops. The salt pork and biscuit consuming
settlers did not allow their contempt of Mulrady's occupation to prevent
their profiting by this opportunity for changing their diet. The gold they
had taken from the soil presently began to flow into his pockets in
exchange for his more modest treasures. The little cabin, which barely
sheltered his family--a wife, son, and daughter--was enlarged, extended,
and refitted, but in turn abandoned for a more pretentious house on the
opposite hill. A whitewashed fence replaced the rudely-split rails, which
A MILLIONAIRE OF ROUGH-AND-READY
10
had kept out the wilderness. By degrees, the first evidences of
cultivation--the gashes of red soil, the piles of brush and undergrowth, the
bared boulders, and heaps of stone-- melted away, and were lost under a
carpet of lighter green, which made an oasis in the tawny desert of wild
oats on the hillside. Water was the only free boon denied this Garden of
Eden; what was necessary for irrigation had to be brought from a mining
ditch at great expense, and was of insufficient quantity. In this
emergency Mulrady thought of sinking an artesian well on the sunny slope
beside his house; not, however, without serious consultation and much
objection from his Spanish patron. With great austerity Don Ramon
pointed out that this trifling with the entrails of the earth was not only an
indignity to Nature almost equal to shaft-sinking and tunneling, but was a
disturbance of vested interests. "I and my fathers, San Diego rest them!"
said Don Ramon, crossing himself, "were content with wells and cisterns,
filled by Heaven at its appointed seasons; the cattle, dumb brutes though
they were, knew where to find water when they wanted it. But thou
sayest truly," he added, with a sigh, "that was before streams and rain were
choked with hellish engines, and poisoned with their spume. Go on,
friend Mulrady, dig and bore if thou wilt, but in a seemly fashion, and not
with impious earthquakes of devilish gunpowder."
With this concession Alvin Mulrady began to sink his first artesian
shaft. Being debarred the auxiliaries of steam and gunpowder, the work
went on slowly. The market garden did not suffer meantime, as Mulrady
had employed two Chinamen to take charge of the ruder tillage, while he
superintended the engineering work of the well. This trifling incident
marked an epoch in the social condition of the family. Mrs. Mulrady at
once assumed a conscious importance among her neighbors. She spoke
of her husband's "men"; she alluded to the well as "the works"; she
checked the easy frontier familiarity of her customers with pretty Mary
Mulrady, her seventeen-year-old daughter. Simple Alvin Mulrady looked
with astonishment at this sudden development of the germ planted in all
feminine nature to expand in the slightest sunshine of prosperity. "Look
yer, Malviny; ain't ye rather puttin' on airs with the boys that want to be
civil to Mamie? Like as not one of 'em may be makin' up to her already."
摘要:

AMILLIONAIREOFROUGH-AND-READY1AMILLIONAIREOFROUGH-AND-READYbyBRETHARTEAMILLIONAIREOFROUGH-AND-READY2PROLOGUETherewasnomistakethistime:hehadstruckgoldatlast!Ithadlaintherebeforehimamomentago--amisshapenpieceofbrown-stainedquartz,interspersedwithdullyellowmetal;yieldingenoughtohaveallowedthepointsofhi...

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