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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Rodriguez left it at that. Morano could make mistakes and the forest was full of wonders: anything might
happen. "We will ride," he said.
Morano's breakfast was as good as ever; and, when he had packed up those few belongings that make a
dwelling-place of any chance spot in the wilderness, they mounted the horses, which were surely there, and rode
away through sunlight and green leaves. They rode slow, for the branches were low over the path, and whoever
canters in a forest and closes his eyes against a branch has to consider whether he will open them to be whipped
by the next branch or close them till he bumps his head into a tree. And it suited Rodriguez to loiter, for he
thought thus to meet the King of Shadow Valley again or his green bowmen and learn the answers to
innumerable questions about his castle which were wandering through his mind.
They ate and slept at noon in the forest's glittering greenness.
They passed afterwards by the old house in the wood, in which the bowmen feasted, for they followed the
track that they had taken before. They knocked loud on the door as they passed but the house was empty.
They heard the sound of a multitude felling trees, but whenever they approached the sound of chopping ceased.
Again and again they left the track and rode towards the sound of chopping, and every time the chopping died
away just as they drew close. They saw many a tree half felled, but never a green bowman. And at last they left
it as one of the wonders of the forest and returned to the track lest they lose it, for the track was more
important to them than curiosity, and evening had come and was filling the forest with dimness, and shadows
stealing across the track were beginning to hide it away. In the distance they heard the invisible woodmen
chopping.
And then they camped again and lit their fire; and night came down and the two wanderers slept.
The nightingale sang until he woke the cuckoo: and the cuckoo filled the leafy air so full of his two limpid
notes that the dreams of Rodriguez heard them and went away, back over their border to dreamland. Rodriguez
awoke Morano, who lit his fire: and soon they had struck their camp and were riding on.
By noon they saw that if they hurried on they could come to Lowlight by nightfall. But this was not Rodriguez'
plan, for he had planned to ride into Lowlight, as he had done once before, at the hour when Serafina sat in her
balcony in the cool of the evening, as Spanish ladies in those days sometimes did. So they tarried long by their
resting-place at noon and then rode slowly on. And when they camped that night they were still in the forest.
"Morano," said Rodriguez over the camp-fire, "tomorrow brings me to Lowlight."
"Aye, master," said Morano, "we shall be there tomorrow."
"That senor with whom I had a meeting there," said Rodriguez, "he ..."
"He loves me not," said Morano.
"He would surely kill you," replied Rodriguez.
Morano looked sideways at his frying-pan.
"It would therefore be better," continued Rodriguez, "that you should stay in this camp while I give such
greetings of ceremony in Lowlight as courtesy demands."
"I will stay, master," said Morano.
Rodriguez was glad that this was settled, for he felt that to follow his dreams of so many nights to that
balconied house in Lowlight with Morano would be no better than visiting a house accompanied by a dog that had
bitten one of the family.
"I will stay," repeated Morano. "But, master ..." The fat man's eyes were all supplication.
"Yes?" said Rodriguez.
"Leave me your mandolin," implored Morano.
"My mandolin?" said Rodriguez.
"Master," said Morano, "that senor who likes my fat body so ill he would kill me, he ..."
"Well?" said Rodriguez, for Morano was hesitating.
"He likes your mandolin no better, master."
Rodriguez resented a slight to his mandolin as much as a slight to his sword, but he smiled as he looked at
Morano's anxious face.
"He would kill you for your mandolin," Morano went on eagerly, "as he would kill me for my frying-pan."
And at the mention of that frying-pan Rodriguez frowned, although it had given him many a good meal since
the night it offended in Lowlight. And he would sooner have gone to the wars without a sword than under the
balcony of his heart's desire without a mandolin.
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zanotowane.pldoc.pisz.plpdf.pisz.plkwiatpolny.htw.pl
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| Cytat |
Dobre pomysły nie mają przeszłości, mają tylko przyszłość. Robert Mallet
De minimis - o najmniejszych rzeczach.
Dobroć jest ważniejsza niż mądrość, a uznanie tej prawdy to pierwszy krok do mądrości. Theodore Isaac Rubin
Dobro to tylko to, co szlachetne, zło to tylko to, co haniebne.
Dla człowieka nie tylko świat otaczający jest zagadką; jest on nią sam dla siebie. I z obu tajemnic bardziej dręczącą wydaje się ta druga. Antoni Kępiński (1918-1972)
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