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IX. Dave in Love

Steele Rudd

PLOUGHING(вспахивать, пахать) and sowing(сеять, высевать) all over. A hundred acres of the plain-land under wheat(пшеница) and light showers(дождик) falling every week. Dad’s good luck was continuing. Yet we were sharing other misfortunes freely enough. The children were all down with measles(корь), Sarah with face-ache, Joe with a broken rib (ребро)—a draught-horse(рабочая лошадь, ломовая лошадь, тяжеловоз) broke it for him (Joe had sandy-blight, and one morning approached the wrong end of a horse with the winkers), and Dave was the victim of a fatal malady (смертельная болезнь).

Dave was always the unlucky one. When he wasn’t bitten by a snake or a dog he was gored by a cow or something. This time it was a woman. Dave was in love. And such love! We could see it working in him like yeast(дрожжи). He became affable(приветливый, вежливый, любезный)—smiled all day long and displayed remarkable activity. He didn’t care how hard he worked or whose work he performed. He did anything—everything, and without help. He developed a passion for small things—trifles(мелочи) he had hitherto(до сих пор) regarded with contempt(презрение, неуважение), purchased silk handkerchiefs and perfume and conversation-lollies at the store, and secreted them in the pockets of his Sunday coat (воскресная одежда,лучшее платье), which he left hanging in his room. Sarah would find them when dusting the coat and hawk (обсуждать, дискутировать) them to Mother, and they’d spend an hour rejoicing (ликовать, торжествовать, бурно радоваться) and speculating(обдумывать, взвешивать, размышлять) over the discovery. Sarah never allowed any dust to settle on Dave’s Sunday coat.

Dave went out every night. It amused Joe. He would be on pins and needles till supper was ready, then he’d bolt (глотать не разжевывая, запихивать в рот пищу кусками и с большой скоростью )his food and rush off to saddle a horse, and we wouldn’t see him again till breakfast-time next morning.

For more than a year Dave rushed off every night. “Damme! look at that horse!” Dad used to say, when he’d be at the yard. Then he’d think hard, and begin again when he met Mother. “This night-work’ll have t’ stop, or there won’t be a horse about the place fit t’ ride. What the devil the fellow wants chasing round(ухаживать за женщинами, увиваться за юбками) the country for every night I don’t know, I’m sure.” (Dad knew well enough.)

“Well”—Mother would say good-naturedly, “you were just as bad y’self once, Father.” 

“Never, woman!”—with virtuous(добродетельный, целомудренный) indignation(негодование, возмущение). “I never left a horse hanging to a fence night after night to starve(умирать, умерщвлять, морить голодом, сильно мерзнуть).”

But there the matter always ended, and Dave continued his courting(ухаживать) without interruption.

It was Fanny Bowman, of Ranger’s Rise, Dave was after. She was twenty, dark, fresh-complexioned (хороший цвет лица), robust (крепкий, здоровый; сильный; твердый) and rosy—a good rider, good cook, and a most enterprising flirt(кокетка).

Tom Black, Tom Bell, Joe Sibly, and Jim Moore all had sought her affections(добиться расположения) unsuccessfully. And young Cowley climbed into a loft one night and would have hanged himself with the dog-chain because of her inconstancy, only a curlew screeched “so awfully sudden” just outside the door that he rushed out and fell down sixteen steps and “injured himself internally”.

Fanny Bowman was a dairymaid—mostly neat and natty and nice. But there were times when she didn’t look so nice. She had frequently to go into the yard and milk fifteen and twenty cows before breakfast; and a glimpse at her then—especially in wet weather, with a man’s hat on, her skirts gathered round her waist, bare-footed, slush over her ankles(лодыжки), slush on her arms and smeared (размазанный) on her face—wasn’t calculated to quicken a fellow’s pulse. But then it wasn’t at such times that Dave passed judgment on her, any more than the city swell(светский человек, важная персона, "шишка" ) would judge his Hetty while her hair was on the dresser and her teeth in a basin.

Some Sundays Dave used to bring Fanny to spend the afternoon at our place, and Jack Gore very often came with them. Jack Gore was Bowman’s man—a superior (высокомерный, надменный) young fellow, so Bowman boasted (хвастаться, гордиться)—one that could always be depended upon. He took his meals with the family and shared the society of their friends; went to church with them, worked his own horse in their plough, and was looked upon as one of the family.

Dave didn’t look upon him as one of the family, though. He was the fly in Dave’s ointment(ложка дегтя в бочке меда, волос в супе, муха в компоте). Dave hated him like poison – смертельно ненавидеть.

When it was time to leave, Dave had almost to break his neck to reach Fanny’s side in time to lift her into the saddle. If he were a moment late, Gore would lift her. If he were slow at all in mounting his horse, Gore would coolly ride off with Fanny. If he didn’t happen to be slow in mounting, Gore would ride on the near side of her and monopolize the conversation. He monopolized it in any case.

Mother and Sarah used to talk about Jack Gore.

“If I were Dave,” Sarah would say, “I’m blest if I’d have her carrying on with him (флиртовать; иметь любовную связь) the way she does.”

“But Fanny only means it as a sister,” Mother would answer in palliation.

“Does she indeed! . . . Dave’s an old fool to bother about her at all, if y’ arsk me!” Sarah was developing a keen interest.