Английский с улыбкой. Охотничьи рассказы / Tales of the Long Bow - стр. 7
The visitor who came to the Colonel next morning may have been an old friend, but he certainly had a very different personality. He was a very absent-minded, rather untidy man in a shabby suit; he had a long head with straight hair of the dark red colour, one or two bits of which stood on end however he brushed it. His face was long and clean-shaven and a little fuller around the jaw and chin, which he usually put down and settled firmly into his cravat.
His name was Hood, and he was a lawyer, though he had not come to the Colonel on strictly legal business. Anyhow, he exchanged greetings with Crane with a quiet warmth and satisfaction, smiled at the old servant as if he were an old joke, and showed every sign of an appetite for his lunch.
The appointed day was unusually warm and bright, and everything in the garden seemed to glitter; the goblin god of the Oceania seemed really to grin; and the scarecrow really to have a new hat. The irises round the pool were swinging and flapping in a light wind; and he remembered they were called “flags” and thought of purple banners going into battle.
She had come suddenly round the corner of the house. Her dress was of a dark but fresh blue colour, of a very simple form, but not too artistic. And in the morning light she looked less like a schoolgirl and more like a serious woman of twenty-five or thirty; a little older and a great deal more interesting. And something in this morning seriousness increased the reaction of the night before. One single wave of relief went through Crane to think that at least his terrible green hat was gone and finished with for ever. He had worn it for a week without caring one bit for anybody’s opinion; but during that ten minutes’ trivial conversation under the lamp-post, he felt as if he had suddenly grown donkey’s ears in the street.
Because of the sunny weather he prepared a little table for three in a sort of veranda open to the garden. When the three sat down to it, he looked across at the lady and said:
“I fear I’m going to look like an eccentric; one of those eccentrics your cousin disapproves of, Miss Smith. I hope it won’t spoil this little lunch for anybody, but I am going to have a vegetarian meal.”
“Are you?” she said. “I would never have said you looked like a vegetarian.”
“Just lately I have only looked like a fool,” he said calmly; “but I think I’d sooner look a fool than a vegetarian in the ordinary way. This is rather a special occasion. Perhaps my friend Hood had better begin; it’s really his story more than mine.”
“My name is Robert Owen Hood,” said that gentleman, rather sarcastically.
“That’s how improbable memories often begin; but the only point now is that my old friend here insulted me horribly by calling me Robin Hood.”
“I would have called it a compliment,” answered Audrey Smith. “Buy why did he call you Robin Hood?”
“Because I used the long bow[8],” said the lawyer.
“But to do you justice,” said the Colonel, “it seems that you hit the bull’s eye.[9]”
While he spoke
Archer came in with a dish which he placed before his master. He had already served the others with the earlier meals, but he carried this one with the pomp of one bringing the boar’s head at Christmas