So time passed on. But, as he grew stronger, there awoke again within
him a vague sense of want and longing. He had no power to express his
feelings, but he felt something was wrong with him--he was not in his
proper place. Or was it, rather, that there was something wrong with all
the people about him? They were very kind; but they and their ways had a
queer, distorted, unnatural look in his eyes, like the things one sees
reflected in the bowl of a spoon. He longed continually, longed
inexpressibly, for something he could not get, for some one who was not
there; yet he could not tell who it was he wanted.
He grew silent and melancholy, and his friends thought him in danger of
another relapse, which would certainly have been fatal. Happily, it was
now autumn again, the sultriest months of the year being over. So one
day they wrapped him up carefully, seated him comfortably on cushions
upon a donkey, and brought him with them, to a vineyard which Hohannes
possessed on a slope of one of the hills above Biridjik. He was a man of
some property, having flocks and herds also. The great, luscious grapes,
"as large as plums," purple, green, and amber, hung in ripe profusion,
nearly breaking down the low bushes they grew upon. Jack ate of them to
his heart's content, and lay in the pleasant shade of a fig-tree,
watching the other young people as they gathered them for their various
uses. Tents had been brought, and it gave him a kind of dreamy
satisfaction to sleep in one of these; it seemed somehow to bring him
nearer to the things he had lost, and was vaguely feeling after. Often
hints of them seemed to flash on him unbidden, but when he tried to
grasp them vanished as they came, leaving him confused and faint, with a
fluttering heart and an aching head.
However, his strength improved in the cooler air and amidst the new
surroundings. He had soon an opportunity of testing it. One day he
happened to be by himself, resting under his favourite fig-tree, when he
heard a noise as of something trampling and tearing the vines. Looking
up, he saw that a flock of goats had got in among them, and were doing
terrible damage, not only to the ripe fruit but even to the trees. He
got up and called for help, but no one heeded, and he supposed no one
heard. It was dreadful to see all this harm done; in fact, he could not
endure it. Taking heart, he went to the rescue himself, or rather, for
the first time since his illness, he _ran_. His steps were unsteady, his
limbs shook under him; once indeed he fell, but he was up and on again
in a moment. The exercise seemed to give back strength to his muscles
and vigour to his brain. He shouted aloud; he took up stones and flung
them at the trespassers, sending them flying over the low stone wall.
Then, the Englishman's joy of battle waking in him, he gave chase as
fast, or faster, than his limbs would carry him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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