فصل 01

CHAPTER one

Exiled from London

Dear Will, do you remember me? I am Frank Osbaldistone and I want to narrate the adventurous story of my early life.

It was the year 1714 and I was about twenty. My father ordered me to come back from Bordeaux, France, where I worked and to return to London. My father was the founder of the business house Osbaldistone & Tresham, with offices in Crane Alley, London. He was a tall man, full of energy, with dark, penetrating eyes. He had a fiery spirit, full of initiative and acute powers of analysis. He never used a word in vain, and he never got really angry, but when he was displeased, he spoke in a brusque manner.

My father wanted me to become his successor in the family business, but I preferred to study literature and write poems. He tried everything to convince me to change my mind and eventually threatened, “I have a brother in Northumberland and he too has children, Frank. I will ask one of your cousins to take your place in the business, if you do not obey me.”

Showing little respect for his wishes, I replied, “You can do as you please - the business is yours! I will never sell my liberty for gold!”

As I was very obstinate, in the end my father decided to send me to his brother at Osbaldistone Hall in the north of England.

The following morning I took the road to York, mounted on a good horse and with sixty guineas in my pocket. I was sad, but I did not want to go back to London. I wanted to show my father that I was adult enough to decide for myself and that I was truly convinced of my decision.

The journey was monotonous, but sometimes I had the opportunity to speak to different travellers - parsons, farmers, officers. We spoke of many different matters - taxes, markets, wars and outlaws. One man that I met, a Mr Morris, was particularly afraid of outlaws. He had a heavy portmanteau which he never abandoned for a moment. He never mentioned his destination, he trusted nobody and he was afraid of me, too.

In those days travellers used to break their journey on Sundays. They rested their horses and had dinner together at the local inn, where the innkeeper offered them a meal. On this particular Sunday I stopped at Darlington, at the “Black Bear”, with my new companion, the strange Mr Morris. A Scotsman, Mr Campbell, joined us for dinner. It was the first time I had met a Scotsman and I looked at him with curiosity because I had many prejudices against the inhabitants of Scotland. When I was a child my nurse told me terrible stories about them, of blood and revenge. I considered the Scottish people dishonest, avaricious and hostile to Englishmen.

Mr Campbell was a tall, athletic man who spoke to other people with superiority.

Strangely, my timorous companion Mr Morris asked if he could travel north with him, but Mr Campbell refused. “Your companion talks too much,” he said. “It is unsafe to say where you are going in these troubled times.”