Adrift in Pacific and Other Great Adventures – 17 Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Jules Verne
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and small clocks. What he did not carry in the bag strongly strapped over his shoulder, he bung from his neck and his belt, so that he was quite a travelling stall.
Probably this Jew had the usual respect fer shepherds and the salutary fear they inspire. He shook Frik by the hand. Then in the Rouman language, which is a mixture of Latin and Sclave, he said with a foreign accent,—
“Are you getting on, all right, friend?”
“Yes—considering the weather,” replied Frik.
“Then you must be doing well to-day, for the weather is beautiful.”
“And I shall not be doing well to-morrow, for it will rain.”
“It will rain?” said the pedlar. “Then it rains without clouds in your country?”
“The clouds will come to-night—and from yonder, the bad side of the mountain.”
“How do you know that?”
“By the wool of my sheep, which is harsh and dry as tanned leather.”
“Then it will be all the worse for those who are on a long journey.”
“And all the better for those who stay near home.”
“Then you have a home, shepherd?”
“Have you any children?” said Frik.
“No.”
“Are you married?”
“No.”
And Frik asked this because in this country it is the custom to do so of those you meet. He continued,—
“Where do you come from, pedlar?”
“From Hermanstadt.”
Hermanstadt is one of the principal villages of Transylvania. On leaving it you find the valley of the Hungarian Syl, which flows down to the town of Petroseny.
“And you are going?”
“To Kolosvar.”
To reach Kolosvar you have to ascend the valley of the Maros, and then by Karlsburg along the lower slopes of the Bihar mountains you reach the capital of the country. It is a walk of twenty miles only.
These vendors of thermometers, barometers, and cheap jewellery always seem to be a peculiar people and somewhat Hoffmanesque in their bearing. It is part of their trade. They sell time and weather in all forms—the time which flies, the weather which is, and the weather which will be—just as other packmen sell baskets and drapery. They are commercial travellers for the house of Saturn Co., of the sign of the Golden Shoe. And doubtless this was the effect the Jew produced on Frik, who gazed not without astonishment at this display of things which were new to him, the use of which he did not know.
“I say, pedlar,” said he, stretching out his arm, “what is the use of all this trumpery which rattles at your belt like a lot of old bones?”
“These things are valuable,” said the pedlar; “they are of use to everybody.”
“To everybody?” said Frik, winking his eye, “even to shepherds?”
“Even to shepherds.”
“What is the use of this machine?”
“This machine,” answered the Jew, putting a thermometer into his hands, “will tell you if it is hot or cold.”
“Ah, friend! I can tell that when I am sweating under my tunic, or shivering under my overcoat.”
Evidently that was enough for a shepherd who did not trouble himself about the wherefore of science.
“And this big watch with a needle?” continued he, pointing to an aneroid.
“That is not a watch, but an instrument which will tell you if it will be fine to-morrow or if it will rain.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Good,” said Frik, “I don’t want that even if it only costs a kreutzer. I have only to look at the clouds trailing along the mountains or racing over the higher peaks, and I can tell you what the weather will be a day in advance. Look, do you see that mist which seems to rise from the ground? Well, I tell you it means water for to-morrow!”
And in fact the shepherd, who was a great observer of the weather, could do very well without a barometer.
“I will not ask you if you want a clock,” continued tho pedlar.
“A clock! I have one which goes by itself and hangs over my head. That is the sun up there. Look you, friend, when it is over the peak of Roduk it is noon; when it looks at me across the gap of Egelt it is six o’clock. My sheep know it as well as I do, and my dogs know it as well as my sheep. You can keep your clocks.”
“Then,” said the pedlar, “if my only customers were shepherds, I should have hard work to make a fortune. And so you want nothing?”
“Nothing at all.”
Besides which all these low-priced goods were of very poor workmanship: the barometers never agreed as to its being changeable weather or fair, the clock-hands made the hours too long or the minutes too short—in fact they were pure rubbish. The shepherd suspected this, perhaps, and did not care to become a buyer. But just as he was taking up his stick again, he caught sight of a sort of tube hanging from the pedlar’s strap.
“What do you do with that tube?”
“That tube is not a tube.”
“Is it a blunderbuss?”
“No,” said the Jew, “it is a telescope.”
It was one of those common telescopes which magnify the objects five or six times, or bring them as near, which produces the same result.
Frik unhooked the instrument, he looked at it, he handled it, and opened and shut it.
Then he shook his head
“A telescope?” he asked.
“Yes, shepherd, and a good one, and one that will make you see a long way off.”
“Oh! I have good eyes, my friend. When the air is clear I can see the rocks on the top of Retyezat and the farthest trees in the Vulkan valleys.”
“Without winking?”
“Without winking. It is the dew which makes me do that, and my sleeping from night to morning under the star-lit sky. That is the sort of thing to keep your pupils clean.”
“What—the dew?” said the pedlar. “It might perhaps make the blind—”
“Not the shepherds.”
“Quite so! But if you have good eyes, mine are better when I get them at the end of that telescope.”
“That remains to be seen.”
“Put yours to it now!”
“Mine?”
“Try.”
“Will that cost me anything?” asked Frik suspiciously.
“Nothing at all, unless you buy the machine.”
Being reassured on this point, Frik took the telescope, the tubes of which were adjusted by the pedlar. Shutting his left eye as directed, he applied his right eye to the eye piece.
At first he looked towards Vulkan Hill and then up towards Plesa. That done, he lowered the instrument and brought it to bear on the village of Werst.
“Ah! ah!” he said. “Perhaps you are right. It does carry farther than my eyes. There is the main road, I recognize the people. There is Nic Deck, the forester,