It was broad daylight when I awoke, and I thanked God for the comfortable rays of the sun. I had been laid in a box-bed off the inner room, and my first sight was the shepherd sitting with folded arms in a chair regarding me solemnly. I rose and began to dress, feeling my legs and arms still tremble with weariness. The shepherd’s sister bound up my scarred wrists and put an ointment5 on my burns; and limping like an old man, I went into the kitchen.
I could eat little breakfast, for my throat seemed dry and narrow; but they gave me some brandy-and-milk, which put strength into my body. All the time the brother and sister sat in silence, regarding me with covert6 glances.
‘Ye have been delivered from the jaws7 o’ the Pit,’ said the man at length. ‘See that,’ and he held out to me a thin shaft8 of flint. ‘I fand that in the door this morning.’
I took it, let it drop, and stared vacantly at the window. My nerves had been too much tried to be roused by any new terror. Out of doors it was fair weather, flying gleams of April sunlight and the soft colours of spring. I felt dazed, isolated9, cut off from my easy past and pleasing future, a companion of horrors and the sport of nameless things. Then suddenly my eye fell on my books heaped on a table, and the old distant civilisation10 seemed for the moment inexpressibly dear.
‘I must go — at once. And you must come too. You cannot stay here. I tell you it is death. If you knew what I know you would be crying out with fear. How far is it to Allermuir? Eight, fifteen miles; and then ten down Glen Aller to Allerfoot, and then the railway. We must go together while it is daylight, and perhaps we may be untouched. But quick, there is not a moment to lose.’ And I was on my shaky feet, and bustling11 among my possessions.
‘I’ll gang wi’ ye to the station,’ said the shepherd, ‘for ye’re clearly no fit to look after yourself. My sister will bide12 and keep the house. If naething has touched us this ten year, naething will touch us the day.’
‘But you cannot stay. You are mad,’ I began; but he cut me short with the words, ‘I trust in God.’
‘In any case let your sister come with us. I dare not think of a woman alone in this place.’
‘I’ll bide,’ said she. ‘I’m no feared as lang as I’m indoors and there’s steeks on the windies.’
So I packed my few belongings13 as best I could, tumbled my books into a haversack, and, gripping the shepherd’s arm nervously14, crossed the threshold. The glen was full of sunlight. There lay the long shining links of the Farawa burn, the rough hills tumbled beyond, and far over all the scarred and distant forehead of the Muneraw. I had always looked on moorland country as the freshest on earth — clean, wholesome16, and homely17. But now the fresh uplands seemed like a horrible pit. When I looked to the hills my breath choked in my throat, and the feel of soft heather below my feet set my heart trembling.
It was a slow journey to the inn at Allermuir. For one thing, no power on earth would draw me within sight of the shieling of Carrickfey, so we had to cross a shoulder of hill and make our way down a difficult glen, and then over a treacherous18 moss19. The lochs were now gleaming like fretted20 silver, but to me, in my dreadful knowledge, they seemed more eerie21 than on that grey day when I came. At last my eyes were cheered by the sight of a meadow and a fence; then we were on a little byroad; and soon the fir-woods and cornlands of Allercleuch were plain before us.
The shepherd came no farther, but with brief good-bye turned his solemn face hillwards. I hired a trap and a man to drive, and down the ten miles of Glen Aller I struggled to keep my thoughts from the past. I thought of the kindly22 South Country, of Oxford23, of anything comfortable and civilised. My driver pointed24 out the objects of interest as in duty bound, but his words fell on unheeding ears. At last he said something which roused me indeed to interest — the interest of the man who hears the word he fears most in the world. On the left side of the river there suddenly sprang into view a long gloomy cleft25 in the hills, with a vista26 of dark mountains behind, down which a stream of considerable size poured its waters.
‘That is the Water o’ Dule,’ said the man in a reverent27 voice. ‘A graund water to fish, but dangerous to life, for it’s a’ linns. Awa’ at the heid they say there’s a terrible wild place called the Scarts o’ Muneraw, — that’s a shouther o’ the muckle hill itsel’ that ye see, — but I’ve never been there, and I never kent ony man that had either.’
At the station, which is a mile from the village of Allerfoot, I found I had some hours to wait on my train for the south. I dared not trust myself for one moment alone, so I hung about the goods-shed, talked vacantly to the porters, and when one went to the village for tea I accompanied him, and to his wonder entertained him at the inn. When I returned I found on the platform a stray bagman who was that evening going to London. If there is one class of men in the world which I heartily28 detest29 it is this; but such was my state that I hailed him as a brother, and besought30 his company. I paid the difference for a first-class fare, and had him in the carriage with me. He must have thought me an amiable31 maniac32, for I talked in fits and starts, and when he fell asleep I would wake him up and beseech33 him to speak to me. At wayside stations I would pull down the blinds in case of recognition, for to my unquiet mind the world seemed full of spies sent by that terrible Folk of the Hills. When the train crossed a stretch of moor15 I would lie down on the seat in case of shafts34 fired from the heather. And then at last with utter weariness I fell asleep, and woke screaming about midnight to find myself well down in the cheerful English midlands, and red blast-furnaces blinking by the railway-side.
In the morning I breakfasted in my rooms at St. Chad’s with a dawning sense of safety. I was in a different and calmer world. The lawn-like quadrangles, the great trees, the cawing of rooks, and the homely twitter of sparrows — all seemed decent and settled and pleasing. Indoors the oak-panelled walls, the shelves of books, the pictures, the faint fragrance35 of tobacco, were very different from the gimcrack adornments and the accursed smell of peat and heather in that deplorable cottage. It was still vacation-time, so most of my friends were down; but I spent the day hunting out the few cheerful pedants36 to whom term and vacation were the same. It delighted me to hear again their precise talk, to hear them make a boast of their work, and narrate37 the childish little accidents of their life. I yearned38 for the childish once more; I craved39 for women’s drawing-rooms, and women’s chatter40, and everything which makes life an elegant game. God knows I had had enough of the other thing for a lifetime!
That night I shut myself in my rooms, barred my windows, drew my curtains, and made a great destruction. All books or pictures which recalled to me the moorlands were ruthlessly doomed41. Novels, poems, treatises42 I flung into an old box, for sale to the second-hand43 bookseller. Some prints and water-colour sketches44 I tore to pieces with my own hands. I ransacked45 my fishing-book, and condemned46 all tackle for moorland waters to the flames. I wrote a letter to my solicitors47, bidding them to go no further in the purchase of a place in Lorne I had long been thinking of. Then, and not till then, did I feel the bondage48 of the past a little loosed from my shoulders. I made myself a night-cap of rum-punch instead of my usual whisky-toddy, that all associations with that dismal49 land might be forgotten, and to complete the renunciation I returned to cigars and flung my pipe into a drawer.
But when I woke in the morning I found that it is hard to get rid of memories. My feet were still sore and wounded, and when I felt my arms cramped50 and reflected on the causes, there was that black memory always near to vex51 me.
In a little, term began, and my duties — as deputy-professor of Northern Antiquities52 — were once more clamorous53. I can well believe that my hearers found my lectures strange, for instead of dealing54 with my favourite subjects and matters, which I might modestly say I had made my own, I confined myself to recondite55 and distant themes, treating even these cursorily56 and dully. For the truth is, my heart was no more in my subject. I hated — or I thought that I hated — all things Northern with the virulence57 of utter fear. My reading was confined to science of the most recent kind, to abstruse58 philosophy, and to foreign classics. Anything which savoured of romance or mystery was abhorrent59; I pined for sharp outlines and the tangibility60 of a high civilisation.
All the term I threw myself into the most frivolous61 life of the place. My Harrow schooldays seemed to have come back to me. I had once been a fair cricketer, so I played again for my college, and made decent scores. I coached an indifferent crew on the river. I fell into the slang of the place, which I had hitherto detested62. My former friends looked on me askance, as if some freakish changeling had possessed63 me. Formerly64 I had been ready for pedantic65 discussion, I had been absorbed in my work, men had spoken of me as a rising scholar. Now I fled the very mention of things I had once delighted in. The Professor of Northern Antiquities, a scholar of European reputation, meeting me once in the parks, embarked66 on an account of certain novel rings recently found in Scotland, and to his horror found that, when he had got well under weigh, I had slipped off unnoticed. I heard afterwards that the good old man was found by a friend walking disconsolately67 with bowed head in the middle of the High Street. Being rescued from among the horses’ feet, he could only murmur68, ‘I am thinking of Graves, poor man! And a year ago he was as sane69 as I am!’
But a man may not long deceive himself. I kept up the illusion valiantly70 for the term; but I felt instinctively71 that the fresh schoolboy life, which seemed to me the extreme opposite to the ghoulish North, and as such the most desirable of things, was eternally cut off from me. No cunning affectation could ever dispel72 my real nature or efface73 the memory of a week. I realised miserably74 that sooner or later I must fight it out with my conscience. I began to call myself a coward. The chief thoughts of my mind began to centre themselves more and more round that unknown life waiting to be explored among the unfathomable wilds.
One day I met a friend — an official in the British Museum — who was full of some new theory about primitive75 habitations. To me it seemed inconceivably absurd; but he was strong in his confidence, and without flaw in his evidence. The man irritated me, and I burned to prove him wrong, but I could think of no argument which was final against his. Then it flashed upon me that my own experience held the disproof; and without more words I left him, hot, angry with myself, and tantalised by the unattainable.
I might relate my bona-fide experience, but would men believe me? I must bring proofs, I must complete my researches, so as to make them incapable76 of disbelief. And there in those deserts was waiting the key. There lay the greatest discovery of the century — nay77, of the millennium78. There, too, lay the road to wealth such as I had never dreamed of. Could I succeed, I should be famous for ever. I would revolutionise history and anthropology79; I would systematise folk-lore; I would show the world of men the pit whence they were digged and the rock whence they were hewn.
And then began a game of battledore between myself and my conscience.
‘You are a coward,’ said my conscience.
‘I am sufficiently80 brave,’ I would answer. ‘I have seen things and yet lived. The terror is more than mortal, and I cannot face it.’
‘You are a coward,’ said my conscience.
‘I am not bound to go there again. It would be purely81 for my own aggrandisement if I went, and not for any matter of duty.’
‘Nevertheless you are a coward,’ said my conscience.
‘In any case the matter can wait.’
‘You are a coward.’
Then came one awful midsummer night, when I lay sleepless82 and fought the thing out with myself. I knew that the strife83 was hopeless, that I should have no peace in this world again unless I made the attempt. The dawn was breaking when I came to the final resolution; and when I rose and looked at my face in a mirror, lo! it was white and lined and drawn84 like a man of sixty.
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1
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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boulders
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| n.卵石( boulder的名词复数 )；巨砾；（受水或天气侵蚀而成的）巨石；漂砾 | |
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toiling
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的现在分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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ointment
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| n.药膏，油膏，软膏 | |
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covert
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| adj.隐藏的；暗地里的 | |
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7
jaws
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| n.口部；嘴 | |
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shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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9
isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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bustling
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| adj.喧闹的 | |
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bide
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| v.忍耐；等候；住 | |
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belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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moor
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| n.荒野，沼泽；vt.(使)停泊；vi.停泊 | |
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wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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18
treacherous
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| adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的 | |
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moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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fretted
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| 焦躁的，附有弦马的，腐蚀的 | |
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eerie
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| adj.怪诞的；奇异的；可怕的；胆怯的 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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cleft
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| n.裂缝；adj.裂开的 | |
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vista
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| n.远景，深景，展望，回想 | |
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reverent
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| adj.恭敬的，虔诚的 | |
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heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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detest
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| vt.痛恨，憎恶 | |
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30
besought
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| v.恳求，乞求（某事物）( beseech的过去式和过去分词 )；(beseech的过去式与过去分词) | |
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amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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maniac
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| n.精神癫狂的人；疯子 | |
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beseech
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| v.祈求，恳求 | |
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shafts
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| n.轴( shaft的名词复数 )；（箭、高尔夫球棒等的）杆；通风井；一阵（疼痛、害怕等） | |
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35
fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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pedants
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| n.卖弄学问的人，学究，书呆子( pedant的名词复数 ) | |
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narrate
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| v.讲，叙述 | |
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yearned
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| 渴望，切盼，向往( yearn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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craved
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| 渴望，热望( crave的过去式 )； 恳求，请求 | |
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chatter
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| vi.／n.喋喋不休；短促尖叫；(牙齿)打战 | |
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41
doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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treatises
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| n.专题著作，专题论文，专著( treatise的名词复数 ) | |
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43
second-hand
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| adj.用过的，旧的，二手的 | |
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sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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45
ransacked
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| v.彻底搜查( ransack的过去式和过去分词 )；抢劫，掠夺 | |
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46
condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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47
solicitors
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| 初级律师( solicitor的名词复数 ) | |
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bondage
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| n.奴役，束缚 | |
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49
dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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51
vex
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| vt.使烦恼，使苦恼 | |
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52
antiquities
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| n.古老( antiquity的名词复数 )；古迹；古人们；古代的风俗习惯 | |
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53
clamorous
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| adj.吵闹的，喧哗的 | |
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54
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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55
recondite
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| adj.深奥的，难解的 | |
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56
cursorily
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| adv.粗糙地，疏忽地，马虎地 | |
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57
virulence
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| n.毒力，毒性；病毒性；致病力 | |
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abstruse
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| adj.深奥的，难解的 | |
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59
abhorrent
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| adj.可恶的，可恨的，讨厌的 | |
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60
tangibility
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| n.确切性 | |
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61
frivolous
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| adj.轻薄的；轻率的 | |
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62
detested
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| v.憎恶，嫌恶，痛恨( detest的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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64
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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pedantic
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| adj.卖弄学问的；迂腐的 | |
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66
embarked
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| 乘船( embark的过去式和过去分词 )； 装载； 从事 | |
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disconsolately
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| adv.悲伤地，愁闷地；哭丧着脸 | |
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68
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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70
valiantly
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| adv.勇敢地，英勇地；雄赳赳 | |
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71
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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72
dispel
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| vt.驱走，驱散，消除 | |
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73
efface
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| v.擦掉，抹去 | |
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74
miserably
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| adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地 | |
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75
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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76
incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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77
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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78
millennium
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| n.一千年，千禧年；太平盛世 | |
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79
anthropology
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| n.人类学 | |
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80
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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81
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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82
sleepless
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| adj.不睡眠的，睡不著的，不休息的 | |
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83
strife
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| n.争吵，冲突，倾轧，竞争 | |
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84
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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