Another waggon12 had shot its load, and was jolting17 out through the rickyard gate, as we swung ourselves in, shouting, over its tail. Edward was the first up, and, as I gained my feet, he clutched me in a death-grapple. I was a privateersman, he proclaimed, and he the captain of the British frigate18 Terpsichore, of—I forget the precise number of guns. Edward always collared the best parts to himself; but I was holding my own gallantly,[109] when I suddenly discovered that the floor we battled on was swarming19 with earwigs. Shrieking20, I hurled21 free of him, and rolled over the tail-board on to the stubble. Edward executed a war-dance of triumph on the deck of the retreating galleon22; but I cared little for that. I knew he knew that I wasn’t afraid of him, but that I was—and terribly—of earwigs: ‘those mortal bugs23 o’ the field.’ So I let him disappear, shouting lustily for all hands to repel24 boarders, while I strolled inland, down the village.
There was a touch of adventure in the expedition. This was not our own village, but a foreign one, distant at least a mile. One felt that sense of mingled25 distinction and insecurity which is familiar to the traveller: distinction, in that folk turned the head to note you curiously26; insecurity, by reason of the ever-present possibility of missiles on the part of the younger inhabitants, a class eternally Conservative. Elated with isolation27, I went even more nose-in-air than usual: and ‘even so,’ I mused28, ‘might Mungo Park have threaded[110] the trackless African forest and....’ Here I plumped against a soft, but resisting body.
Recalled to my senses by the shock, I fell back in the attitude every boy under these circumstances instinctively29 adopts—both elbows well up over your ears. I found myself facing a tall elderly man, clean-shaven, clad in well-worn black—a clergyman evidently; and I noted30 at once a far-away look in his eyes, as if they were used to another plane of vision, and could not instantly focus things terrestrial, being suddenly recalled thereto. His figure was bent31 in apologetic protest. ‘I ask a thousand pardons, sir,’ he said; ‘I am really so very absent-minded. I trust you will forgive me.’
Now most boys would have suspected chaff32 under this courtly style of address. I take infinite credit to myself for recognising at once the natural attitude of a man to whom his fellows were gentlemen all, neither Jew nor Gentile, clean nor unclean. Of course, I took the blame on myself; adding, that I was very absent-minded too. Which was indeed the case.
[111]
‘I perceive,’ he said pleasantly, ‘that we have something in common. I, an old man, dream dreams; you, a young one, see visions. Your lot is the happier. And now—’ his hand had been resting all this time on a wicket-gate—‘you are hot, it is easily seen;—the day is advanced, Virgo is the Zodiacal sign. Perhaps I may offer you some poor refreshment33, if your engagements will permit?’
My only engagement that afternoon was an arithmetic lesson, and I had not intended to keep it in any case; so I passed in, while he held the gate open politely, murmuring, ‘Venit Hesperus, ite capell?: come, little kid!’ and then apologising abjectly34 for a familiarity which (he said) was less his than the Roman poet’s. A straight flagged walk led up to the cool-looking old house, and my host, lingering in his progress at this rose-tree and that, forgot all about me at least twice, waking up and apologising humbly35 after each lapse36. During these intervals37 I put two and two together, and identified him as the Rector: a bachelor, eccentric, learned exceedingly, round whom the[112] crust of legend was already beginning to form; to myself an object of special awe38, in that he was alleged39 to have written a real book. ‘Heaps o’ books,’ Martha, my informant, said; but I knew the exact rate of discount applicable to Martha’s statements.
We passed eventually through a dark hall into a room which struck me at once as the ideal I had dreamed but failed to find. None of your feminine fripperies here! None of your chair-backs and tidies! This man, it was seen, groaned40 under no aunts. Stout41 volumes in calf42 and vellum lined three sides; books sprawled43 or hunched44 themselves on chairs and tables; books diffused45 the pleasant odour of printers’ ink and bindings; topping all, a faint aroma46 of tobacco cheered and heartened exceedingly, as under foreign skies the flap and rustle47 over the wayfarer’s head of the union Jack—the old flag of emancipation48! And in one corner, book-piled like the rest of the furniture, stood a piano.
This I hailed with a squeal49 of delight. ‘Want to strum?’ inquired my friend, as if[113] it was the most natural wish in the world—his eyes were already straying towards another corner, where bits of writing-table peeped out from under a sort of Alpine50 system of book and foolscap.
‘O but may I?’ I asked in doubt. ‘At home I’m not allowed to—only beastly exercises!’
‘Well, you can strum here, at all events,’ he replied; and murmuring absently, ‘Age, dic Latinum, barbite, carmen,’ he made his way, mechanically guided as it seemed, to the irresistible51 writing-table. In ten seconds he was out of sight and call. A great book open on his knee, another propped52 up in front, a score or so disposed within easy reach, he read and jotted53 with an absorption almost passionate54. I might have been in B?otia, for any consciousness he had of me. So with a light heart I turned to and strummed.
Those who painfully and with bleeding feet have scaled the crags of mastery over musical instruments have yet their loss in this: that the wild joy of strumming has become a vanished[114] sense. Their happiness comes from the concord55 and the relative value of the notes they handle: the pure, absolute quality and nature of each note in itself are only appreciated by the strummer. For some notes have all the sea in them, and some cathedral bells; others a woodland joyance and a smell of greenery; in some fauns dance to the merry reed, and even the grave centaurs56 peep out from their caves. Some bring moonlight, and some the deep crimson57 of a rose’s heart; some are blue, some red, while others will tell of an army with silken standards and march-music. And throughout all the sequence of suggestion, up above the little white men leap and peep, and strive against the imprisoning58 wires; and all the big rosewood box hums as it were full of hiving bees.
Spent with the rapture59, I paused a moment and caught my friend’s eye over the edge of a folio. ‘But as for these Germans,’ he began abruptly60, as if we had been in the middle of a discussion, ‘the scholarship is there, I grant you; but the spark, the fine perception, the[115] happy intuition, where is it? They get it all from us!’
‘They get nothing whatever from us,’ I said decidedly: the word German only suggesting Bands, to which Aunt Eliza was bitterly hostile.
‘You think not?’ he rejoined doubtfully, getting up and walking about the room. ‘Well, I applaud such fairness and temperance in so young a critic. They are qualities—in youth—as rare as they are pleasing. But just look at Schrumpffius, for instance—how he struggles and wrestles61 with a simple γ?ρ in this very passage here!’
I peeped fearfully through the open door, half-dreading to see some sinuous62 and snark-like conflict in progress on the mat; but all was still. I saw no trouble at all in the passage, and I said so.
‘Precisely,’ he cried, delighted. ‘To you, who possess the natural scholar’s faculty63 in so happy a degree, there is no difficulty at all. But to this Schrumpffius——’ But here, luckily for me, in came the housekeeper64, a clean-looking woman of staid aspect.
[116]
‘Your tea is in the garden,’ she said severely65, as if she were correcting a faulty emendation. ‘I’ve put some cakes and things for the little gentleman; and you’d better drink it before it gets cold.’
He waved her off and continued his stride, brandishing66 an aorist over my devoted67 head. The housekeeper waited unmoved till there fell a moment’s break in his descant68; and then, ‘You’d better drink it before it gets cold,’ she observed again, impassively. The wretched man cast a deprecating look at me. ‘Perhaps a little tea would be rather nice,’ he observed feebly; and to my great relief he led the way into the garden. I looked about for the little gentleman, but, failing to discover him, I concluded he was absent-minded too, and attacked the ‘cakes and things’ with no misgivings69.
After a most successful and most learned tea a something happened which, small as I was, never quite shook itself out of my memory. To us at parley70 in an arbour over the high road, there entered, slouching into view, a dingy71[117] tramp, satellited by a frowsy woman and a pariah72 dog; and, catching73 sight of us, he set up his professional whine74; and I looked at my friend with the heartiest75 compassion76, for I knew well from Martha—it was common talk—that at this time of day he was certainly and surely penniless. Morn by morn he started forth77 with pockets lined; and each returning evening found him with never a sou. All this he proceeded to explain at length to the tramp, courteously78 and even shamefacedly, as one who was in the wrong; and at last the gentleman of the road, realising the hopelessness of his case, set to and cursed him with gusto, vocabulary, and abandonment. He reviled79 his eyes, his features, his limbs, his profession, his relatives and surroundings; and then slouched off, still oozing80 malice81 and filth82. We watched the party to a turn in the road, where the woman, plainly weary, came to a stop. Her lord, after some conventional expletives demanded of him by his position, relieved her of her bundle, and caused her to hang on his arm with a certain rough kindness of tone, and in action even a[118] dim approach to tenderness; and the dingy dog crept up for one lick at her hand.
‘See,’ said my friend, bearing somewhat on my shoulder, ‘how this strange thing, this love of ours, lives and shines out in the unlikeliest of places! You have been in the fields in early morning? Barren acres, all! But only stoop—catch the light thwartwise—and all is a silver network of gossamer83! So the fairy filaments84 of this strange thing underrun and link together the whole world. Yet it is not the old imperious god of the fatal bow—?ρω? αν?κατε μ?χαν—not that—nor even the placid85 respectable στοργ?—but something still unnamed, perhaps more mysterious, more divine! Only one must stoop to see it, old fellow, one must stoop!’
The dew was falling, the dusk closing, as I trotted86 briskly homewards down the road. Lonely spaces everywhere, above and around. Only Hesperus hung in the sky, solitary87, pure, ineffably88 far-drawn and remote; yet infinitely89 heartening, somehow, in his valorous isolation.
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1
garbs
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| vt.装扮（garb的第三人称单数形式） | |
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blazons
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| v.广布( blazon的第三人称单数 )；宣布；夸示；装饰 | |
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disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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amiability
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| n.和蔼可亲的，亲切的，友善的 | |
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deigned
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| v.屈尊，俯就( deign的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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turnip
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| n.萝卜，芜菁 | |
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deft
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| adj.灵巧的，熟练的（a deft hand 能手） | |
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scented
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| adj.有香味的；洒香水的；有气味的v.嗅到(scent的过去分词) | |
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perquisite
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| n.固定津贴，福利 | |
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weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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revelling
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| v.作乐( revel的现在分词 )；狂欢；着迷；陶醉 | |
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waggon
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| n.运货马车，运货车；敞篷车箱 | |
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waggons
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| 四轮的运货马车( waggon的名词复数 )； 铁路货车； 小手推车 | |
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galleys
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| n.平底大船，战舰( galley的名词复数 )；（船上或航空器上的）厨房 | |
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urchins
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| n.顽童( urchin的名词复数 )；淘气鬼；猬；海胆 | |
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enacted
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| 制定（法律），通过（法案）( enact的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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jolting
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| adj.令人震惊的 | |
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frigate
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| n.护航舰，大型驱逐舰 | |
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swarming
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| 密集( swarm的现在分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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shrieking
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| v.尖叫( shriek的现在分词 ) | |
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hurled
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| v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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galleon
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| n.大帆船 | |
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bugs
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| adj.疯狂的，发疯的n.窃听器( bug的名词复数 )；病菌；虫子；[计算机]（制作软件程序所产生的意料不到的）错误 | |
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repel
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| v.击退，抵制，拒绝，排斥 | |
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mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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isolation
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| n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离 | |
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mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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chaff
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| v.取笑，嘲笑；n.谷壳 | |
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refreshment
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| n.恢复，精神爽快，提神之事物；（复数）refreshments:点心，茶点 | |
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abjectly
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| 凄惨地； 绝望地； 糟透地； 悲惨地 | |
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humbly
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| adv. 恭顺地，谦卑地 | |
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lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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alleged
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| a.被指控的，嫌疑的 | |
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groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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calf
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| n.小牛，犊，幼仔，小牛皮 | |
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sprawled
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| v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的过去式和过去分词)；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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hunched
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| （常指因寒冷、生病或愁苦）耸肩弓身的，伏首前倾的 | |
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diffused
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| 散布的，普及的，扩散的 | |
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aroma
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| n.香气，芬芳，芳香 | |
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rustle
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| v.沙沙作响；偷盗(牛、马等)；n.沙沙声声 | |
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emancipation
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| n.（从束缚、支配下）解放 | |
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49
squeal
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| v.发出长而尖的声音；n.长而尖的声音 | |
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50
alpine
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| adj.高山的；n.高山植物 | |
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51
irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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52
propped
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| 支撑，支持，维持( prop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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53
jotted
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| v.匆忙记下( jot的过去式和过去分词 )；草草记下，匆匆记下 | |
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54
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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concord
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| n.和谐；协调 | |
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centaurs
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| n.（希腊神话中）半人半马怪物( centaur的名词复数 ) | |
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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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imprisoning
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| v.下狱，监禁( imprison的现在分词 ) | |
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rapture
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| n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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wrestles
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| v.（与某人）搏斗( wrestle的第三人称单数 )；扭成一团；扭打；（与…）摔跤 | |
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sinuous
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| adj.蜿蜒的，迂回的 | |
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faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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brandishing
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| v.挥舞( brandish的现在分词 )；炫耀 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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descant
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| v.详论，絮说；n.高音部 | |
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misgivings
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| n.疑虑，担忧，害怕；疑虑，担心，恐惧( misgiving的名词复数 )；疑惧 | |
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parley
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| n.谈判 | |
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dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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pariah
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| n.被社会抛弃者 | |
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catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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whine
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| v.哀号，号哭；n.哀鸣 | |
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heartiest
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| 亲切的( hearty的最高级 )； 热诚的； 健壮的； 精神饱满的 | |
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compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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courteously
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| adv.有礼貌地，亲切地 | |
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reviled
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| v.辱骂，痛斥( revile的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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oozing
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| v.（浓液等）慢慢地冒出，渗出( ooze的现在分词 )；使（液体）缓缓流出；（浓液）渗出，慢慢流出 | |
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81
malice
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| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
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filth
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| n.肮脏，污物，污秽；淫猥 | |
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gossamer
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| n.薄纱，游丝 | |
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84
filaments
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| n.（电灯泡的）灯丝( filament的名词复数 )；丝极；细丝；丝状物 | |
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85
placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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86
trotted
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| 小跑，急走( trot的过去分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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87
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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88
ineffably
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| adv.难以言喻地，因神圣而不容称呼地 | |
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89
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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