He was an out-of-door man, and that, in his position, was the pity of it. Aldersbury School--and Aldersbury was a very famous school in those days--and Cambridge had done little to alter the tendency: possibly the latter, seated in the midst of wide open spaces, under a wide sky, the fens12 its neighbors, had done something to strengthen his bent13. Bourdillon thought of him with contempt, as a clodhopper, a rustic14, hinting that he was a throwback to an ancestor, not too remote, who had followed the plough and whistled for want of thought. But he did Clement an injustice15. It was possible that in his love of the soil he was a throwback; he would have made, and indeed he was, a good ploughman. He had learnt the trick with avidity, giving good money, solid silver shillings, that Hodge might rest while he worked. But, a ploughman, he would not have turned a clod without noticing its quality, nor sown a seed without considering its fitness, nor observed a rare plant without wondering why it grew in that position, nor looked up without drawing from the sky some sign of the weather or the hour. Much less would he have gazed down a woodland glade16, flecked with sunlight, without perceiving its beauty.
He was, indeed, both in practice and theory a lover of Nature; breathing freely its open air, understanding its moods, asking nothing better than to be allowed to turn them to his purpose. Though he was no great reader, he read Wordsworth, and many a line was fixed17 in his memory and, on occasions when he was alone, rose to his lips.
But he hated the desk and he hated figures. His thoughts as he stood behind the bank counter, or drummed his restless heels against the legs of his high stool, were far away in fallow and stubble, or where the trout18, that he could tickle19 as to the manner born, lay under the caving bank. And to his father and to those who judged him by the bank standard, and felt for him half scornful liking20, he seemed to be an inefficient21, a trifler. They said in Aldersbury that it was lucky for him that he had a father.
Perhaps of all about him it was from that father that he could expect the least sympathy. Ovington was not only a banker, he was a banker to whom his business was everything. He had created it. It had made him. It was not in his eyes a mere22 adjunct, as in the eyes of one born in the purple and to the leisure which invites to the higher uses of wealth. Able he was, and according to his lights honorable; but a narrow education had confined his views, and he saw in his money merely the means to rise in the world and eventually to become one of the landed class which at that time monopolized23 all power and all influence, political as well as social. Such a man could only see in Clement a failure, a reversion to the yeoman type, and own with sorrow the irony24 of fortune that so often delights to hand on the sceptre of an Oliver to a "Tumble-down-Dick."
Only from Betty, young and romantic, yet possessed25 of a woman's intuitive power of understanding others, could Clement look for any sympathy. And even Betty doubted while she loved--for she had also that other attribute of woman, a basis of sound common-sense. She admired her father. She saw more clearly than Clement what he had done for them and to what he was raising them. And she could not but grieve that Clement was not, more like him, that Clement could not fall in with his wishes and devote himself to the attainment26 of the end for which the elder man had worked. She could enter into the father's disappointment as well as into the son's distaste.
Meanwhile Clement, dreaming now of a girl's face, now of a new drill which he had seen that morning, now of the passing sights and sounds which would have escaped nine men out of ten but had a meaning for him, drew near to the town. He topped the last eminence27, he rode under the ancient oak, whence, tradition had it, a famous Welshman had watched the wreck28 of his fortunes on a pitched field. Finally he saw, rising from the river before him, the amphitheatre of dim lights that was the town. Descending29 he crossed the bridge.
He sighed as he did so. For to him to pass from the silent lands and to enter the brawling30 streets where apprentices32 were putting up the shutters33 and beggars were raking among heaps of market garbage was to fall half way from the clouds. To right and left the inns were roaring drunken choruses, drabs stood in the mouths of the alleys--dubbed in Aldersbury "shuts"--tradesmen were hastening to wet their profits at the Crown or the Gullet. When at last he heard the house door clang behind him, and breathed the confined air of the bank, redolent for him of ledgers34 and day-books, the fall was complete. He reached the earth.
If he had not done so, his sister's face when he entered the dining-room would have brought him to his level.
"My eye and Betty Martin!" she said. "But you've done it now, my lad!"
"What's the matter?"
"Father will tell you that. He's in his room and as black as thunder. He came home by the mail at three--Sir Charles waiting, Mr. Acherley waiting, the bank full, no Clement! You are in for it. You are to go to him the moment you come in."
He looked longingly36 at the table where supper awaited him. "What did he say?" he asked.
"He said all I have said and d--n besides. It's no good looking at the table, my lad. You must see him first and then I'll give you your supper."
"All right!" he replied, and he turned to the door with something of a swagger.
But Betty, whose moods were as changeable as the winds, and whose thoughts were much graver than her words, was at the door before him. She took him by the lapel of his coat and looked up in his face. "You won't forget that you're in fault, Clem, will you?" she said in a small voice. "Remember that if he had not worked there would be no walking about with a gun or a rod for you. And no looking at new drills, whatever they are, for I know that that is what you had in your mind this morning. He's a good dad, Clem--better than most. You won't forget that, will you?"
"But after all a man must----"
"Suppose you forget that 'after all,'" she said sagely37. "The truth is you have played truant38, haven't you? And you must take your medicine. Go and take it like a good boy. There are but three of us, Clem."
She knew how to appeal to him, and how to move him; she knew that at bottom he was fond of his father. He nodded and went, knocked at his father's door and, tamed by his sister's words, took his scolding--and it was a sharp scolding--with patience. Things were going well with the banker, he had had his usual four glasses of port, and he might not have spoken so sharply if the contrast between the idle and the industrious40 apprentice31 had not been thrust upon him that day with a force which had startled him. That little hint of a partnership41 had not been dropped without a pang42. He was jealous for his son, and he spoke39 out.
"If you think," he said, tapping the ledger35 before him, to give point to his words, "that because you've been to Cambridge this job is below you, you're mistaken, Clement. And if you think that you can do it in your spare time, you're still more mistaken. It's no easy task, I can tell you, to make a bank and keep a bank, and manage your neighbor's money as well as your own, and if you think it is, you're wrong. To make a hundred thousand pounds is a deal harder than to make Latin verses--or to go tramping the country on a market day with your gun! That's not business! That's not business, and once for all, if you are not going to help me, I warn you that I must find someone who will! And I shall not have far to look!"
"I'm afraid, sir, that I have not got a turn for it," Clement pleaded.
"But what have you a turn for? You shoot, but I'm hanged if you bring home much game. And you fish, but I suppose you give the fish away. And you're out of town, idling and doing God knows what, three days in the week! No turn for it? No will to do it, you mean. Do you ever think," the banker continued, joining the fingers of his two hands as he sat back in his chair, and looking over them at the culprit, "where you would be and what you would be doing if I had not toiled43 for you? If I had not made the business at which you do not condescend45 to work? I had to make my own way. My grandfather was little better than a laborer46, and but for what I've done you might be a clerk at a pound a week, and a bad clerk, too! Or behind a shop-counter, if you liked it better. And if things go wrong with me--for I'd have you remember that nothing in this world is quite safe--that is where you may still be! Still, my lad!"
For the first time Clement looked his father fairly in the face--and pleased him. "Well, sir," he said, "if things go wrong I hope you won't find me wanting. Nor ungrateful for what you have done for us. I know how much it is. But I'm not Bourdillon, and I've not got his head for figures."
"You've not got his application. That's the mischief48! Your heart's not in it."
"Well, I don't know that it is," Clement admitted. "I suppose you couldn't----" he hesitated, a new hope kindled49 within him. He looked at his father doubtfully.
"Couldn't what?"
"Release me from the bank, sir? And give me a--a very small capital to----"
"To go and idle upon?" the banker exclaimed, and thumped50 the ledger in his indignation at an idea so preposterous51. "No, by G--d, I couldn't! Pay you to go idling about the country, more like a dying duck in a thunder-storm, as I am told you do, than a man! Find you capital and see you loiter your life away with your hands in your pockets? No, I couldn't, my boy, and I would not if I could! Capital, indeed? Give you capital? For what?"
"I could take a farm," sullenly52, "and I shouldn't idle. I can work hard enough when I like my work. And I know something about farming, and I believe I could make it pay."
The other gasped53. To the banker, with his mind on thousands, with his plans and hopes for the future, with his golden visions of Lombard Street and financial sway, to talk of a farm and of making it pay! It seemed--it seemed worse than lunacy. His son must be out of his mind. He stared at him, honestly wondering. "A farm!" he ejaculated at last. "And make it pay? Go back to the clodhopping life your grandfather lived before you and from which I lifted you? Peddle54 with pennies and sell ducks and chickens in the market? Why--why, I don't know what to say to you?"
"I like an outdoor life," Clement pleaded, his face scarlet55.
"Like a--like a----" Ovington could find no word to express his feelings and with an effort he swallowed them down. "Look here, Clement," he said more mildly; "what's come to you? What is it that is amiss with you? Whatever it is you must straighten it out, boy; there must be an end of this folly56, for folly it is. Understand me, the day that you go out of the bank you go to stand on your own legs, without help from me. If you are prepared to do that?"
"I don't say that I could--at first."
"Then while I keep you I shall certainly do it on my own terms. So, if you please, I will hear no more of this. Go back to your desk, go back to your desk, sir, and do your duty. I sent you to Cambridge at Butler's suggestion, but I begin to fear that it was the biggest mistake of my life. I declare I never heard such nonsense except from a man in love. I suppose you are not in love, eh?"
"No!" Clement cried angrily, and he went out.
For he could not own to his father that he was in love; in love with the brown earth, the woods, and the wide straggling hedge-rows, with the whispering wind and the music of the river on the shallows, with the silence and immensity of night. Had he done so, he would have spoken a language which his father did not and could not understand. And if he had gone a step farther and told him that he felt drawn57 to those who plodded58 up and down the wide stubbles, who cut and bound the thick hedge-rows, who wrought59 hand in hand with Nature day in and day out, whose lives were spent in an unending struggle with the soil until at last they sank and mingled60 with it--if he had told him that he felt his kinship with those humble61 folk who had gone before him, he would only have mystified him, only have angered him the more.
Yet so it was. And he could not change himself.
He went slowly to his supper and to Betty, owning defeat; acknowledging his father's strength of purpose, acknowledging his father's right, yet vexed62 at his own impotence. Life pulsed strongly within him. He longed to do something. He longed to battle, the wind in his teeth and the rain in his face, with some toil44, some labor47 that would try his strength and task his muscles, and send him home at sunset weary and satisfied. Instead he saw before him an endless succession of days spent with his head in a ledger and his heels on the bar of his stool, while the sun shone in at the windows of the bank and the flies buzzed sleepily about him; days arid63 and tedious, shared with no companion more interesting than Rodd, who, excellent fellow, was not amusing, or more congenial than Bourdillon, who patronized him when he was not using him. And in future he would have to be more punctual, more regular, more assiduous! It was a dreary64 prospect65.
He ate his supper in morose66 silence until Betty, who had been quick to read the upshot of the interview in his face, came behind him and ruffled67 his hair. "Good boy!" she whispered, leaning over him. "His days shall be long in the land!"
"I wish to heaven," he answered, "they were in the land! I am sure they will be long enough in the bank!" But after that he recovered his temper.
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1
clement
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| adj.仁慈的；温和的 | |
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unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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cadenced
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| adj.音调整齐的，有节奏的 | |
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wrack
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| v.折磨；n.海草 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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dominion
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| n.统治，管辖，支配权；领土，版图 | |
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7
tract
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| n.传单，小册子，大片(土地或森林) | |
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8
covert
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| adj.隐藏的；暗地里的 | |
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9
blurred
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| v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离 | |
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10
recurred
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| 再发生，复发( recur的过去式和过去分词 )； 治愈 | |
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persistence
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| n.坚持，持续，存留 | |
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fens
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| n.（尤指英格兰东部的）沼泽地带( fen的名词复数 ) | |
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13
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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rustic
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| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
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15
injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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glade
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| n.林间空地，一片表面有草的沼泽低地 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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trout
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| n.鳟鱼；鲑鱼(属) | |
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tickle
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| v.搔痒，胳肢；使高兴；发痒；n.搔痒，发痒 | |
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liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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inefficient
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| adj.效率低的，无效的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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23
monopolized
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| v.垄断( monopolize的过去式和过去分词 )；独占；专卖；专营 | |
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24
irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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25
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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attainment
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| n.达到，到达；［常pl.］成就，造诣 | |
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eminence
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| n.卓越，显赫；高地，高处；名家 | |
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28
wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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brawling
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| n.争吵，喧嚷 | |
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apprentice
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| n.学徒，徒弟 | |
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32
apprentices
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| 学徒，徒弟( apprentice的名词复数 ) | |
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33
shutters
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| 百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门 | |
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34
ledgers
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| n.分类账( ledger的名词复数 ) | |
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35
ledger
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| n.总帐，分类帐；帐簿 | |
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36
longingly
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| adv. 渴望地 热望地 | |
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sagely
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| adv. 贤能地，贤明地 | |
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38
truant
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| n.懒惰鬼，旷课者；adj.偷懒的，旷课的，游荡的；v.偷懒，旷课 | |
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39
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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40
industrious
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| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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41
partnership
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| n.合作关系，伙伴关系 | |
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42
pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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43
toiled
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的过去式和过去分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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44
toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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45
condescend
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| v.俯就，屈尊；堕落，丢丑 | |
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46
laborer
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| n.劳动者，劳工 | |
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47
labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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48
mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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49
kindled
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| （使某物）燃烧，着火( kindle的过去式和过去分词 )； 激起（感情等）； 发亮，放光 | |
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50
thumped
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| v.重击， （指心脏）急速跳动( thump的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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51
preposterous
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| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
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52
sullenly
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| 不高兴地，绷着脸，忧郁地 | |
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53
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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54
peddle
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| vt.(沿街)叫卖，兜售；宣传，散播 | |
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55
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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56
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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57
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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58
plodded
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| v.沉重缓慢地走（路）( plod的过去式和过去分词 )；努力从事；沉闷地苦干；缓慢进行（尤指艰难枯燥的工作） | |
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wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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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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61
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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62
vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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arid
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| adj.干旱的；(土地)贫瘠的 | |
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dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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66
morose
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| adj.脾气坏的，不高兴的 | |
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67
ruffled
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| adj. 有褶饰边的, 起皱的 动词ruffle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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