Yet Destiny chooses her own disguises. A sick baby had kept John Ogilvie on a sleepless15 vigil in the backwoods for the past fifty hours; and it was not the view from the crossroads, nor the doctor's habit of drawing rein16 to look out upon it for a moment or two, that made old Rosy stop there on this spring afternoon. It was nothing more than a particularly luscious17 patch of green by the roadside, and the consciousness of her long climb having earned such a reward. Rosy was an animal of experience and judgment18, well accustomed to the ways of her master, knowing as well as he the houses where he stopped, capable of taking him home unguided from anywhere, as she would take him home this afternoon in her own good time. She had come thus far unguided; for when the sick child's even breathing told the success of his efforts, John Ogilvie had almost stumbled out of the cabin and into his buggy, to fall asleep before he could do more than say,
"Home, old lady!"
The open place where the roads crossed was a famous "look-out." Following its own level, the eye of an observer first beheld20 the tops of other mountains at all points of the horizon save one; at this season the great masses were all misty21 green, except for occasional patches of the dark of pines, or the white gleam of dogwood, or rusty22 cleared spaces of pastures; the highroad, on its way to the nearer valley, at first dropped too abruptly23 to be seen, but reappeared later as a pale white filament24 gleaming here and there through the trees or winding7 past farmhouses25 or fields tenderly green with young wheat. Through the gap where the mountains broke apart a great plain stretched, a plain once drenched26 with the life of men, now gleaming in the rays of a sun already sunk too low to reach over the nearer mountains. All human habitations lay so far below the crossroads that no sound of man's activities ever arose to its height; of wild life there was sound enough, to ears attuned27 to it—mostly chattering28 of woodchucks and song of birds, enriched at this season with the melody of passing voyagers from the south. Yet none of these would have aroused the tired sleeper29 in the buggy. A far different sound came up through the forest, and Ogilvie was awake on the instant, with the complete consciousness of the man accustomed to sudden calls.
He looked down at the purpling valley, across through the gap to the gleaming plain, and laughed.
"Well, Rosy, couldn't you take me home till I admired the view?" he asked; and by way of answer the old white mare30 turned her head to look at him, her mouth comfortably filled with young grass. The doctor laughed again.
"Oh, I see!" he said. "A case of afternoon tea, was it, and not of admiring the view? Well, let's get along home now."
He looked across the valley to the mountain westward31 of the gap; its form was that of a large crouching32 panther, and high up on its shoulder a light twinkled against the shadow.
"Come along! Mother Cary's already lighted her lamp!" the doctor said. "There's bed ahead of us, old girl, bed for me and oats for you! Bed, Rosy! Think of it! And may Heaven grant good health to all our friends this night!"
He drew up the reins33 as he spoke34, and with a farewell reach at a luscious maple35 leaf Rosy turned into the pike.
But again there echoed through the woods the unaccustomed sound that had aroused the doctor. This time it was too near to be mistaken; not even White Rosy's calm could ignore it.
"Hel—lo!" said Ogilvie. "A big horn and a noiseless car! Pretty early in the season for those fellows. Make way for your betters, White Rosy!"
He drew well into the green of the roadside; for, highway and turnpike though it was, the road was narrow enough in this unfrequented part to make passing a matter of calculation. The driver of the automobile36 had evidently discovered that for himself, for he was climbing slowly and carefully, sounding his horn as frequently as if driving through a village. As the car came out upon the cleared space of the crossroads, Ogilvie turned, with the frank interest of the country dweller37 in the passer-by, and with the countryman's etiquette38 of the road waved to its solitary39 occupant.
The driver of the car returned the greeting, drew slowly forward, and stopped beside the doctor's old buggy. Ogilvie was not so much of a countryman as not to recognize in the machine's powerful outlines the costly40 French racer. But that was only another of Destiny's disguises. The two men met on the mountain-top, took cognizance of each other in that high solitude41 where the things of the world lay below them; and, face to face, each measured the other and insensibly recognized his worth of character. Both knew men; both had been trained to the necessity of forming quick judgments42. Before they had exchanged a word they were sure of each other; before the hour was out their friendship was as certain as if it were years old.
The occupant of the car had a smile which was apt to be grimly humorous, as Ogilvie noted43 in the moment before he spoke.
"I'm lost!" the stranger said, as if admitting a joke on himself. "I've come around in a circle twice, looking for a place called Bluemont Summit, and I've sounded my horn right along, hoping somebody would run out to look, somebody I could ask my way of. But you're the first person I've seen this afternoon!"
Ogilvie laughed aloud. "No wonder, if you've been blowing your horn all the way," he said. "If you had kept still, you might have come on someone unawares; but nobody around here would run out to look at you in the open."
"Is there anyone to run?" the other asked, again with the grim twist of his lips.
"Yes, but they are shy, and too proud to seem curious. There may be eyes on us now, peeping through those woods," said Ogilvie. "But you're not far from the Summit, not far, that is, with that car of yours. This is the Battlesburg Road, and you're ten miles or so to the northwest of Bluemont."
The driver of the car had stepped down into the road to do something to his lamps; it was already so dark that their gleam shot far ahead. White Rosy eyed them dubiously44.
"Only ten miles! Jove, I'm glad of that! Mountain air does whet45 a man's appetite! The High Court is the best hotel, isn't it?"
Ogilvie looked at the other for a moment or two before answering: looked, indeed, until the stranger glanced questioningly up at him, as if wondering at the delay. Then he said:
"My name's Ogilvie, and I'm the doctor around here. I wish you'd let me prescribe a hot meal at my house for you. It's this side of the Summit."
The other man's smile had lost its grimness. "That's mighty46 good of you," he said. "And you won't have to coat that dose with sugar!"
"I wonder," the doctor went on, "if you'd play host first, and give me a lift? I'm as hungry as you are, and White Rosy here likes to choose her own gait. If you'll take me home, we'll be at my house in one tenth the time, and Rosy can find her way alone. She's done it many a time."
The other man looked at the old mare, and as he answered stroked her nose and gave her shoulder a friendly smack47 or two.
"Certainly I'll give you a lift," he said. "Good of you to suggest it. This old lady looks as if she knew as much as most of us. I hope you won't hurt her feelings by deserting her!"
Ogilvie had come down to the road, and already deposited his black bags and his old brown cap in the automobile; now he was busy unbuckling Rosy's reins.
"Not a bit of it," he said. "She'll come home all the quicker for not having me on her mind! It's home and oats, Rosy, oats, remember," he said as he got up into the automobile with the reins in his hand.
"My name is Flood—Benson Flood, and I've been down in Virginia buying a little old farm for the shooting they tell me the neighborhood's good for. I never use road maps—like to discover things for myself. That's how I got lost to-day."
Ogilvie, leaning back, could inspect the face of the man beside him. Involuntarily, his expression had slightly changed at the name. Benson Flood was as well known to readers of the daily papers as Hecla or Klondike or Standard Oil, and stood for about the same thing—wealth, spectacular wealth. The name had heretofore interested John Ogilvie neither more nor less than any of the others; now, sitting beside its possessor, it carried a different and more personal significance. It seemed almost grotesquely48 unreal that an actual living person, a man to be met at a mountain crossroads, could calmly introduce himself as Benson Flood, and be as frankly49 and comfortably hungry as anyone else. These thoughts, however, took but an instant.
"Well, you've seen a bit of country, anyway," he replied, quite as if his mind were not busy on its separate line of speculation50. Flood's face was not what he would have expected to find it. It had not lost its lean ruggedness51, nor put on those fleshly signs of indulgence that are so apt to follow the early acquisition of great wealth. The well-cut mouth was very firm, and there was something of the idealist, the questioner, the seeker of high things, about the eyes and brow that Ogilvie found puzzling and interesting.
"Yes; and what a view there was from that crossroads up there! I wish I could transplant my Virginia farm to that mountain-top.
"A good many men have seen that view; the army retreated from Battlesburg along this old pike, you know."
"Ah, Battlesburg! I'm from the West, where history is not much more than we fellows have made it; it fairly stirs my blood to come across a place like Battlesburg, with its monuments, and its memories, and where Lincoln spoke, and all that. I'm going to run up there to-morrow, if the hotel people can set me on my way early enough."
"I'm afraid you'll have to trust me to do that," said Ogilvie. "There's my house, there where the light's in the front porch; and—I hope you won't think I've kidnapped you, but I'm going to keep you over night. The hotels aren't open at this time of year."
As the car stopped before the doctor's cottage, Flood turned to his host. "Oh, I say! That's mighty good of you! Won't I put you out? Isn't there some place I can go to?"
But Ogilvie laughed. "There is not, but I wouldn't tell you if there was! Why, Mr. Flood, I haven't talked to anyone from beyond the mountains for six months!"
点击收听单词发音
1 coaxed | |
v.哄,用好话劝说( coax的过去式和过去分词 );巧言骗取;哄劝,劝诱 | |
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2 petals | |
n.花瓣( petal的名词复数 ) | |
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3 gilding | |
n.贴金箔,镀金 | |
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4 artery | |
n.干线,要道;动脉 | |
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5 trophies | |
n.(为竞赛获胜者颁发的)奖品( trophy的名词复数 );奖杯;(尤指狩猎或战争中获得的)纪念品;(用于比赛或赛跑名称)奖 | |
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6 windings | |
(道路、河流等)蜿蜒的,弯曲的( winding的名词复数 ); 缠绕( wind的现在分词 ); 卷绕; 转动(把手) | |
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7 winding | |
n.绕,缠,绕组,线圈 | |
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8 drawn | |
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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9 rosy | |
adj.美好的,乐观的,玫瑰色的 | |
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10 northward | |
adv.向北;n.北方的地区 | |
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11 torpor | |
n.迟钝;麻木;(动物的)冬眠 | |
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12 stunned | |
adj. 震惊的,惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
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13 warp | |
vt.弄歪,使翘曲,使不正常,歪曲,使有偏见 | |
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14 fabric | |
n.织物,织品,布;构造,结构,组织 | |
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15 sleepless | |
adj.不睡眠的,睡不著的,不休息的 | |
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16 rein | |
n.疆绳,统治,支配;vt.以僵绳控制,统治 | |
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17 luscious | |
adj.美味的;芬芳的;肉感的,引与性欲的 | |
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18 judgment | |
n.审判;判断力,识别力,看法,意见 | |
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19 ambled | |
v.(马)缓行( amble的过去式和过去分词 );从容地走,漫步 | |
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20 beheld | |
v.看,注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 );瞧;看呀;(叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现)哎哟 | |
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21 misty | |
adj.雾蒙蒙的,有雾的 | |
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22 rusty | |
adj.生锈的;锈色的;荒废了的 | |
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23 abruptly | |
adv.突然地,出其不意地 | |
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24 filament | |
n.细丝;长丝;灯丝 | |
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25 farmhouses | |
n.农舍,农场的主要住房( farmhouse的名词复数 ) | |
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26 drenched | |
adj.湿透的;充满的v.使湿透( drench的过去式和过去分词 );在某人(某物)上大量使用(某液体) | |
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27 attuned | |
v.使协调( attune的过去式和过去分词 );调音 | |
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28 chattering | |
n. (机器振动发出的)咔嗒声,(鸟等)鸣,啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的,啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
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29 sleeper | |
n.睡眠者,卧车,卧铺 | |
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30 mare | |
n.母马,母驴 | |
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31 westward | |
n.西方,西部;adj.西方的,向西的;adv.向西 | |
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32 crouching | |
v.屈膝,蹲伏( crouch的现在分词 ) | |
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33 reins | |
感情,激情; 缰( rein的名词复数 ); 控制手段; 掌管; (成人带着幼儿走路以防其走失时用的)保护带 | |
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34 spoke | |
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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35 maple | |
n.槭树,枫树,槭木 | |
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36 automobile | |
n.汽车,机动车 | |
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37 dweller | |
n.居住者,住客 | |
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38 etiquette | |
n.礼仪,礼节;规矩 | |
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39 solitary | |
adj.孤独的,独立的,荒凉的;n.隐士 | |
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40 costly | |
adj.昂贵的,价值高的,豪华的 | |
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41 solitude | |
n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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42 judgments | |
判断( judgment的名词复数 ); 鉴定; 评价; 审判 | |
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43 noted | |
adj.著名的,知名的 | |
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44 dubiously | |
adv.可疑地,怀疑地 | |
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45 whet | |
v.磨快,刺激 | |
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46 mighty | |
adj.强有力的;巨大的 | |
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47 smack | |
vt.拍,打,掴;咂嘴;vi.含有…意味;n.拍 | |
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48 grotesquely | |
adv. 奇异地,荒诞地 | |
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49 frankly | |
adv.坦白地,直率地;坦率地说 | |
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50 speculation | |
n.思索,沉思;猜测;投机 | |
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51 ruggedness | |
险峻,粗野; 耐久性; 坚固性 | |
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