It happened that the ship, gaining her port, was moored1 to the dock on a Fourth of July; and half an hour after landing, hustled2 by the riotous3 crowd near Faneuil Hall, the old man narrowly escaped being run over by a patriotic4 triumphal car in the procession, flying a broidered banner, inscribed5 with gilt6 letters:
"BUNKER-HILL
1775.
GLORY TO THE HEROES THAT FOUGHT!"
It was on Copps' Hill, within the city bounds, one of the enemy's positions during the fight, that our wanderer found his best repose7 that day. Sitting down here on a mound8 in the graveyard9, he looked off across Charles River towards the battle-ground, whose incipient10 monument, at that period, was hard to see, as a struggling sprig of corn in a chilly11 spring. Upon those heights, fifty years before, his now feeble hands had wielded12 both ends of the musket13. There too he had received that slit14 upon the chest, which afterwards, in the affair with the Serapis, being traversed by a cutlass wound, made him now the bescarred bearer of a cross.
For a long time he sat mute, gazing blankly about him. The sultry July day was waning15. His son sought to cheer him a little ere rising to return to the lodging16 for the present assigned them by the ship-captain. "Nay17," replied the old man, "I shall get no fitter rest than here by the mounds18."
But from this true "Potter's Field," the boy at length drew him away; and encouraged next morning by a voluntary purse made up among the reassembled passengers, father and son started by stage for the country of the Housatonie. But the exile's presence in these old mountain townships proved less a return than a resurrection. At first, none knew him, nor could recall having heard of him. Ere long it was found, that more than thirty years previous, the last known survivor19 of his family in that region, a bachelor, following the example of three-fourths of his neighbors, had sold out and removed to a distant country in the west; where exactly, none could say.
He sought to get a glimpse of his father's homestead. But it had been burnt down long ago. Accompanied by his son, dim-eyed and dim-hearted, he next went to find the site. But the roads had years before been changed. The old road was now browsed20 over by sheep; the new one ran straight through what had formerly21 been orchards22. But new orchards, planted from other suckers, and in time grafted23, throve on sunny slopes near by, where blackberries had once been picked by the bushel. At length he came to a field waving with buckwheat. It seemed one of those fields which himself had often reaped. But it turned out, upon inquiry24, that but three summers since a walnut25 grove26 had stood there. Then he vaguely27 remembered that his father had sometimes talked of planting such a grove, to defend the neighboring fields against the cold north wind; yet where precisely28 that grove was to have been, his shattered mind could not recall. But it seemed not unlikely that during his long exile, the walnut grove had been planted and harvested, as well as the annual crops preceding and succeeding it, on the very same soil.
Ere long, on the mountain side, he passed into an ancient natural wood, which seemed some way familiar, and midway in it, paused to contemplate29 a strange, mouldy pile, resting at one end against a sturdy beech30. Though wherever touched by his staff, however lightly, this pile would crumble31, yet here and there, even in powder, it preserved the exact look, each irregularly defined line, of what it had originally been—namely, a half-cord of stout32 hemlock33 (one of the woods least affected34 by exposure to the air), in a foregoing generation chopped and stacked up on the spot, against sledging-time, but, as sometimes happens in such cases, by subsequent oversight35, abandoned to oblivious36 decay—type now, as it stood there, of forever arrested intentions, and a long life still rotting in early mishap37.
"Do I dream?" mused38 the bewildered old man, "or what is this vision that comes to me of a cold, cloudy morning, long, long ago, and I heaving yon elbowed log against the beech, then a sapling? Nay, nay, I cannot be so old."
Blindly ranging to and fro, they next saw a man ploughing. Advancing slowly, the wanderer met him by a little heap of ruinous burnt masonry41, like a tumbled chimney, what seemed the jams of the fire- place, now aridly42 stuck over here and there, with thin, clinging, round, prohibitory mosses43, like executors' wafers. Just as the oxen were bid stand, the stranger's plough was hitched44 over sideways, by sudden contact with some sunken stone at the ruin's base.
"There, this is the twentieth year my plough has struck this old hearthstone. Ah, old man,—sultry day, this."
"Whose house stood here, friend?" said the wanderer, touching46 the half-buried hearth45 with his staff, where a fresh furrow47 overlapped48 it.
"Don't know; forget the name; gone West, though, I believe. You know 'em?"
But the wanderer made no response; his eye was now fixed49 on a curious natural bend or wave in one of the bemossed stone jambs.
"What are you looking at so, father?"
"'Father!' Here," raking with his staff, "my father would sit, and here, my mother, and here I, little infant, would totter50 between, even as now, once again, on the very same spot, but in the unroofed air, I do. The ends meet. Plough away, friend."
Best followed now is this life, by hurrying, like itself, to a close.
Few things remain.
He was repulsed51 in efforts after a pension by certain caprices of law. His scars proved his only medals. He dictated52 a little book, the record of his fortunes. But long ago it faded out of print— himself out of being—his name out of memory. He died the same day that the oldest oak on his native hills was blown down.
THE END.
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1
moored
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| adj. 系泊的 动词moor的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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2
hustled
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| 催促（hustle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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3
riotous
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| adj.骚乱的；狂欢的 | |
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4
patriotic
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| adj.爱国的，有爱国心的 | |
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5
inscribed
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| v.写，刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；内接 | |
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6
gilt
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| adj.镀金的；n.金边证券 | |
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7
repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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8
mound
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| n.土墩，堤，小山；v.筑堤，用土堆防卫 | |
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9
graveyard
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| n.坟场 | |
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10
incipient
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| adj.起初的，发端的，初期的 | |
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11
chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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12
wielded
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| 手持着使用（武器、工具等）( wield的过去式和过去分词 )； 具有； 运用（权力）； 施加（影响） | |
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13
musket
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| n.滑膛枪 | |
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14
slit
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| n.狭长的切口；裂缝；vt.切开，撕裂 | |
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15
waning
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| adj.（月亮）渐亏的，逐渐减弱或变小的n.月亏v.衰落( wane的现在分词 )；（月）亏；变小；变暗淡 | |
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16
lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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17
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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18
mounds
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| 土堆，土丘( mound的名词复数 )； 一大堆 | |
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19
survivor
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| n.生存者，残存者，幸存者 | |
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20
browsed
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| v.吃草( browse的过去式和过去分词 )；随意翻阅；（在商店里）随便看看；（在计算机上）浏览信息 | |
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21
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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orchards
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| （通常指围起来的）果园( orchard的名词复数 ) | |
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23
grafted
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| 移植( graft的过去式和过去分词 )； 嫁接； 使（思想、制度等）成为（…的一部份）； 植根 | |
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24
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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25
walnut
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| n.胡桃，胡桃木，胡桃色，茶色 | |
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26
grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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27
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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28
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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29
contemplate
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| vt.盘算，计议；周密考虑；注视，凝视 | |
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30
beech
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| n.山毛榉；adj.山毛榉的 | |
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31
crumble
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| vi.碎裂，崩溃；vt.弄碎，摧毁 | |
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33
hemlock
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| n.毒胡萝卜，铁杉 | |
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34
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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35
oversight
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| n.勘漏，失察，疏忽 | |
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36
oblivious
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| adj.易忘的，遗忘的，忘却的，健忘的 | |
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37
mishap
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| n.不幸的事，不幸；灾祸 | |
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38
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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39
dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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40
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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41
masonry
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| n.砖土建筑；砖石 | |
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42
aridly
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| adv.arid（干燥的，干旱的）的变形 | |
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43
mosses
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| n. 藓类, 苔藓植物 名词moss的复数形式 | |
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44
hitched
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| （免费）搭乘他人之车( hitch的过去式和过去分词 )； 搭便车； 攀上； 跃上 | |
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45
hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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46
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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47
furrow
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| n.沟；垄沟；轨迹；车辙；皱纹 | |
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48
overlapped
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| _adj.重叠的v.部分重叠( overlap的过去式和过去分词 )；（物体）部份重叠；交叠；（时间上）部份重叠 | |
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49
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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50
totter
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| v.蹒跚， 摇摇欲坠；n.蹒跚的步子 | |
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51
repulsed
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| v.击退( repulse的过去式和过去分词 )；驳斥；拒绝 | |
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52
dictated
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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