Such was the sky and season in which Egremont emerged on this scene a few days after the incidents recorded in our last chapter. He had been fishing in the park of Mowbray, and had followed the rivulet9 through many windings10 until, quitting the enclosed domain11 it had forced its way through some craggy underwood at the bottom of the hilly moors12 we have noticed, and finally entering the plain, lost itself in the waters of the greater stream.
Good sport had not awaited Egremont. Truth to say, his rod had played in a very careless hand. He had taken it, though an adept13 in the craft when in the mood, rather as an excuse to be alone, than a means to be amused. There are seasons in life when solitude14 is a necessity; and such a one had now descended15 on the spirit of the brother of Lord Marney.
The form of Sybil Gerard was stamped upon his brain. It blended with all thoughts; it haunted every object. Who was this girl, unlike all women whom he had yet encountered, who spoke17 with such sweet seriousness of things of such vast import, but which had never crossed his mind, and with a kind of mournful majesty18 bewailed the degradation19 of her race? The daughter of the lowly, yet proud of her birth. Not a noble lady in the land who could boast a mien20 more complete, and none of them thus gifted, who possessed21 withal the fascinating simplicity22 that pervaded23 every gesture and accent of the daughter of Gerard.
Yes! the daughter of Gerard; the daughter of a workman at a manufactory. It had not been difficult, after the departure of Sybil, to extract this information from the garrulous24 wife of the weaver25. And that father,—he was not unknown to Egremont. His proud form and generous countenance26 were still fresh in the mind’s eye of our friend. Not less so his thoughtful speech; full of knowledge and meditation27 and earnest feeling! How much that he had spoken still echoed in the heart, and rung in the brooding ear of Egremont. And his friend, too, that pale man with those glittering eyes, who without affectation, without pedantry28, with artlessness on the contrary and a degree of earnest singleness, had glanced like a master of philosophy at the loftiest principles of political science,—was he too a workman? And are these then THE PEOPLE? If so, thought Egremont, would that I lived more among them! Compared with their converse29, the tattle of our saloons has in it something humiliating. It is not merely that it is deficient30 in warmth, and depth, and breadth; that it is always discussing persons instead of principles, and cloaking its want of thought in mimetic dogmas and its want of feeling in superficial raillery; it is not merely that it has neither imagination, nor fancy, nor sentiment, nor feeling, nor knowledge to recommend it; but it appears to me, even as regards manner and expression, inferior in refinement31 and phraseology; in short, trivial, uninteresting, stupid, really vulgar.
It seemed to Egremont that, from the day he met these persons in the Abbey ruins, the horizon of his experience had insensibly expanded; more than that, there were streaks32 of light breaking in the distance, which already gave a new aspect to much that was known, and which perhaps was ultimately destined33 to reveal much that was now utterly34 obscure. He could not resist the conviction that from the time in question, his sympathies had become more lively and more extended; that a masculine impulse had been given to his mind; that he was inclined to view public questions in a tone very different to that in which he had surveyed them a few weeks back, when on the hustings35 of his borough36.
Revolving37 these things, he emerged, as we have stated, into the plain of the Mowe, and guiding his path by the course of the river, he arrived at the bridge which a fancy tempted38 him to cross. In its centre, was a man gazing on the waters below and leaning over the parapet. His footstep roused the loiterer, who looked round; and Egremont saw that it was Walter Gerard.
Gerard returned his salute39, and said, “Early hours on Saturday afternoon make us all saunterers;” and then, as their way was the same, they walked on together. It seemed that Gerard’s cottage was near at hand, and having inquired after Egremont’s sport, and receiving for a reply a present of a brace40 of trout41,—the only one, by the bye, that was in Egremont’s basket,—he could scarcely do less than invite his companion to rest himself.
“There is my home,” said Gerard, pointing to a cottage recently built, and in a pleasing style. Its materials were of a fawn-coloured stone, common in the Mowbray quarries42. A scarlet43 creeper clustered round one side of its ample porch; its windows were large, mullioned, and neatly44 latticed; it stood in the midst of a garden of no mean dimensions but every bed and nook of which teemed45 with cultivation46; flowers and vegetables both abounded47, while an orchard48 rich with promise of many fruits; ripe pears and famous pippins of the north and plums of every shape and hue3; screened the dwelling49 from that wind against which the woods that formed its back-ground were no protection.
“I’ll be honest enough to own I have no claim to the credit,” said Gerard. “I am but a lazy chiel.”
They entered the cottage, where a hale old woman greeted them.
“She is too old to be my wife, and too young to be my mother,” said Gerard smiling; “but she is a good creature, and has looked after me many a long day. Come, dame,” he said, “thou’lt bring us a cup of tea; ‘tis a good evening beverage,” he added, turning to Egremont. “and what I ever take at this time. And if you care to light a pipe, you will find a companion.”
“I have renounced51 tobacco,” said Egremont; “tobacco is the tomb of love,” and they entered a neatly-furnished chamber52, that had that habitable look which the best room of a farmhouse53 too often wants. Instead of the cast-off furniture of other establishments, at the same time dingy54 and tawdry, mock rosewood chairs and tarnished55 mahogany tables, there was an oaken table, some cottage chairs made of beech56 wood, and a Dutch clock. But what surprised Egremont was the appearance of several shelves well lined with volumes. Their contents too on closer inspection57 were very remarkable58. They indicated a student of a high order. Egremont read the titles of works which he only knew by fame, but which treated of the loftiest and most subtle questions of social and political philosophy. As he was throwing his eye over them, his companion said, “Ah! I see you think me as great a scholar as I am a gardener: but with as little justice; these hooks are not mine.”
“To whomsoever they belong,” said Egremont, “if we are to judge from his collection, he has a tolerably strong head.”
“Ay, ay,” said Gerard, “the world will hear of him yet, though he was only a workman, and the son of a workman. He has not been at your schools and your colleges, but he can write his mother tongue, as Shakespeare and Cobbett wrote it; and you must do that, if you wish to influence the people.”
“And might I ask his name,” said Egremont.
“Stephen Morley, my friend.”
“The person I saw with you at Marney Abbey?”
“The same.”
“And he lives with you?”
“Why, we kept house together, if you could call it so. Stephen does not give much trouble in that way. He only drinks water and only eats herbs and fruits. He is the gardener,” added Gerard, smiling. “I don’t know how we shall fare when he leaves me.”
“And is he going to leave you?”
“Why in a manner he has gone. He has taken a cottage about a quarter of a mile up the dale; and only left his books here, because he is going into —shire in a day or two, on some business, that may be will take him a week or so. The books are safer here you see for the present, for Stephen lives alone, and is a good deal away, for he edits a paper at Mowbray, and that must be looked after. He is to be my gardener still. I promised him that. Well done, dame,” said Gerard, as the old woman entered; “I hope for the honour of the house a good brew59. Now comrade sit down: it will do you good after your long stroll. You should eat your own trout if you would wait?”
“By no means. You will miss your friend, I should think?”
“We shall see a good deal of him, I doubt not, what with the garden and neighbourhood and so on; besides, in a manner, he is master of his own time. His work is not like ours; and though the pull on the brain is sometimes great, I have often wished I had a talent that way. It’s a drear life to do the same thing every day at the same hour. But I never could express my ideas except with my tongue; and there I feel tolerably at home.”
“It will be a pity to see this room without these books,” said Egremont, encouraging conversation on domestic subjects.
“So it will,” said Gerard. “I have got very few of my own. But my daughter will be able to fill the shelves in time, I warrant.”
“Your daughter—she is coming to live with you?”
“Yes; that is the reason why Stephen quits us. He only remained here until Sybil could keep my house, and that happy day is at hand.”
“That is a great compensation for the loss of your friend,” said Egremont.
“And yet she talks of flitting,” said Gerard, in a rather melancholy60 tone. “She hankers after the cloister61. She has passed a still, sweet life in the convent here; the Superior is the sister of my employer and a very saint on earth; and Sybil knows nothing of the real world except its sufferings. No matter,” he added more cheerfully; “I would not have her take the veil rashly, but if I lose her it may be for the best. For the married life of a woman of our class in the present condition of our country is a lease of woe,” he added shaking his head, “slaves, and the slaves of slaves? Even woman’s spirit cannot stand against it; and it can bear against more than we can, master.”
“Your daughter is not made for the common cares of life,” said Egremont.
“We’ll not talk of them,” said Gerard. “Sybil has an English heart, and that’s not easily broken. And you, comrade, you are a traveller in these parts, eh?”
“A kind of traveller; something in the way of your friend Morley—connected with the press.”
“Indeed! a reporter, eh? I thought you had something about you a little more knowing than we provincials62.”
“Yes; a reporter; they want information in London as to the real state of the country, and this time of the year, Parliament not sitting—Ah; I understand, a flying commission and a summer tour. Well, I often wish I were a penman; but I never could do it. I’ll read any day as long as you like, but that writing, I could never manage. My friend Morley is a powerful hand at it. His journal circulates a good deal about here; and if as I often tell him he would only sink his high-flying philosophy and stick to old English politics, he might make a property of it. You’ll like to know him?”
“Much.”
“And what first took you to the press, if I may ask!”
“Why—my father was a gentleman—“, said Egremont in a hesitating tone, “and I was a younger son.”
“Ah!” said Gerard, “that is as bad as being a woman.”
“I had no patrimony,” continued Egremont, “and I was obliged to work; I had no head I believe for the law; the church was not exactly in my way; and as for the army, how was I to advance without money or connexions! I had had some education, and so I thought I would turn it to account.”
“Wisely done! you are one of the working classes, and will enlist63 I hope in the great struggle against the drones. The natural friends of the people are younger sons, though they are generally enlisted64 against us. The more fools they; to devote their energies to the maintenance of a system which is founded on selfishness and which leads to fraud; and of which they are the first victims. But every man thinks he will be an exception.”
“And yet,” said Egremont, “a great family rooted in the land, has been deemed to be an element of political strength.”
“I’ll tell you what,” said Gerard, “there is a great family in this country and rooted in it, of which we have heard much less than they deserved, but of which I suspect we shall hear very soon enough to make us all think a bit.”
“In this county?”
“Ay; in this county and every other one; I mean the PEOPLE.”
“Ah!” said Egremont, “that family has existed for a long time.”
“But it has taken to increase rapidly of late, my friend—how may I call you?”
“They call me, Franklin.”
“A good English name of a good English class that has disappeared. Well, Mr Franklin, be sure of this, that the Population Returns of this country are very instructive reading.”
“I can conceive so.”
“I became a man when the bad times were beginning,” said Gerard; “I have passed through many doleful years. I was a Franklin’s son myself, and we had lived on this island at least no worse for a longer time than I care to recollect65 as little as what I am now. But that’s nothing; I am not thinking of myself. I am prosperous in a fashion; it is the serfs I live among of whom I am thinking. Well, I have heard, in the course of years, of some specifics for this constant degradation of the people; some thing or some person that was to put all right; and for my part, I was not unready to support any proposal or follow any leader. There was reform, and there was paper money, and no machinery66, and a thousand other remedies; and there were demagogues of all kinds, some as had as myself, and some with blood in their veins67 almost as costly68 as flows in those of our great neighbour here. Earl de Mowbray, and I have always heard that was very choice: but I will frankly69 own to you, I never had much faith in any of these proposals or proposers; but they were a change, and that is something. But I have been persuaded of late that there is something going on in this country of more efficacy; a remedial power, as I believe, and irresistible70; but whether remedial or not, at any rate a power that will mar16 all or cure all. You apprehend71 me? I speak of the annual arrival of more than three hundred thousand strangers in this island. How will you feed them? How will you clothe them? How will you house them? They have given up butcher’s meat; must they give up bread? And as for raiment and shelter, the rags of the kingdom are exhausted72 and your sinks and cellars already swarm73 like rabbit warrens.
“Awful,” said Gerard; “‘tis the most solemn thing since the deluge75. What kingdom can stand against it? Why go to your history—you’re a scholar,—and see the fall of the great Roman empire—what was that? Every now and then, there came two or three hundred thousand strangers out of the forests and crossed the mountains and rivers. They come to us every year and in greater numbers. What are your invasions of the barbarous nations, your Goths and Visigoths, your Lombards and Huns, to our Population Returns!”
END OF THE SECOND BOOK
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picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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hues
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| 色彩( hue的名词复数 )； 色调； 信仰； 观点 | |
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hue
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| n.色度；色调；样子 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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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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serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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rivulet
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| n.小溪，小河 | |
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windings
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| （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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domain
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| n.(活动等)领域，范围；领地，势力范围 | |
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moors
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| v.停泊，系泊（船只）( moor的第三人称单数 ) | |
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adept
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| adj.老练的，精通的 | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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mar
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| vt.破坏，毁坏，弄糟 | |
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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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majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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degradation
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| n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变 | |
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mien
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| n.风采；态度 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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pervaded
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| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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garrulous
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| adj.唠叨的，多话的 | |
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weaver
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| n.织布工；编织者 | |
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countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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meditation
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| n.熟虑，（尤指宗教的）默想，沉思，（pl.）冥想录 | |
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pedantry
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| n.迂腐，卖弄学问 | |
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converse
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| vi.谈话，谈天，闲聊；adv.相反的，相反 | |
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deficient
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| adj.不足的，不充份的，有缺陷的 | |
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refinement
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| n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼 | |
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streaks
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| n.（与周围有所不同的）条纹( streak的名词复数 )；（通常指不好的）特征（倾向）；（不断经历成功或失败的）一段时期v.快速移动( streak的第三人称单数 )；使布满条纹 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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hustings
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| n.竞选活动 | |
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borough
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| n.享有自治权的市镇；(英)自治市镇 | |
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revolving
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| adj.旋转的，轮转式的；循环的v.（使）旋转( revolve的现在分词 )；细想 | |
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tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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salute
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| vi.行礼，致意，问候，放礼炮；vt.向…致意，迎接，赞扬；n.招呼，敬礼，礼炮 | |
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brace
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| n. 支柱,曲柄,大括号; v. 绷紧,顶住,(为困难或坏事)做准备 | |
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trout
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| n.鳟鱼；鲑鱼(属) | |
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quarries
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| n.（采）石场( quarry的名词复数 )；猎物（指鸟，兽等）；方形石；（格窗等的）方形玻璃v.从采石场采得( quarry的第三人称单数 )；从（书本等中）努力发掘（资料等）；在采石场采石 | |
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scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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teemed
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| v.充满( teem的过去式和过去分词 )；到处都是；（指水、雨等）暴降；倾注 | |
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cultivation
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| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
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abounded
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| v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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orchard
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| n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场 | |
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dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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lodged
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| v.存放( lodge的过去式和过去分词 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属 | |
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renounced
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| v.声明放弃( renounce的过去式和过去分词 )；宣布放弃；宣布与…决裂；宣布摒弃 | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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farmhouse
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| n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房） | |
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dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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tarnished
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| （通常指金属）（使）失去光泽，（使）变灰暗( tarnish的过去式和过去分词 )； 玷污，败坏 | |
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beech
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| n.山毛榉；adj.山毛榉的 | |
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inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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brew
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| v.酿造，调制 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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cloister
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| n.修道院；v.隐退，使与世隔绝 | |
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provincials
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| n.首都以外的人，地区居民( provincial的名词复数 ) | |
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enlist
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| vt.谋取(支持等)，赢得；征募；vi.入伍 | |
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enlisted
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| adj.应募入伍的v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的过去式和过去分词 )；获得（帮助或支持） | |
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65
recollect
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| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
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66
machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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67
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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68
costly
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| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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69
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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70
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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71
apprehend
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| vt.理解，领悟，逮捕，拘捕，忧虑 | |
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72
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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73
swarm
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| n.(昆虫)等一大群；vi.成群飞舞；蜂拥而入 | |
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74
musing
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| n. 沉思，冥想 adj. 沉思的, 冥想的 动词muse的现在分词形式 | |
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75
deluge
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| n./vt.洪水，暴雨，使泛滥 | |
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