From morning till noon they went on fighting their way through the impenetrable briary wall of green, stopping only for breath at the water’s edge, scratched, mosquito-bitten, baffled, exhausted5. Once John and Wully happened to get to the bank at the same moment, and John, stooping down to wash his face, said to his brother, carefully lowering his voice;
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you are right, Wully. It would be just like Peter to have to leave some place suddenly, in some scrape. I think it probable, after all, that he had started on short notice for the west, and passing O’Brien’s, was unable to resist the smell. He wouldn’t even have had the decency6 to go to see his mother if he had been within half a mile of the house!”
Wully said nothing to this, but it comforted him to know how low John’s opinion of Peter was. He could work with new energy after that. At noon the ten of them stopped at the nearest house for dinner.
[212]There was not a woman in the neighborhood who would not have been glad to set dinner before a party of searchers. Not a woman who had not been frightening her little ones more carefully about wandering into the tall grass, such helpless slight persons, with that tall menace always waiting at hand for them. Marget McDowell had all the morning been looking from time to time down the road, hoping to see a horseman coming with good news. But no news came. She served the men. They ate in silence, hungrily. Having finished, they went out and lay down in the shade of the house. Most of them slept. Davie McDowell sat next to Wully, smoking vile7 home-grown tobacco in a stern old pipe. Beyond him Geordie Sproul went on theorizing in a lullabying voice. Wully was half asleep himself when he heard him saying;
“If we knew the girl to ask, we might learn something.” “Girl” when he pronounced it, rhymed with peril8. He was a canny9 man, Geordie, and Wully was instantly awake.
“Hoots!” replied Davie. “He was never one to run after girils!”
“Was he not!” answered Geordie. His voice was so suggestive, so leering, that Wully sat up.
“It’s one o’clock!” he hastened to announce. “We ought to be going on!” He woke all the lads up. They started by twos and threes back towards the creek.
Wully might easily have asked Geordie privately[213] what he meant by that comment of his. But he didn’t dare. Was it possible that Geordie, that unconsidered man, knew anything about Chirstie? Or about Wully McLaughlin’s private affairs? He must have meant something, and Wully wanted intensely to know what it was. Doubtless Davie McDowell would presently be inquiring, for gossip’s sake. But Wully assured himself that if Geordie really knew anything about the truth of the matter, he would never dare to tell it. Nor would he have dared to hint before Wully that he knew it! Only—would he not dare? Men dared strange things, nowadays, it seemed! Even cowards like Peter Keith! They seemed to think Wully McLaughlin a soft, easy-going man. They would speedily find out their mistake! They would get rid of the idea that he was a man with whom one might safely take unspeakable liberties. If only he might have the fortune, the one chance in a thousand, or ten thousand, to come upon that damned snake, lying somewhere hidden.... Exhausted, sore in muscles and mind, he went on through the breathless thicket10.
At four he came again to the water’s edge, and saw Chirstie’s brother Dod just coming out from a swim. He threw himself down under a great linden tree for a rest, and under his hand he saw Dod’s hat full of choice blackberries. Dod was undoubtedly11 preparing to make himself as comfortable as possible. He was weary enough to defy the world, and relinquish12 his pretenses13 of[214] being a man. He made his decision known flatly.
“I’m not going back into that!” he announced. “I’m through!” It was plain that his swim hadn’t cooled his temper much.
Wully repressed a smile. Dod was extremely thin. The ridges14 of his ribs15 showed under his skin, which gleamed white and wet in places, in vivid contrast to his tanned arms and neck, and he was stepping along gingerly to avoid thorns, lifting his bony legs high. One of his eyelids16 had been scratched so that his eye was swollen17 shut.
“You’ve done enough,” said Wully. “You’ve got a bad eye there!”
The boy struggled wet into his shirt and overalls18 and stretching out near Wully, began dividing the berries. Wully had to notice, how men’s zeal19 to help Libby Keith vanished as she grew distant. In her presence, in the presence of Motherhood itself, so to speak, they were shame-faced and eager, deploring20 their helplessness, as men are while their wives labor21 in childbirth. But away from her agony, they forgot ... as men do after labor is over ... and turned again to their own comfort. Dod broke the silence surprisingly.
“Chirstie’d be glad if he was dead!” he said, resentfully.
“Why, Dod!” exclaimed Wully.
“She would that! She hates him!”
“He’s your cousin, lad!”
[215]“He’s as much your cousin as he is mine! She can’t endure the sight of him!”
Wully sat up. He looked at Dod. He had thought of him always as a child. He was a big, tall boy now. Fourteen years old he was, and doubtless able to put two and two together. How much did he know? He must have heard people talking. Wully suddenly wondered why he had not always been afraid of Dod. To be sure, he had always been careful to keep on the good side of his little brother-in-law.
Now what could he mean by that? Wully was getting excited. Why had the boy so great a resentment24 against Peter, instead of against him, Wully, under the circumstances? Dod’s sudden and apparent preference for Wully at once grew odious25 to him. Dod had chosen that morning to work with Wully. He was always choosing to work with him. Why? It seemed unaccountable to him that he had never been suspicious of the lad before. Wully dared not say to him;
“Well, he never did you any special harm, did he?” Suppose Dod would blurt26 out what he knew! He said, confusedly;
“Look here, Dod. You oughtn’t to talk that way! Not at this time, I mean—you can’t speak ill of the dead, you know.”
“I ain’t said half the truth!”
“You know how Aunt Libby feels!” Wully[216] urged stupidly. “And Chirstie wouldn’t like you to say that—not now, you know——”
“Old fool!” commented Dod. Undoubtedly he was meaning his aunt. Wully couldn’t approve of such sentiments in one so young.
“You ought to go home and get something put on your eye!” he began, hastily. “And if you feel like working in the morning, you come back with me again!”
Dod went away, unsolved and uncomforting. Hour by hour the seekers, conquered by fatigue27 and the growing assurance of futility28, stopped more often for breath. They had time to gather more and more berries, from bushes which obviously hid no dying man. They refreshed themselves more and more frequently in waters wherein no drowned man was floating. Most of them went home in time for their neglected chores that night, discouraged, hopeless.
Isobel McLaughlin was still at the Keiths’, detained by Libby’s need of her. Libby, though she used men easily for her purpose, was not a woman to depend on them. Her mild old husband could give her no sufficient support in her affliction. He had never been a mother. He was just a man whom life and marriage had left blinking, swallowing as best he might his realization29 of his own unimportance in the universe. Libby would have Isobel with her. So Chirstie in her mother-in-law’s house put the younger McLaughlins and Bonnie Wee Johnnie to bed, and[217] came out to sit on the doorstep with her weary and outraged30 husband. Presently she asked him wistfully;
“Do you really think he’s dead, Wully?”
“It’s getting to look like it.”
She gave a great sigh. If only she could be sure he was dead!
“You don’t think he’s just gone away now?” she continued.
“Nobody thinks that now.”
“Why don’t they?”
“It don’t look reasonable to them.”
“It looks reasonable enough to me.”
“If he had gone back to town, he would have had to stop in some place to get something to eat. He didn’t stop anywhere.”
She slapped away a mosquito.
“But if he didn’t stop as he came, why should he stop going back?”
“He may have stopped at a dozen places coming, and found no one at home. He may have gone to his mother’s when she was at the picnic. That’s what she keeps wailing32 about—because she wasn’t there when he came!”
In the silence of the starlight, she gave a great sigh.
“It’s all my fault!” she declared.
He was too tired to listen to that.
“Our fault, indeed!” he answered sharply. “We[218] never told him to come sneaking33 back and get lost, did we! We didn’t tell him never to write to his mother.”
“I didn’t say it was your fault. I said mine! Really, all auntie’s trouble seems to come from me. Sometimes I just seem to make everybody miserable34.” She had been wondering what she was to do if Peter’s death made Wully’s lie permanent.
“Havers, Chirstie!” he remonstrated35, “her trouble comes through her own foolishness. She was never less than a fool about that—that——”
“She was always good to me, Wully, whatever you say. I mind how she stayed with me after mother’s death. If she’s been foolish about Peter, she’s paid well for it.”
“So’ve you!” said Wully. “He’s dead, I tell you!” And there was another thing to be said. Wully might be bewildered, uncomfortable, frustrated36, cheated of any assurance of safety for Chirstie. But there was one triumph, and not a small one. “He’s dead. And we never speak ill of the dead, Chirstie!”
She understood his triumph. She would have been glad to have him dead, and not putting Wully into danger. She would be relieved, too, of that sense of terror, if she saw him dead. Then she thought of that great sinful lie, and of Isobel McLaughlin.
“I can’t tell what to wish!” she sighed miserably37.[219] “It can’t end well. I wish they’d find him dead. But if he’s dead, how can I ever....” Her voice gave way to despair.
“Yes,” repeated Wully. “How can you ever....” They sat silent.
“You never can!” he said securely, at length.
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收听单词发音
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1
toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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creek
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| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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6
decency
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| n.体面，得体，合宜，正派，庄重 | |
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7
vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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8
peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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canny
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| adj.谨慎的，节俭的 | |
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thicket
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| n.灌木丛，树林 | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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relinquish
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| v.放弃，撤回，让与，放手 | |
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13
pretenses
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| n.借口（pretense的复数形式） | |
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14
ridges
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| n.脊( ridge的名词复数 )；山脊；脊状突起；大气层的)高压脊 | |
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15
ribs
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| n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹 | |
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16
eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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17
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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18
overalls
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| n.（复）工装裤；长罩衣 | |
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19
zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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20
deploring
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| v.悲叹，痛惜，强烈反对( deplore的现在分词 ) | |
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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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22
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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23
vindictively
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| adv.恶毒地；报复地 | |
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24
resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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odious
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| adj.可憎的，讨厌的 | |
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blurt
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| vt.突然说出，脱口说出 | |
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fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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28
futility
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| n.无用 | |
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realization
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| n.实现；认识到，深刻了解 | |
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30
outraged
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| a.震惊的，义愤填膺的 | |
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31
reassure
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| v.使放心，使消除疑虑 | |
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32
wailing
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的现在分词 )；沱 | |
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33
sneaking
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| a.秘密的，不公开的 | |
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34
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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35
remonstrated
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| v.抗议( remonstrate的过去式和过去分词 )；告诫 | |
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36
frustrated
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| adj.挫败的，失意的，泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的过去式和过去分词 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧 | |
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37
miserably
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| adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地 | |
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