It was not long after sunrise, and Stephen Waterman, fresh from his dip in the river, had scrambled1 up the hillside from the hut in the alder-bushes where he had made his morning toilet.
An early ablution of this sort was not the custom of the farmers along the banks of the Saco, but the Waterman house was hardly a stone's throw from the water, and there was a clear, deep swimming-hole in the Willow2 Cove3 that would have tempted4 the busiest man, or the least cleanly, in York County. Then, too, Stephen was a child of the river, born, reared, schooled on its very brink5, never happy unless he were on it, or in it, or beside it, or at least within sight or sound of it.
The immensity of the sea had always silenced and overawed him, left him cold in feeling. The river wooed him, caressed6 him, won his heart. It was just big enough to love. It was full of charms and changes, of varying moods and sudden surprises. Its voice stole in upon his ear with a melody far sweeter and more subtle than the boom of the ocean. Yet it was not without strength, and when it was swollen7 with the freshets of the spring and brimming with the bounty8 of its sister streams, it could dash and roar, boom and crash, with the best of them.
Stephen stood on the side porch, drinking in the glory of the sunrise, with the Saco winding9 like a silver ribbon through the sweet loveliness of the summer landscape.
And the river rolled on toward the sea, singing its morning song, creating and nourishing beauty at every step of its onward10 path. Cradled in the heart of a great mountain-range, it pursued its gleaming way, here lying silent in glassy lakes, there rushing into tinkling11 little falls, foaming12 great falls, and thundering cataracts13. Scores of bridges spanned its width, but no steamers flurried its crystal depths. Here and there a rough little rowboat, tethered to a willow, rocked to and fro in some quiet bend of the shore. Here the silver gleam of a rising perch14, chub, or trout15 caught the eye; there a pickerel lay rigid16 in the clear water, a fish carved in stone: here eels17 coiled in the muddy bottom of some pool; and there, under the deep shadows of the rocks, lay fat, sleepy bass18, old, and incredibly wise, quite untempted by, and wholly superior to, the rural fisherman's worm.
The river lapped the shores of peaceful meadows; it flowed along banks green with maple19, beech20, sycamore, and birch; it fell tempestuously21 over dams and fought its way between rocky cliffs crowned with stately firs. It rolled past forests of pine and hemlock22 and spruce, now gentle, now terrible; for there is said to be an Indian curse upon the Saco, whereby, with every great sun, the child of a paleface shall be drawn23 into its cruel depths. Lashed24 into fury by the stony25 reefs that impeded26 its progress, the river looked now sapphire27, now gold, now white, now leaden gray; but always it was hurrying, hurrying on its appointed way to the sea.
After feasting his eyes and filling his heart with a morning draught28 of beauty, Stephen went in from the porch and, pausing at the stairway, called in stentorian29 tones: "Get up and eat your breakfast, Rufus! The boys will be picking the side jams today, and I'm going down to work on the logs. If you come along, bring your own pick-pole and peavey." Then, going to the kitchen pantry, he collected, from the various shelves, a pitcher30 of milk, a loaf of bread, half an apple pie, and a bowl of blueberries, and, with the easy methods of a household unswayed by feminine rule, moved toward a seat under an apple tree and took his morning meal in great apparent content. Having finished, and washed his dishes with much more thoroughness than is common to unsuperintended man, and having given Rufus the second call to breakfast with the vigor31 and acrimony that usually mark that unpleasant performance, he strode to a high point on the riverbank and, shading his eyes with his hand, gazed steadily32 downstream.
Patches of green fodder33 and blossoming potatoes melted into soft fields that had been lately mown, and there were glimpses of tasseling34 corn rising high to catch the sun. Far, far down on the opposite bank of the river was the hint of a brown roof, and the tip of a chimney that sent a slender wisp of smoke into the clear air. Beyond this, and farther back from the water, the trees apparently35 hid a cluster of other chimneys, for thin spirals of smoke ascended36 here and there. The little brown roof could never have revealed itself to any but a lover's eye; and that discerned something even smaller, something like a pinkish speck37, that moved hither and thither38 on a piece of greensward that sloped to the waterside.
"She's up!" Stephen exclaimed under his breath, his eyes shining, his lips smiling. His voice had a note of hushed exaltation about it, as if "she," whoever she might be, had, in condescending39 to rise, conferred a priceless boon40 upon a waiting universe. If she were indeed "up" (so his tone implied), then the day, somewhat falsely heralded41 by the sunrise, had really begun, and the human race might pursue its appointed tasks, inspired and uplifted by the consciousness of her existence. It might properly be grateful for the fact of her birth; that she had grown to woman's estate; and, above all, that, in common with the sun, the lark42, the morning-glory, and other beautiful things of the early day, she was up and about her lovely, cheery, heart-warming business.
The handful of chimneys and the smoke-spirals rising here and there among the trees on the river-bank belonged to what was known as the Brier Neighborhood. There were only a few houses in all, scattered43 along a side road leading from the river up to Liberty Center. There were no great signs of thrift44 or prosperity, but the Wiley cottage, the only one near the water, was neat and well cared for, and Nature had done her best to conceal45 man's indolence, poverty, or neglect.
Bushes of sweetbrier grew in fragrant46 little forests as tall as the fences. Clumps47 of wild roses sprang up at every turn, and over all the stone walls, as well as on every heap of rocks by the wayside, prickly blackberry vines ran and clambered and clung, yielding fruit and thorns impartially48 to the neighborhood children.
The pinkish speck that Stephen Waterman had spied from his side of the river was Rose Wiley of the Brier Neighborhood on the Edgewood side. As there was another of her name on Brigadier Hill, the Edgewood minister called one of them the climbing Rose and the other the brier Rose, or sometimes Rose of the river. She was well named, the pinkish speck. She had not only some of the sweetest attributes of the wild rose, but the parallel might have been extended as far as the thorns, for she had wounded her scores,--hearts, be it understood, not hands. The wounding was, on the whole, very innocently done; and if fault could be imputed49 anywhere, it might rightly have been laid at the door of the kind powers who had made her what she was, since the smile that blesses a single heart is always destined50 to break many more.
She had not a single silk gown, but she had what is far better, a figure to show off a cotton one. Not a brooch nor a pair of earrings51 was numbered among her possessions, but any ordinary gems52 would have looked rather dull and trivial when compelled to undergo comparison with her bright eyes. As to her hair, the local milliner declared it impossible for Rose Wiley to get an unbecoming hat; that on one occasion, being in a frolicsome53 mood, Rose had tried on all the headgear in the village emporium,--children's gingham "Shakers," mourning bonnets54 for aged55 dames56, men's haying hats and visored caps,--and she proved superior to every test, looking as pretty as a pink in the best ones and simply ravishing in the worst. In fact, she had been so fashioned and finished by Nature that, had she been set on a revolving57 pedestal in a show-window, the bystanders would have exclaimed, as each new charm came into view: "Look at her waist! See her shoulders! And her neck and chin! And her hair!" While the children, gazing with raptured58 admiration59, would have shrieked60, in unison61, "I choose her for mine."
All this is as much as to say that Rose of the river was a beauty, yet it quite fails to explain, nevertheless, the secret of her power. When she looked her worst the spell was as potent62 as when she looked her best. Hidden away somewhere was a vital spark which warmed every one who came in contact with it. Her lovely little person was a trifle below medium height, and it might as well be confessed that her soul, on the morning when Stephen Waterman saw her hanging out the clothes on the river-bank, was not large enough to be at all out of proportion; but when eyes and dimples, lips and cheeks, enslave the onlooker63, the soul is seldom subjected to a close or critical scrutiny64. Besides, Rose Wiley was a nice girl, neat as wax, energetic, merry, amiable65, economical. She was a dutiful granddaughter to two of the most irritating old people in the county; she never patronized her pug-nosed, pasty-faced girl friends; she made wonderful pies and doughnuts; and besides, small souls, if they are of the right sort, sometimes have a way of growing, to the discomfiture66 of cynics and the gratification of the angels.
So, on one bank of the river grew the brier rose, a fragile thing, swaying on a slender stalk and looking at its pretty reflection in the water; and on the other a sturdy pine tree, well rooted against wind and storm. And the sturdy pine yearned67 for the wild rose; and the rose, so far as it knew, yearned for nothing at all, certainly not for rugged68 pine trees standing69 tall and grim in rocky soil. If, in its present stage of development, it gravitated toward anything in particular, it would have been a well-dressed white birch growing on an irreproachable70 lawn.
And the river, now deep, now shallow, now smooth, now tumultuous, now sparkling in sunshine, now gloomy under clouds, rolled on to the engulfing71 sea. It could not stop to concern itself with the petty comedies and tragedies that were being enacted72 along its shores, else it would never have reached its destination. Only last night, under a full moon, there had been pairs of lovers leaning over the rails of all the bridges along its course; but that was a common sight, like that of the ardent73 couples sitting on its shady banks these summer days, looking only into each other's eyes, but exclaiming about the beauty of the water. Lovers would come and go, sometimes reappearing with successive installments74 of loves in a way wholly mysterious to the river. Meantime it had its own work to do and must be about it, for the side jams were to be broken and the boom "let out" at the Edgewood bridge.
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1
scrambled
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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willow
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| n.柳树 | |
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cove
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| n.小海湾，小峡谷 | |
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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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brink
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| n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘，边沿 | |
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caressed
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| 爱抚或抚摸…( caress的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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bounty
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| n.慷慨的赠予物，奖金；慷慨，大方；施与 | |
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winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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onward
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| adj.向前的，前进的；adv.向前，前进，在先 | |
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tinkling
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| n.丁当作响声 | |
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foaming
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| adj.布满泡沫的；发泡 | |
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cataracts
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| n.大瀑布( cataract的名词复数 )；白内障 | |
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perch
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| n.栖木，高位，杆；v.栖息，就位，位于 | |
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trout
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| n.鳟鱼；鲑鱼(属) | |
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rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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eels
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| abbr. 电子发射器定位系统（=electronic emitter location system） | |
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bass
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| n.男低音(歌手)；低音乐器；低音大提琴 | |
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maple
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| n.槭树，枫树，槭木 | |
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beech
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| n.山毛榉；adj.山毛榉的 | |
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tempestuously
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| adv.剧烈地，暴风雨似地 | |
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hemlock
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| n.毒胡萝卜，铁杉 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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lashed
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| adj.具睫毛的v.鞭打( lash的过去式和过去分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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stony
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| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
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impeded
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| 阻碍，妨碍，阻止( impede的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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sapphire
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| n.青玉，蓝宝石；adj.天蓝色的 | |
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draught
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| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
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stentorian
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| adj.大声的，响亮的 | |
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pitcher
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| n.(有嘴和柄的)大水罐；(棒球)投手 | |
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vigor
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| n.活力，精力，元气 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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fodder
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| n.草料；炮灰 | |
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tasseling
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| v.抽穗， （玉米）长穗须( tassel的现在分词 )；使抽穗， （为了使作物茁壮生长）摘去穗状雄花；用流苏装饰 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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ascended
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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speck
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| n.微粒，小污点，小斑点 | |
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thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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condescending
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| adj.谦逊的,故意屈尊的 | |
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boon
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| n.恩赐，恩物，恩惠 | |
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41
heralded
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| v.预示( herald的过去式和过去分词 )；宣布（好或重要） | |
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lark
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| n.云雀，百灵鸟；n.嬉戏，玩笑；vi.嬉戏 | |
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43
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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44
thrift
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| adj.节约，节俭；n.节俭，节约 | |
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45
conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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clumps
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| n.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的名词复数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声v.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的第三人称单数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声 | |
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impartially
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| adv.公平地，无私地 | |
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49
imputed
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| v.把（错误等）归咎于( impute的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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50
destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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51
earrings
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| n.耳环( earring的名词复数 )；耳坠子 | |
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52
gems
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| growth； economy； management； and customer satisfaction 增长 | |
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frolicsome
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| adj.嬉戏的，闹着玩的 | |
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54
bonnets
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| n.童帽( bonnet的名词复数 )；（烟囱等的）覆盖物；（苏格兰男子的）无边呢帽；（女子戴的）任何一种帽子 | |
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aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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56
dames
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| n.（在英国）夫人（一种封号），夫人（爵士妻子的称号）( dame的名词复数 )；女人 | |
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57
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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58
raptured
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| 欢天喜地的，狂喜的，销魂的 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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60
shrieked
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| v.尖叫( shriek的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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unison
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| n.步调一致，行动一致 | |
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potent
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| adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的 | |
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onlooker
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| n.旁观者，观众 | |
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64
scrutiny
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| n.详细检查，仔细观察 | |
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65
amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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discomfiture
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| n.崩溃；大败；挫败；困惑 | |
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67
yearned
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| 渴望，切盼，向往( yearn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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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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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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irreproachable
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| adj.不可指责的，无过失的 | |
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71
engulfing
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| adj.吞噬的v.吞没，包住( engulf的现在分词 ) | |
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enacted
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| 制定（法律），通过（法案）( enact的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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ardent
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
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74
installments
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| 部分( installment的名词复数 ) | |
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