There was a glow in the sky as if great furnace doors were opened.
But all the afternoon his eyes had looked on glamour1; he had strayed in fairyland. The holidays were nearly done, and Lucian Taylor had gone out resolved to lose himself, to discover strange hills and prospects2 that he had never seen before. The air was still, breathless, exhausted3 after heavy rain, and the clouds looked as if they had been molded of lead. No breeze blew upon the hill, and down in the well of the valley not a dry leaf stirred, not a bough4 shook in all the dark January woods.
About a mile from the rectory he had diverged5 from the main road by an opening that promised mystery and adventure. It was an old neglected lane, little more than a ditch, worn ten feet deep by its winter waters, and shadowed by great untrimmed hedges, densely8 woven together. On each side were turbid9 streams, and here and there a torrent10 of water gushed11 down the banks, flooding the lane. It was so deep and dark that he could not get a glimpse of the country through which he was passing, but the way went down and down to some unconjectured hollow.
Perhaps he walked two miles between the high walls of the lane before its descent ceased, but he thrilled with the sense of having journeyed very far, all the long way from the know to the unknown. He had come as it were into the bottom of a bowl amongst the hills, and black woods shut out the world. From the road behind him, from the road before him, from the unseen wells beneath the trees, rivulets12 of waters swelled14 and streamed down towards the center to the brook15 that crossed the lane. Amid the dead and wearied silence of the air, beneath leaden and motionless clouds, it was strange to hear such a tumult16 of gurgling and rushing water, and he stood for a while on the quivering footbridge and watched the rush of dead wood and torn branches and wisps of straw, all hurrying madly past him, to plunge18 into the heaped spume, the barmy froth that had gathered against a fallen tree.
Then he climbed again, and went up between limestone19 rocks, higher and higher, till the noise of waters became indistinct, a faint humming of swarming20 hives in summer. He walked some distance on level ground, till there was a break in the banks and a stile on which he could lean and look out. He found himself, as he had hoped, afar and forlorn; he had strayed into outland and occult territory. From the eminence21 of the lane, skirting the brow of a hill, he looked down into deep valleys and dingles, and beyond, across the trees, to remoter country, wild bare hills and dark wooded lands meeting the grey still sky. Immediately beneath his feet the ground sloped steep down to the valley, a hillside of close grass patched with dead bracken, and dotted here and there with stunted22 thorns, and below there were deep oak woods, all still and silent, and lonely as if no one ever passed that way. The grass and bracken and thorns and woods, all were brown and grey beneath the leaden sky, and as Lucian looked he was amazed, as though he were reading a wonderful story, the meaning of which was a little greater than his understanding. Then, like the hero of a fairy-book, he went on and on, catching24 now and again glimpses of the amazing country into which he had penetrated25, and perceiving rather than seeing that as the day waned26 everything grew more grey and somber27. As he advanced he heard the evening sounds of the farms, the low of the cattle, and the barking of the sheepdogs; a faint thin noise from far away. It was growing late, and as the shadows blackened he walked faster, till once more the lane began to descend28, there was a sharp turn, and he found himself, with a good deal of relief, and a little disappointment, on familiar ground. He had nearly described a circle, and knew this end of the lane very well; it was not much more than a mile from home. He walked smartly down the hill; the air was all glimmering30 and indistinct, transmuting31 trees and hedges into ghostly shapes, and the walls of the White House Farm flickered32 on the hillside, as if they were moving towards him. Then a change came. First, a little breath of wind brushed with a dry whispering sound through the hedges, the few leaves left on the boughs33 began to stir, and one or two danced madly, and as the wind freshened and came up from a new quarter, the sapless branches above rattled34 against one another like bones. The growing breeze seemed to clear the air and lighten it. He was passing the stile where a path led to old Mrs. Gibbon’s desolate36 little cottage, in the middle of the fields, at some distance even from the lane, and he saw the light blue smoke of her chimney rise distinct above the gaunt greengage trees, against a pale band that was broadening along the horizon. As he passed the stile with his head bent37, and his eyes on the ground, something white started out from the black shadow of the hedge, and in the strange twilight38, now tinged39 with a flush from the west, a figure seemed to swim past him and disappear. For a moment he wondered who it could be, the light was so flickering40 and unsteady, so unlike the real atmosphere of the day, when he recollected41 it was only Annie Morgan, old Morgan’s daughter at the White House. She was three years older than he, and it annoyed him to find that though she was only fifteen, there had been a dreadful increase in her height since the summer holidays. He had got to the bottom of the hill, and, lifting up his eyes, saw the strange changes of the sky. The pale band had broadened into a clear vast space of light, and above, the heavy leaden clouds were breaking apart and driving across the heaven before the wind. He stopped to watch, and looked up at the great mound42 that jutted43 out from the hills into mid-valley. It was a natural formation, and always it must have had something of the form of a fort, but its steepness had been increased by Roman art, and there were high banks on the summit which Lucian’s father had told him were the vallum of the camp, and a deep ditch had been dug to the north to sever44 it from the hillside. On this summit oaks had grown, queer stunted-looking trees with twisted and contorted trunks, and writhing45 branches; and these now stood out black against the lighted sky. And then the air changed once more; the flush increased, and a spot like blood appeared in the pond by the gate, and all the clouds were touched with fiery46 spots and dapples of flame; here and there it looked as if awful furnace doors were being opened.
The wind blew wildly, and it came up through the woods with a noise like a scream, and a great oak by the roadside ground its boughs together with a dismal47 grating jar. As the red gained in the sky, the earth and all upon it glowed, even the grey winter fields and the bare hillsides crimsoned48, the waterpools were cisterns49 of molten brass50, and the very road glittered. He was wonder-struck, almost aghast, before the scarlet51 magic of the afterglow. The old Roman fort was invested with fire; flames from heaven were smitten52 about its walls, and above there was a dark floating cloud, like fume53 of smoke, and every haggard writhing tree showed as black as midnight against the black of the furnace.
When he got home he heard his mother’s voice calling: “Here’s Lucian at last. Mary, Master Lucian has come, you can get the tea ready.” He told a long tale of his adventures, and felt somewhat mortified54 when his father seemed perfectly55 acquainted with the whole course of the lane, and knew the names of the wild woods through which he had passed in awe56.
“You must have gone by the Darren, I suppose”— that was all he said. “Yes, I noticed the sunset; we shall have some stormy weather. I don’t expect to see many in church tomorrow.”
There was buttered toast for tea “because it was holidays.” The red curtains were drawn57, and a bright fire was burning, and there was the old familiar furniture, a little shabby, but charming from association. It was much pleasanter than the cold and squalid schoolroom; and much better to be reading Chambers’s Journal than learning Euclid; and better to talk to his father and mother than to be answering such remarks as: “I say, Taylor, I’ve torn my trousers; how much do you charge for mending?” “Lucy, dear, come quick and sew this button on my shirt.”
That night the storm woke him, and he groped with his hands amongst the bedclothes, and sat up, shuddering59, not knowing where he was. He had seen himself, in a dream, within the Roman fort, working some dark horror, and the furnace doors were opened and a blast of flame from heaven was smitten upon him.
Lucian went slowly, but not discreditably, up the school, gaining prizes now and again, and falling in love more and more with useless reading and unlikely knowledge. He did his elegiacs and iambics well enough, but he preferred exercising himself in the rhymed Latin of the middle ages. He liked history, but he loved to meditate60 on a land laid waste, Britain deserted61 by the legions, the rare pavements riven by frost, Celtic magic still brooding on the wild hills and in the black depths of the forest, the rosy62 marbles stained with rain, and the walls growing grey. The masters did not encourage these researches; a pure enthusiasm, they felt, should be for cricket and football, the dilettanti might even play fives and read Shakespeare without blame, but healthy English boys should have nothing to do with decadent63 periods. He was once found guilty of recommending Villon to a school-fellow named Barnes. Barnes tried to extract unpleasantness from the text during preparation, and rioted in his place, owing to his incapacity for the language. The matter was a serious one; the headmaster had never heard of Villon, and the culprit gave up the name of his literary admirer without remorse64. Hence, sorrow for Lucian, and complete immunity65 for the miserable66 illiterate67 Barnes, who resolved to confine his researches to the Old Testament68, a book which the headmaster knew well. As for Lucian, he plodded69 on, learning his work decently, and sometimes doing very creditable Latin and Greek prose. His school-fellows thought him quite mad, and tolerated him, and indeed were very kind to him in their barbarous manner. He often remembered in after life acts of generosity70 and good nature done by wretches71 like Barnes, who had no care for old French nor for curious meters, and such recollections always moved him to emotion. Travelers tell such tales; cast upon cruel shores amongst savage72 races, they have found no little kindness and warmth of hospitality.
He looked forward to the holidays as joyfully73 as the rest of them. Barnes and his friend Duscot used to tell him their plans and anticipation74; they were going home to brothers and sisters, and to cricket, more cricket, or to football, more football, and in the winter there were parties and jollities of all sorts. In return he would announce his intention of studying the Hebrew language, or perhaps Proven?al, with a walk up a bare and desolate mountain by way of open-air amusement, and on a rainy day for choice. Whereupon Barnes would impart to Duscot his confident belief that old Taylor was quite cracked. It was a queer, funny life that of school, and so very unlike anything in Tom Brown. He once saw the headmaster patting the head of the bishop76’s little boy, while he called him “my little man,” and smiled hideously77. He told the tale grotesquely78 in the lower fifth room the same day, and earned much applause, but forfeited80 all liking81 directly by proposing a voluntary course of scholastic82 logic83. One barbarian84 threw him to the ground and another jumped on him, but it was done very pleasantly. There were, indeed, some few of a worse class in the school, solemn sycophants85, prigs perfected from tender years, who thought life already “serious,” and yet, as the headmaster said, were “joyous, manly86 young fellows.” Some of these dressed for dinner at home, and talked of dances when they came back in January. But this virulent87 sort was comparatively infrequent, and achieved great success in after life. Taking his school days as a whole, he always spoke88 up for the system, and years afterward89 he described with enthusiasm the strong beer at a roadside tavern90, some way out of the town. But he always maintained that the taste for tobacco, acquired in early life, was the great life, was the great note of the English Public School.
Three years after Lucian’s discovery of the narrow lane and the vision of the flaming fort, the August holidays brought him home at a time of great heat. It was one of those memorable91 years of English weather, when some Proven?al spell seems wreathed round the island in the northern sea, and the grasshoppers92 chirp93 loudly as the cicadas, the hills smell of rosemary, and white walls of the old farmhouses94 blaze in the sunlight as if they stood in Arles or Avignon or famed Tarascon by Rhone.
Lucian’s father was late at the station, and consequently Lucian bought the Confessions95 of an English Opium97 Eater which he saw on the bookstall. When his father did drive up, Lucian noticed that the old trap had had a new coat of dark paint, and that the pony98 looked advanced in years.
“I was afraid that I should be late, Lucian,” said his father, “though I made old Polly go like anything. I was just going to tell George to put her into the trap when young Philip Harris came to me in a terrible state. He said his father fell down ‘all of a sudden like’ in the middle of the field, and they couldn’t make him speak, and would I please to come and see him. So I had to go, though I couldn’t do anything for the poor fellow. They had sent for Dr. Burrows99, and I am afraid he will find it a bad case of sunstroke. The old people say they never remember such a heat before.”
The pony jogged steadily100 along the burning turnpike road, taking revenge for the hurrying on the way to the station. The hedges were white with the limestone dust, and the vapor101 of heat palpitated over the fields. Lucian showed his Confessions to his father, and began to talk of the beautiful bits he had already found. Mr. Taylor knew the book well — had read it many years before. Indeed he was almost as difficult to surprise as that character in Daudet, who had one formula for all the chances of life, and when he saw the drowned Academician dragged out of the river, merely observed “J’ai vu tout103 ?a.” Mr. Taylor the parson, as his parishioners called him, had read the fine books and loved the hills and woods, and now knew no more of pleasant or sensational104 surprises. Indeed the living was much depreciated105 in value, and his own private means were reduced almost to vanishing point, and under such circumstances the great style loses many of its finer savors106. He was very fond of Lucian, and cheered by his return, but in the evening he would be a sad man again, with his head resting on one hand, and eyes reproaching sorry fortune.
Nobody called out “Here’s your master with Master Lucian; you can get tea ready,” when the pony jogged up to the front door. His mother had been dead a year, and a cousin kept house. She was a respectable person called Deacon, of middle age, and ordinary standards; and, consequently, there was cold mutton on the table. There was a cake, but nothing of flour, baked in ovens, would rise at Miss Deacon’s evocation107. Still, the meal was laid in the beloved “parlor,” with the view of hills and valleys and climbing woods from the open window, and the old furniture was still pleasant to see, and the old books in the shelves had many memories. One of the most respected of the armchairs had become weak in the castors and had to be artfully propped108 up, but Lucian found it very comfortable after the hard forms. When tea was over he went out and strolled in the garden and orchards110, and looked over the stile down into the brake, where foxgloves and bracken and broom mingled111 with the hazel undergrowth, where he knew of secret glades113 and untracked recesses115, deep in the woven green, the cabinets for many years of his lonely meditations116. Every path about his home, every field and hedgerow had dear and friendly memories for him; and the odor of the meadowsweet was better than the incense117 steaming in the sunshine. He loitered, and hung over the stile till the far-off woods began to turn purple, till the white mists were wreathing in the valley.
Day after day, through all that August, morning and evening were wrapped in haze112; day after day the earth shimmered118 in the heat, and the air was strange, unfamiliar120. As he wandered in the lanes and sauntered by the cool sweet verge6 of the woods, he saw and felt that nothing was common or accustomed, for the sunlight transfigured the meadows and changed all the form of the earth. Under the violent Proven?al sun, the elms and beeches122 looked exotic trees, and in the early morning, when the mists were thick, the hills had put on an unearthly shape.
The one adventure of the holidays was the visit to the Roman fort, to that fantastic hill about whose steep bastions and haggard oaks he had seen the flames of sunset writhing nearly three years before. Ever since that Saturday evening in January, the lonely valley had been a desirable place to him; he had watched the green battlements in summer and winter weather, had seen the heaped mounds123 rising dimly amidst the drifting rain, had marked the violent height swim up from the ice-white mists of summer evenings, had watched the fairy bulwarks124 glimmer29 and vanish in hovering125 April twilight. In the hedge of the lane there was a gate on which he used to lean and look down south to where the hill surged up so suddenly, its summit defined on summer evenings not only by the rounded ramparts but by the ring of dense7 green foliage126 that marked the circle of oak trees. Higher up the lane, on the way he had come that Saturday afternoon, one could see the white walls of Morgan’s farm on the hillside to the north, and on the south there was the stile with the view of old Mrs. Gibbon’s cottage smoke; but down in the hollow, looking over the gate, there was no hint of human work, except those green and antique battlements, on which the oaks stood in circle, guarding the inner wood.
The ring of the fort drew him with stronger fascination127 during that hot August weather. Standing23, or as his headmaster would have said, “mooning” by the gate, and looking into that enclosed and secret valley, it seemed to his fancy as if there were a halo about the hill, an aureole that played like flame around it. One afternoon as he gazed from his station by the gate the sheer sides and the swelling128 bulwarks were more than ever things of enchantment129; the green oak ring stood out against the sky as still and bright as in a picture, and Lucian, in spite of his respect for the law of trespass130, slid over the gate. The farmers and their men were busy on the uplands with the harvest, and the adventure was irresistible131. At first he stole along by the brook in the shadow of the alders132, where the grass and the flowers of wet meadows grew richly; but as he drew nearer to the fort, and its height now rose sheer above him, he left all shelter, and began desperately133 to mount. There was not a breath of wind; the sunlight shone down on the bare hillside; the loud chirp of the grasshoppers was the only sound. It was a steep ascent134 and grew steeper as the valley sank away. He turned for a moment, and looked down towards the stream which now seemed to wind remote between the alders; above the valley there were small dark figures moving in the cornfield, and now and again there came the faint echo of a high-pitched voice singing through the air as on a wire. He was wet with heat; the sweat streamed off his face, and he could feel it trickling136 all over his body. But above him the green bastions rose defiant137, and the dark ring of oaks promised coolness. He pressed on, and higher, and at last began to crawl up the vallum, on hands and knees, grasping the turf and here and there the roots that had burst through the red earth. And then he lay, panting with deep breaths, on the summit.
Within the fort it was all dusky and cool and hollow; it was as if one stood at the bottom of a great cup. Within, the wall seemed higher than without, and the ring of oaks curved up like a dark green vault138. There were nettles139 growing thick and rank in the foss; they looked different from the common nettles in the lanes, and Lucian, letting his hand touch a leaf by accident, felt the sting burn like fire. Beyond the ditch there was an undergrowth, a dense thicket141 of trees, stunted and old, crooked142 and withered143 by the winds into awkward and ugly forms; beech121 and oak and hazel and ash and yew144 twisted and so shortened and deformed145 that each seemed, like the nettle140, of no common kind. He began to fight his way through the ugly growth, stumbling and getting hard knocks from the rebound146 of twisted boughs. His foot struck once or twice against something harder than wood, and looking down he saw stones white with the leprosy of age, but still showing the work of the axe147. And farther, the roots of the stunted trees gripped the foot-high relics148 of a wall; and a round heap of fallen stones nourished rank, unknown herbs, that smelt149 poisonous. The earth was black and unctuous150, and bubbling under the feet, left no track behind. From it, in the darkest places where the shadow was thickest, swelled the growth of an abominable151 fungus152, making the still air sick with its corrupt153 odor, and he shuddered154 as he felt the horrible thing pulped155 beneath his feet. Then there was a gleam of sunlight, and as he thrust the last boughs apart, he stumbled into the open space in the heart of the camp. It was a lawn of sweet close turf in the center of the matted brake, of clean firm earth from which no shameful156 growth sprouted157, and near the middle of the glade114 was a stump158 of a felled yew-tree, left untrimmed by the woodman. Lucian thought it must have been made for a seat; a crooked bough through which a little sap still ran was a support for the back, and he sat down and rested after his toil159. It was not really so comfortable a seat as one of the school forms, but the satisfaction was to find anything at all that would serve for a chair. He sat there, still panting after the climb and his struggle through the dank and jungle-like thicket, and he felt as if he were growing hotter and hotter; the sting of the nettle was burning his hand, and the tingling160 fire seemed to spread all over his body.
Suddenly, he knew that he was alone. Not merely solitary161; that he had often been amongst the woods and deep in the lanes; but now it was a wholly different and a very strange sensation. He thought of the valley winding162 far below him, all its fields by the brook green and peaceful and still, without path or track. Then he had climbed the abrupt163 surge of the hill, and passing the green and swelling battlements, the ring of oaks, and the matted thicket, had come to the central space. And behind there were, he knew, many desolate fields, wild as common, untrodden, unvisited. He was utterly164 alone. He still grew hotter as he sat on the stump, and at last lay down at full length on the soft grass, and more at his ease felt the waves of heat pass over his body.
And then he began to dream, to let his fancies stray over half-imagined, delicious things, indulging a virgin165 mind in its wanderings. The hot air seemed to beat upon him in palpable waves, and the nettle sting tingled166 and itched135 intolerably; and he was alone upon the fairy hill, within the great mounds, within the ring of oaks, deep in the heart of the matted thicket. Slowly and timidly he began to untie167 his boots, fumbling168 with the laces, and glancing all the while on every side at the ugly misshapen trees that hedged the lawn. Not a branch was straight, not one was free, but all were interlaced and grew one about another; and just above ground, where the cankered stems joined the protuberant169 roots, there were forms that imitated the human shape, and faces and twining limbs that amazed him. Green mosses170 were hair, and tresses were stark171 in grey lichen172; a twisted root swelled into a limb; in the hollows of the rotted bark he saw the masks of men. His eyes were fixed173 and fascinated by the simulacra of the wood, and could not see his hands, and so at last, and suddenly, it seemed, he lay in the sunlight, beautiful with his olive skin, dark haired, dark eyed, the gleaming bodily vision of a strayed faun.
Quick flames now quivered in the substance of his nerves, hints of mysteries, secrets of life passed trembling through his brain, unknown desires stung him. As he gazed across the turf and into the thicket, the sunshine seemed really to become green, and the contrast between the bright glow poured on the lawn and the black shadow of the brake made an odd flickering light, in which all the grotesque79 postures174 of stem and root began to stir; the wood was alive. The turf beneath him heaved and sank as with the deep swell13 of the sea. He fell asleep, and lay still on the grass, in the midst of the thicket.
He found out afterwards that he must have slept for nearly an hour. The shadows had changed when he awoke; his senses came to him with a sudden shock, and he sat up and stared at his bare limbs in stupid amazement175. He huddled176 on his clothes and laced his boots, wondering what folly177 had beset178 him. Then, while he stood indecisive, hesitating, his brain a whirl of puzzled thought, his body trembling, his hands shaking; as with electric heat, sudden remembrance possessed179 him. A flaming blush shone red on his cheeks, and glowed and thrilled through his limbs. As he awoke, a brief and slight breeze had stirred in a nook of the matted boughs, and there was a glinting that might have been the flash of sudden sunlight across shadow, and the branches rustled180 and murmured for a moment, perhaps at the wind’s passage.
He stretched out his hands, and cried to his visitant to return; he entreated182 the dark eyes that had shone over him, and the scarlet lips that had kissed him. And then panic fear rushed into his heart, and he ran blindly, dashing through the wood. He climbed the vallum, and looked out, crouching183, lest anybody should see him. Only the shadows were changed, and a breath of cooler air mounted from the brook; the fields were still and peaceful, the black figures moved, far away, amidst the corn, and the faint echo of the high-pitched voices sang thin and distant on the evening wind. Across the stream, in the cleft184 on the hill, opposite to the fort, the blue wood smoke stole up a spiral pillar from the chimney of old Mrs. Gibbon’s cottage. He began to run full tilt185 down the steep surge of the hill, and never stopped till he was over the gate and in the lane again. As he looked back, down the valley to the south, and saw the violent ascent, the green swelling bulwarks, and the dark ring of oaks; the sunlight seemed to play about the fort with an aureole of flame.
“Where on earth have you been all this time, Lucian?” said his cousin when he got home. “Why, you look quite ill. It is really madness of you to go walking in such weather as this. I wonder you haven’t got a sunstroke. And the tea must be nearly cold. I couldn’t keep your father waiting, you know.”
He muttered something about being rather tired, and sat down to his tea. It was not cold, for the “cozy” had been put over the pot, but it was black and bitter strong, as his cousin expressed it. The draught186 was unpalatable, but it did him good, and the thought came with great consolation187 that he had only been asleep and dreaming queer, nightmarish dreams. He shook off all his fancies with resolution, and thought the loneliness of the camp, and the burning sunlight, and possibly the nettle sting, which still tingled most abominably188, must have been the only factors in his farrago of impossible recollections. He remembered that when he had felt the sting, he had seized a nettle with thick folds of his handkerchief, and having twisted off a good length, and put it in his pocket to show his father. Mr. Taylor was almost interested when he came in from his evening stroll about the garden and saw the specimen189.
“Where did you manage to come across that, Lucian?” he said. “You haven’t been to Caermaen, have you?”
“No. I got it in the Roman fort by the common.”
“Oh, the twyn. You must have been trespassing190 then. Do you know what it is?”
“No. I thought it looked different from the common nettles.”
“Yes; it’s a Roman nettle —arctic pilulifera. It’s a rare plant. Burrows says it’s to be found at Caermaen, but I was never able to come across it. I must add it to the flora191 of the parish.”
Mr. Taylor had begun to compile a flora accompanied by a hortus siccus, but both stayed on high shelves dusty and fragmentary. He put the specimen on his desk, intending to fasten it in the book, but the maid swept it away, dry and withered, in a day or two.
Lucian tossed and cried out in his sleep that night, and the awakening192 in the morning was, in a measure, a renewal193 of the awakening in the fort. But the impression was not so strong, and in a plain room it seemed all delirium194, a phantasmagoria. He had to go down to Caermaen in the afternoon, for Mrs. Dixon, the vicar’s wife, had “commanded” his presence at tea. Mr. Dixon, though fat and short and clean shaven, ruddy of face, was a safe man, with no extreme views on anything. He “deplored” all extreme party convictions, and thought the great needs of our beloved Church were conciliation195, moderation, and above all “amolgamation”— so he pronounced the word. Mrs. Dixon was tall, imposing196, splendid, well fitted for the Episcopal order, with gifts that would have shone at the palace. There were daughters, who studied German Literature, and thought Miss Frances Ridley Havergal wrote poetry, but Lucian had no fear of them; he dreaded197 the boys. Everybody said they were such fine, manly fellows, such gentlemanly boys, with such a good manner, sure to get on in the world. Lucian had said “Bother!” in a very violent manner when the gracious invitation was conveyed to him, but there was no getting out of it. Miss Deacon did her best to make him look smart; his ties were all so disgraceful that she had to supply the want with a narrow ribbon of a sky-blue tint198; and she brushed him so long and so violently that he quite understood why a horse sometimes bites and sometimes kicks the groom199. He set out between two and three in a gloomy frame of mind; he knew too well what spending the afternoon with honest manly boys meant. He found the reality more lurid200 than his anticipation. The boys were in the field, and the first remark he heard when he got in sight of the group was:
“Hullo, Lucian, how much for the tie?” “Fine tie,” another, a stranger, observed. “You bagged it from the kitten, didn’t you?”
Then they made up a game of cricket, and he was put in first. He was l.b.w. in his second over, so they all said, and had to field for the rest of the afternoon. Arthur Dixon, who was about his own age, forgetting all the laws of hospitality, told him he was a beastly muff when he missed a catch, rather a difficult catch. He missed several catches, and it seemed as if he were always panting after balls, which, as Edward Dixon said, any fool, even a baby, could have stopped. At last the game broke up, solely201 from Lucian’s lack of skill, as everybody declared. Edward Dixon, who was thirteen, and had a swollen202 red face and a projecting eye, wanted to fight him for spoiling the game, and the others agreed that he funked the fight in a rather dirty manner. The strange boy, who was called De Carti, and was understood to be faintly related to Lord De Carti of M’Carthytown, said openly that the fellows at his place wouldn’t stand such a sneak203 for five minutes. So the afternoon passed off very pleasantly indeed, till it was time to go into the vicarage for weak tea, homemade cake, and unripe204 plums. He got away at last. As he went out at the gate, he heard De Carti’s final observation:
“We like to dress well at our place. His governor must be beastly poor to let him go about like that. D’y’ see his trousers are all ragged102 at heel? Is old Taylor a gentleman?”
It had been a very gentlemanly afternoon, but there was a certain relief when the vicarage was far behind, and the evening smoke of the little town, once the glorious capital of Siluria, hung haze-like over the ragged roofs and mingled with the river mist. He looked down from the height of the road on the huddled houses, saw the points of light start out suddenly from the cottages on the hillside beyond, and gazed at the long lovely valley fading in the twilight, till the darkness came and all that remained was the somber ridge17 of the forest. The way was pleasant through the solemn scented205 lane, with glimpses of dim country, the vague mystery of night overshadowing the woods and meadows. A warm wind blew gusts206 of odor from the meadowsweet by the brook, now and then bee and beetle207 span homeward through the air, booming a deep note as from a great organ far away, and from the verge of the wood came the “who-oo, who-oo, who-oo” of the owls208, a wild strange sound that mingled with the whirr and rattle35 of the night-jar, deep in the bracken. The moon swam up through the films of misty209 cloud, and hung, a golden glorious lantern, in mid-air; and, set in the dusky hedge, the little green fires of the glowworms appeared. He sauntered slowly up the lane, drinking in the religion of the scene, and thinking the country by night as mystic and wonderful as a dimly-lit cathedral. He had quite forgotten the “manly young fellows” and their sports, and only wished as the land began to shimmer119 and gleam in the moonlight that he knew by some medium of words or color how to represent the loveliness about his way.
“Had a pleasant evening, Lucian?” said his father when he came in.
“Yes, I had a nice walk home. Oh, in the afternoon we played cricket. I didn’t care for it much. There was a boy named De Carti there; he is staying with the Dixons. Mrs. Dixon whispered to me when we were going in to tea, ‘He’s a second cousin of Lord De Carti’s,’ and she looked quite grave as if she were in church.”
The parson grinned grimly and lit his old pipe.
“Baron De Carti’s great-grandfather was a Dublin attorney,” he remarked. “Which his name was Jeremiah M’Carthy. His prejudiced fellow-citizens called him the Unjust Steward210, also the Bloody211 Attorney, and I believe that ‘to hell with M’Carthy’ was quite a popular cry about the time of the Union.”
Mr. Taylor was a man of very wide and irregular reading and a tenacious212 memory; he often used to wonder why he had not risen in the Church. He had once told Mr. Dixon a singular and drolatique anecdote213 concerning the bishop’s college days, and he never discovered why the prelate did not bow according to his custom when the name of Taylor was called at the next visitation. Some people said the reason was lighted candles, but that was impossible, as the Reverend and Honorable Smallwood Stafford, Lord Beamys’s son, who had a cure of souls in the cathedral city, was well known to burn no end of candles, and with him the bishop was on the best of terms. Indeed the bishop often stayed at Coplesey (pronounced “Copsey”) Hall, Lord Beamys’s place in the west.
Lucian had mentioned the name of De Carti with intention, and had perhaps exaggerated a little Mrs. Dixon’s respectful manner. He knew such incidents cheered his father, who could never look at these subjects from a proper point of view, and, as people said, sometimes made the strangest remarks for a clergyman. This irreverent way of treating serious things was one of the great bonds between father and son, but it tended to increase their isolation214. People said they would often have liked to asked Mr. Taylor to garden-parties, and tea-parties, and other cheap entertainments, if only he had not been such an extreme man and so queer. Indeed, a year before, Mr. Taylor had gone to a garden-party at the Castle, Caermaen, and had made such fun of the bishop’s recent address on missions to the Portuguese215, that the Gervases and Dixons and all who heard him were quite shocked and annoyed. And, as Mrs. Meyrick of Lanyravon observed, his black coat was perfectly green with age; so on the whole the Gervases did not like to invite Mr. Taylor again. As for the son, nobody cared to have him; Mrs. Dixon, as she said to her husband, really asked him out of charity.
“I am afraid he seldom gets a real meal at home,” she remarked, “so I thought he would enjoy a good wholesome216 tea for once in a way. But he is such an unsatisfactory boy, he would only have one slice of that nice plain cake, and I couldn’t get him to take more than two plums. They were really quite ripe too, and boys are usually so fond of fruit.”
Thus Lucian was forced to spend his holidays chiefly in his own company, and make the best he could of the ripe peaches on the south wall of the rectory garden. There was a certain corner where the heat of that hot August seemed concentrated, reverberated217 from one wall to the other, and here he liked to linger of mornings, when the mists were still thick in the valleys, “mooning,” meditating218, extending his walk from the quince to the medlar and back again, beside the moldering walls of mellowed219 brick. He was full of a certain wonder and awe, not unmixed with a swell of strange exultation220, and wished more and more to be alone, to think over that wonderful afternoon within the fort. In spite of himself the impression was fading; he could not understand that feeling of mad panic terror that drove him through the thicket and down the steep hillside; yet, he had experienced so clearly the physical shame and reluctance221 of the flesh; he recollected that for a few seconds after his awakening the sight of his own body had made him shudder58 and writhe222 as if it had suffered some profoundest degradation223. He saw before him a vision of two forms; a faun with tingling and prickling flesh lay expectant in the sunlight, and there was also the likeness224 of a miserable shamed boy, standing with trembling body and shaking, unsteady hands. It was all confused, a procession of blurred225 images, now of rapture226 and ecstasy227, and now of terror and shame, floating in a light that was altogether phantasmal and unreal. He dared not approach the fort again; he lingered in the road to Caermaen that passed behind it, but a mile away, and separated by the wild land and a strip of wood from the towering battlements. Here he was looking over a gate one day, doubtful and wondering, when he heard a heavy step behind him, and glancing round quickly saw it was old Morgan of the White House.
“Good afternoon, Master Lucian,” he began. “Mr. Taylor pretty well, I suppose? I be goin’ to the house a minute; the men in the fields are wantin’ some more cider. Would you come and taste a drop of cider, Master Lucian? It’s very good, sir, indeed.”
Lucian did not want any cider, but he thought it would please old Morgan if he took some, so he said he should like to taste the cider very much indeed. Morgan was a sturdy, thick-set old man of the ancient stock; a stiff churchman, who breakfasted regularly on fat broth75 and Caerphilly cheese in the fashion of his ancestors; hot, spiced elder wine was for winter nights, and gin for festal seasons. The farm had always been the freehold of the family, and when Lucian, in the wake of the yeoman, passed through the deep porch by the oaken door, down into the long dark kitchen, he felt as though the seventeenth century still lingered on. One mullioned window, set deep in the sloping wall, gave all the light there was through quarries228 of thick glass in which there were whorls and circles, so that the lapping rose-branch and the garden and the fields beyond were distorted to the sight. Two heavy beams, oaken but whitewashed229, ran across the ceiling; a little glow of fire sparkled in the great fireplace, and a curl of blue smoke fled up the cavern230 of the chimney. Here was the genuine chimney-corner of our fathers; there were seats on each side of the fireplace where one could sit snug231 and sheltered on December nights, warm and merry in the blazing light, and listen to the battle of the storm, and hear the flame spit and hiss232 at the falling snowflakes. At the back of the fire were great blackened tiles with raised initials and a date.— I.M., 1684.
“Sit down, Master Lucian, sit down, sir,” said Morgan.
“Annie,” he called through one of the numerous doors, “here’s Master Lucian, the parson, would like a drop of cider. Fetch a jug233, will you, directly?”
“Very well, father,” came the voice from the dairy and presently the girl entered, wiping the jug she held. In his boyish way Lucian had been a good deal disturbed by Annie Morgan; he could see her on Sundays from his seat in church, and her skin, curiously234 pale, her lips that seemed as though they were stained with some brilliant pigment235, her black hair, and the quivering black eyes, gave him odd fancies which he had hardly shaped to himself. Annie had grown into a woman in three years, and he was still a boy. She came into the kitchen, curtsying and smiling.
“Good-day, Master Lucian, and how is Mr. Taylor, sir?”
“Pretty well, thank you. I hope you are well.”
“Nicely, sir, thank you. How nice your voice do sound in church, Master Lucian, to be sure. I was telling father about it last Sunday.”
Lucian grinned and felt uncomfortable, and the girl set down the jug on the round table and brought a glass from the dresser. She bent close over him as she poured out the green oily cider, fragrant236 of the orchard109; her hand touched his shoulder for a moment, and she said, “I beg your pardon, sir,” very prettily237. He looked up eagerly at her face; the black eyes, a little oval in shape, were shining, and the lips smiled. Annie wore a plain dress of some black stuff, open at the throat; her skin was beautiful. For a moment the ghost of a fancy hovered238 unsubstantial in his mind; and then Annie curtsied as she handed him the cider, and replied to his thanks with, “And welcome kindly239, sir.”
The drink was really good; not thin, nor sweet, but round and full and generous, with a fine yellow flame twinkling through the green when one held it up to the light. It was like a stray sunbeam hovering on the grass in a deep orchard, and he swallowed the glassful with relish240, and had some more, warmly commending it. Mr. Morgan was touched.
“I see you do know a good thing, sir,” he said. “Is, indeed, now, it’s good stuff, though it’s my own makin’. My old grandfather he planted the trees in the time of the wars, and he was a very good judge of an apple in his day and generation. And a famous grafter242 he was, to be sure. You will never see no swelling in the trees he grafted243 at all whatever. Now there’s James Morris, Penyrhaul, he’s a famous grafter, too, and yet them Redstreaks he grafted for me five year ago, they be all swollen-like below the graft241 already. Would you like to taste a Blemmin pippin, now, Master Lucian? there be a few left in the loft244, I believe.”
Lucian said he should like an apple very much, and the farmer went out by another door, and Annie stayed in the kitchen talking. She said Mrs. Trevor, her married sister, was coming to them soon to spend a few days.
“She’s got such a beautiful baby,” said Annie, “and he’s quite sensible-like already, though he’s only nine months old. Mary would like to see you, sir, if you would be so kind as to step in; that is, if it’s not troubling you at all, Master Lucian. I suppose you must be getting a fine scholar now, sir?”
“I am doing pretty well, thank you,” said the boy. “I was first in my form last term.”
“Fancy! To think of that! D’you hear, father, what a scholar Master Lucian be getting?”
“He be a rare grammarian, I’m sure,” said the farmer. “You do take after your father, sir; I always do say that nobody have got such a good deliverance in the pulpit.”
Lucian did not find the Blenheim Orange as good as the cider, but he ate it with all the appearance of relish, and put another, with thanks, in his pocket. He thanked the farmer again when he got up to go; and Annie curtsied and smiled, and wished him good-day, and welcome, kindly.
Lucian heard her saying to her father as he went out what a nice-mannered young gentleman he was getting, to be sure; and he went on his way, thinking that Annie was really very pretty, and speculating as to whether he would have the courage to kiss her, if they met in a dark lane. He was quite sure she would only laugh, and say, “Oh, Master Lucian!”
For many months he had occasional fits of recollection, both cold and hot; but the bridge of time, gradually lengthening245, made those dreadful and delicious images grow more and more indistinct, till at last they all passed into that wonderland which a youth looks back upon in amazement, not knowing why this used to be a symbol of terror or that of joy. At the end of each term he would come home and find his father a little more despondent246, and harder to cheer even for a moment; and the wall paper and the furniture grew more and more dingy247 and shabby. The two cats, loved and ancient beasts, that he remembered when he was quite a little boy, before he went to school, died miserably248, one after the other. Old Polly, the pony, at last fell down in the stable from the weakness of old age, and had to be killed there; the battered249 old trap ran no longer along the well-remembered lanes. There was long meadow grass on the lawn, and the trained fruit trees on the wall had got quite out of hand. At last, when Lucian was seventeen, his father was obliged to take him from school; he could no longer afford the fees. This was the sorry ending of many hopes, and dreams of a double-first, a fellowship, distinction and glory that the poor parson had long entertained for his son, and the two moped together, in the shabby room, one on each side of the sulky fire, thinking of dead days and finished plans, and seeing a grey future in the years that advanced towards them. At one time there seemed some chance of a distant relative coming forward to Lucian’s assistance; and indeed it was quite settled that he should go up to London with certain definite aims. Mr. Taylor told the good news to his acquaintances — his coat was too green now for any pretence250 of friendship; and Lucian himself spoke of his plans to Burrows the doctor and Mr. Dixon, and one or two others. Then the whole scheme fell through, and the parson and his son suffered much sympathy. People, of course, had to say they were sorry, but in reality the news was received with high spirits, with the joy with which one sees a stone, as it rolls down a steep place, give yet another bounding leap towards the pool beneath. Mrs. Dixon heard the pleasant tidings from Mrs. Colley, who came in to talk about the Mothers’ Meeting and the Band of Hope. Mrs. Dixon was nursing little Athelwig, or some such name, at the time, and made many affecting observations on the general righteousness with which the world was governed. Indeed, poor Lucian’s disappointment seemed distinctly to increase her faith in the Divine Order, as if it had been some example in Butler’s Analogy.
“Aren’t Mr. Taylor’s views very extreme?” she said to her husband the same evening.
“I am afraid they are,” he replied. “I was quite grieved at the last Diocesan Conference at the way in which he spoke. The dear old bishop had given an address on Auricular Confession96; he was forced to do so, you know, after what had happened, and I must say that I never felt prouder of our beloved Church.”
Mr. Dixon told all the Homeric story of the conference, reciting the achievements of the champions, “deploring” this and applauding that. It seemed that Mr. Taylor had had the audacity251 to quote authorities which the bishop could not very well repudiate252, though they were directly opposed to the “safe” Episcopal pronouncement.
Mrs. Dixon of course was grieved; it was “sad” to think of a clergyman behaving so shamefully253.
“But you know, dear,” she proceeded, “I have been thinking about that unfortunate Taylor boy and his disappointments, and after what you’ve just told me, I am sure it’s some kind of judgment254 on them both. Has Mr. Taylor forgotten the vows255 he took at his ordination256? But don’t you think, dear, I am right, and that he has been punished: ‘The sins of the fathers’?”
Somehow or other Lucian divined the atmosphere of threatenings and judgments257, and shrank more and more from the small society of the countryside. For his part, when he was not “mooning” in the beloved fields and woods of happy memory, he shut himself up with books, reading whatever could be found on the shelves, and amassing258 a store of incongruous and obsolete259 knowledge. Long did he linger with the men of the seventeenth century; delaying the gay sunlit streets with Pepys, and listening to the charmed sound of the Restoration Revel260; roaming by peaceful streams with Izaak Walton, and the great Catholic divines; enchanted261 with the portrait of Herbert the loving ascetic262; awed263 by the mystic breath of Crashaw. Then the cavalier poets sang their gallant264 songs; and Herrick made Dean Prior magic ground by the holy incantation of a verse. And in the old proverbs and homely265 sayings of the time he found the good and beautiful English life, a time full of grace and dignity and rich merriment. He dived deeper and deeper into his books; he had taken all obsolescence266 to be his province; in his disgust at the stupid usual questions, “Will it pay?” “What good is it?” and so forth267, he would only read what was uncouth268 and useless. The strange pomp and symbolism of the Cabala, with its hint of more terrible things; the Rosicrucian mysteries of Fludd, the enigmas269 of Vaughan, dreams of alchemists — all these were his delight. Such were his companions, with the hills and hanging woods, the brooks270 and lonely waterpools; books, the thoughts of books, the stirrings of imagination, all fused into one phantasy by the magic of the outland country. He held himself aloof271 from the walls of the fort; he was content to see the heaped mounds, the violent height with faerie bulwarks, from the gate in the lane, and to leave all within the ring of oaks in the mystery of his boyhood’s vision. He professed272 to laugh at himself and at his fancies of that hot August afternoon, when sleep came to him within the thicket, but in his heart of hearts there was something that never faded — something that glowed like the red glint of a gypsy’s fire seen from afar across the hills and mists of the night, and known to be burning in a wild land. Sometimes, when he was sunken in his books, the flame of delight shot up, and showed him a whole province and continent of his nature, all shining and aglow273; and in the midst of the exultation and triumph he would draw back, a little afraid. He had become ascetic in his studious and melancholy274 isolation, and the vision of such ecstasies275 frightened him. He began to write a little; at first very tentatively and feebly, and then with more confidence. He showed some of his verses to his father, who told him with a sigh that he had once hoped to write — in the old days at Oxford276, he added.
“They are very nicely done,” said the parson; “but I’m afraid you won’t find anybody to print them, my boy.”
So he pottered on; reading everything, imitating what struck his fancy, attempting the effect of the classic meters in English verse, trying his hand at a masque, a Restoration comedy, forming impossible plans for books which rarely got beyond half a dozen lines on a sheet of paper; beset with splendid fancies which refused to abide277 before the pen. But the vain joy of conception was not altogether vain, for it gave him some armor about his heart.
The months went by, monotonous278, and sometimes blotted279 with despair. He wrote and planned and filled the waste-paper basket with hopeless efforts. Now and then he sent verses or prose articles to magazines, in pathetic ignorance of the trade. He felt the immense difficulty of the career of literature without clearly understanding it; the battle was happily in a mist, so that the host of the enemy, terribly arrayed, was to some extent hidden. Yet there was enough of difficulty to appall280; from following the intricate course of little nameless brooks, from hushed twilight woods, from the vision of the mountains, and the breath of the great wind, passing from deep to deep, he would come home filled with thoughts and emotions, mystic fancies which he yearned281 to translate into the written word. And the result of the effort seemed always to be bathos! Wooden sentences, a portentous282 stilted283 style, obscurity, and awkwardness clogged284 the pen; it seemed impossible to win the great secret of language; the stars glittered only in the darkness, and vanished away in clearer light. The periods of despair were often long and heavy, the victories very few and trifling285; night after night he sat writing after his father had knocked out his last pipe, filling a page with difficulty in an hour, and usually forced to thrust the stuff away in despair, and go unhappily to bed, conscious that after all his labor286 he had done nothing. And these were moments when the accustomed vision of the land alarmed him, and the wild domed287 hills and darkling woods seemed symbols of some terrible secret in the inner life of that stranger — himself. Sometimes when he was deep in his books and papers, sometimes on a lonely walk, sometimes amidst the tiresome288 chatter289 of Caermaen “society,” he would thrill with a sudden sense of awful hidden things, and there ran that quivering flame through his nerves that brought back the recollection of the matted thicket, and that earlier appearance of the bare black boughs enwrapped with flames. Indeed, though he avoided the solitary lane, and the sight of the sheer height, with its ring of oaks and molded mounds, the image of it grew more intense as the symbol of certain hints and suggestions. The exultant290 and insurgent291 flesh seemed to have its temple and castle within those olden walls, and he longed with all his heart to escape, to set himself free in the wilderness292 of London, and to be secure amidst the murmur181 of modern streets.
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glamour
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| n.魔力，魅力；vt.迷住 | |
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prospects
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| n.希望，前途(恒为复数) | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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bough
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| n.大树枝，主枝 | |
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diverged
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| 分开( diverge的过去式和过去分词 )； 偏离； 分歧； 分道扬镳 | |
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verge
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| n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临 | |
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dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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densely
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| ad.密集地；浓厚地 | |
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turbid
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| adj.混浊的，泥水的，浓的 | |
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torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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gushed
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| v.喷，涌( gush的过去式和过去分词 )；滔滔不绝地说话 | |
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rivulets
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| n.小河，小溪( rivulet的名词复数 ) | |
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swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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swelled
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| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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tumult
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| n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹 | |
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ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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limestone
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| n.石灰石 | |
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swarming
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| 密集( swarm的现在分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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eminence
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| n.卓越，显赫；高地，高处；名家 | |
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stunted
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| adj.矮小的；发育迟缓的 | |
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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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catching
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penetrated
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waned
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| v.衰落( wane的过去式和过去分词 )；（月）亏；变小；变暗淡 | |
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somber
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| adj.昏暗的，阴天的，阴森的，忧郁的 | |
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descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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glimmer
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| v.发出闪烁的微光；n.微光，微弱的闪光 | |
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glimmering
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| n.微光，隐约的一瞥adj.薄弱地发光的v.发闪光，发微光( glimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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transmuting
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| v.使变形，使变质，把…变成…( transmute的现在分词 ) | |
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flickered
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| （通常指灯光）闪烁，摇曳( flicker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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tinged
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| v.（使）发丁丁声( ting的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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flickering
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| adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的 | |
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recollected
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| adj.冷静的；镇定的；被回忆起的；沉思默想的v.记起，想起( recollect的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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mound
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| n.土墩，堤，小山；v.筑堤，用土堆防卫 | |
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43
jutted
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| v.（使）突出( jut的过去式和过去分词 )；伸出；（从…）突出；高出 | |
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44
sever
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| v.切开，割开；断绝，中断 | |
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45
writhing
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| （因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的现在分词 ) | |
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46
fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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47
dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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48
crimsoned
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| 变为深红色（crimson的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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49
cisterns
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| n.蓄水池，储水箱( cistern的名词复数 )；地下储水池 | |
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50
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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51
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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52
smitten
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| 猛打，重击，打击( smite的过去分词 ) | |
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53
fume
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| n.(usu pl.)(浓烈或难闻的)烟，气，汽 | |
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54
mortified
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| v.使受辱( mortify的过去式和过去分词 )；伤害（人的感情）；克制；抑制（肉体、情感等） | |
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55
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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56
awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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57
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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58
shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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59
shuddering
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| v.战栗( shudder的现在分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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60
meditate
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| v.想，考虑，（尤指宗教上的）沉思，冥想 | |
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61
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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62
rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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63
decadent
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| adj.颓废的，衰落的，堕落的 | |
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64
remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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65
immunity
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| n.优惠；免除；豁免，豁免权 | |
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66
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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67
illiterate
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| adj.文盲的；无知的；n.文盲 | |
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68
testament
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| n.遗嘱；证明 | |
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69
plodded
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| v.沉重缓慢地走（路）( plod的过去式和过去分词 )；努力从事；沉闷地苦干；缓慢进行（尤指艰难枯燥的工作） | |
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70
generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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71
wretches
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| n.不幸的人( wretch的名词复数 )；可怜的人；恶棍；坏蛋 | |
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72
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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73
joyfully
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| adv. 喜悦地, 高兴地 | |
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74
anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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75
broth
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| n.原(汁)汤(鱼汤、肉汤、菜汤等) | |
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76
bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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77
hideously
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| adv.可怕地，非常讨厌地 | |
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78
grotesquely
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| adv. 奇异地,荒诞地 | |
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79
grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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80
forfeited
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| （因违反协议、犯规、受罚等）丧失，失去( forfeit的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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81
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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82
scholastic
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| adj.学校的，学院的，学术上的 | |
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83
logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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84
barbarian
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| n.野蛮人；adj.野蛮(人)的；未开化的 | |
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85
sycophants
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| n.谄媚者，拍马屁者( sycophant的名词复数 ) | |
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86
manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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87
virulent
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| adj.有毒的，有恶意的，充满敌意的 | |
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88
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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89
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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90
tavern
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| n.小旅馆，客栈；小酒店 | |
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91
memorable
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| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
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92
grasshoppers
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| n.蚱蜢( grasshopper的名词复数 )；蝗虫；蚂蚱；（孩子）矮小的 | |
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93
chirp
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| v.(尤指鸟)唧唧喳喳的叫 | |
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94
farmhouses
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| n.农舍，农场的主要住房( farmhouse的名词复数 ) | |
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95
confessions
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| n.承认( confession的名词复数 )；自首；声明；（向神父的）忏悔 | |
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96
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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97
opium
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| n.鸦片；adj.鸦片的 | |
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98
pony
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| adj.小型的；n.小马 | |
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99
burrows
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|
| n.地洞( burrow的名词复数 )v.挖掘（洞穴），挖洞( burrow的第三人称单数 )；翻寻 | |
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100
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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101
vapor
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| n.蒸汽，雾气 | |
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102
ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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103
tout
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| v.推销，招徕；兜售；吹捧，劝诱 | |
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104
sensational
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| adj.使人感动的，非常好的，轰动的，耸人听闻的 | |
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105
depreciated
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| v.贬值，跌价，减价( depreciate的过去式和过去分词 )；贬低，蔑视，轻视 | |
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106
savors
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| v.意味，带有…的性质( savor的第三人称单数 )；给…加调味品；使有风味；品尝 | |
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107
evocation
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| n. 引起，唤起 n. <古> 召唤，招魂 | |
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108
propped
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| 支撑，支持，维持( prop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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109
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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110
orchards
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| （通常指围起来的）果园( orchard的名词复数 ) | |
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111
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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112
haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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113
glades
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| n.林中空地( glade的名词复数 ) | |
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114
glade
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| n.林间空地，一片表面有草的沼泽低地 | |
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115
recesses
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| n.壁凹( recess的名词复数 )；（工作或业务活动的）中止或暂停期间；学校的课间休息；某物内部的凹形空间v.把某物放在墙壁的凹处( recess的第三人称单数 )；将（墙）做成凹形，在（墙）上做壁龛；休息，休会，休庭 | |
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116
meditations
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| 默想( meditation的名词复数 )； 默念； 沉思； 冥想 | |
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117
incense
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| v.激怒；n.香，焚香时的烟，香气 | |
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118
shimmered
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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119
shimmer
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| v./n.发微光，发闪光；微光 | |
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120
unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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121
beech
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| n.山毛榉；adj.山毛榉的 | |
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122
beeches
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| n.山毛榉( beech的名词复数 )；山毛榉木材 | |
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123
mounds
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| 土堆，土丘( mound的名词复数 )； 一大堆 | |
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124
bulwarks
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| n.堡垒( bulwark的名词复数 )；保障；支柱；舷墙 | |
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125
hovering
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| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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126
foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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127
fascination
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| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
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128
swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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129
enchantment
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| n.迷惑，妖术，魅力 | |
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130
trespass
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| n./v.侵犯，闯入私人领地 | |
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131
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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132
alders
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| n.桤木( alder的名词复数 ) | |
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133
desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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134
ascent
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| n.(声望或地位)提高；上升，升高；登高 | |
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135
itched
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| v.发痒( itch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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136
trickling
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| n.油画底色含油太多而成泡沫状突起v.滴( trickle的现在分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动 | |
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137
defiant
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| adj.无礼的，挑战的 | |
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138
vault
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| n.拱形圆顶，地窖，地下室 | |
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139
nettles
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| n.荨麻( nettle的名词复数 ) | |
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140
nettle
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| n.荨麻；v.烦忧，激恼 | |
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141
thicket
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| n.灌木丛，树林 | |
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142
crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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143
withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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144
yew
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| n.紫杉属树木 | |
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145
deformed
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| adj.畸形的；变形的；丑的，破相了的 | |
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146
rebound
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| v.弹回；n.弹回，跳回 | |
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147
axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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148
relics
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| [pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸 | |
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149
smelt
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| v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼 | |
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150
unctuous
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| adj.油腔滑调的，大胆的 | |
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151
abominable
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| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
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152
fungus
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| n.真菌，真菌类植物 | |
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153
corrupt
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| v.贿赂，收买；adj.腐败的，贪污的 | |
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154
shuddered
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| v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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155
pulped
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|
| 水果的肉质部分( pulp的过去式和过去分词 )； 果肉； 纸浆； 低级书刊 | |
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156
shameful
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| adj.可耻的，不道德的 | |
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157
sprouted
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| v.发芽( sprout的过去式和过去分词 )；抽芽；出现；（使）涌现出 | |
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158
stump
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| n.残株，烟蒂，讲演台；v.砍断，蹒跚而走 | |
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159
toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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160
tingling
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| v.有刺痛感( tingle的现在分词 ) | |
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161
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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162
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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163
abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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164
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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165
virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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166
tingled
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| v.有刺痛感( tingle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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167
untie
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| vt.解开，松开；解放 | |
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168
fumbling
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| n. 摸索,漏接 v. 摸索,摸弄,笨拙的处理 | |
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169
protuberant
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| adj.突出的，隆起的 | |
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170
mosses
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| n. 藓类, 苔藓植物 名词moss的复数形式 | |
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171
stark
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| adj.荒凉的；严酷的；完全的；adv.完全地 | |
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172
lichen
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| n.地衣, 青苔 | |
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173
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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174
postures
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| 姿势( posture的名词复数 )； 看法； 态度； 立场 | |
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175
amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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176
huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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177
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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178
beset
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| v.镶嵌；困扰，包围 | |
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179
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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180
rustled
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| v.发出沙沙的声音( rustle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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181
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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182
entreated
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| 恳求，乞求( entreat的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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183
crouching
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的现在分词 ) | |
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184
cleft
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| n.裂缝；adj.裂开的 | |
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185
tilt
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| v.(使)倾侧；(使)倾斜；n.倾侧；倾斜 | |
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186
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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187
consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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188
abominably
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| adv. 可恶地，可恨地，恶劣地 | |
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189
specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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190
trespassing
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| [法]非法入侵 | |
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191
flora
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| n.(某一地区的)植物群 | |
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192
awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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193
renewal
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| adj.(契约)延期，续订，更新，复活，重来 | |
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194
delirium
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| n. 神智昏迷,说胡话;极度兴奋 | |
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195
conciliation
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| n.调解，调停 | |
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196
imposing
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| adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的 | |
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197
dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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198
tint
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| n.淡色，浅色；染发剂；vt.着以淡淡的颜色 | |
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199
groom
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| vt.给（马、狗等）梳毛，照料，使...整洁 | |
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200
lurid
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| adj.可怕的；血红的；苍白的 | |
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201
solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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202
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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203
sneak
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|
| vt.潜行(隐藏,填石缝)；偷偷摸摸做；n.潜行；adj.暗中进行 | |
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204
unripe
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| adj.未成熟的；n.未成熟 | |
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205
scented
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| adj.有香味的；洒香水的；有气味的v.嗅到(scent的过去分词) | |
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206
gusts
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| 一阵强风( gust的名词复数 )； （怒、笑等的）爆发； （感情的）迸发； 发作 | |
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207
beetle
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| n.甲虫，近视眼的人 | |
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208
owls
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| n.猫头鹰( owl的名词复数 ) | |
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209
misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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210
steward
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| n.乘务员，服务员；看管人；膳食管理员 | |
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211
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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212
tenacious
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| adj.顽强的，固执的，记忆力强的，粘的 | |
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213
anecdote
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| n.轶事，趣闻，短故事 | |
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214
isolation
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| n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离 | |
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215
Portuguese
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| n.葡萄牙人；葡萄牙语 | |
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216
wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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217
reverberated
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|
| 回响，回荡( reverberate的过去式和过去分词 )； 使反响，使回荡，使反射 | |
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218
meditating
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| a.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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219
mellowed
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| （使）成熟( mellow的过去式和过去分词 )； 使色彩更加柔和，使酒更加醇香 | |
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220
exultation
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| n.狂喜，得意 | |
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221
reluctance
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|
| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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222
writhe
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| vt.挣扎，痛苦地扭曲；vi.扭曲，翻腾，受苦；n.翻腾，苦恼 | |
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223
degradation
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| n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变 | |
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224
likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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225
blurred
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| v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离 | |
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226
rapture
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| n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜 | |
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227
ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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228
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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229
whitewashed
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| 粉饰，美化，掩饰( whitewash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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230
cavern
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| n.洞穴，大山洞 | |
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231
snug
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| adj.温暖舒适的，合身的，安全的；v.使整洁干净，舒适地依靠，紧贴；n.（英）酒吧里的私房 | |
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232
hiss
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| v.发出嘶嘶声；发嘘声表示不满 | |
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233
jug
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| n.(有柄，小口，可盛水等的)大壶，罐，盂 | |
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234
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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235
pigment
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| n.天然色素，干粉颜料 | |
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236
fragrant
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|
| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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237
prettily
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| adv.优美地；可爱地 | |
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238
hovered
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| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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239
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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240
relish
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| n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味 | |
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241
graft
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| n.移植，嫁接，艰苦工作，贪污；v.移植，嫁接 | |
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242
grafter
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| 嫁接的人，贪污者，收贿者； 平铲 | |
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243
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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244
loft
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| n.阁楼，顶楼 | |
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245
lengthening
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| （时间或空间）延长，伸长( lengthen的现在分词 )； 加长 | |
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246
despondent
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| adj.失望的，沮丧的，泄气的 | |
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247
dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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248
miserably
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| adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地 | |
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249
battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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250
pretence
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| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
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251
audacity
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| n.大胆，卤莽，无礼 | |
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252
repudiate
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| v.拒绝，拒付，拒绝履行 | |
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253
shamefully
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| 可耻地； 丢脸地； 不体面地； 羞耻地 | |
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254
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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255
vows
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| 誓言( vow的名词复数 )； 郑重宣布，许愿 | |
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256
ordination
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| n.授任圣职 | |
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257
judgments
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| 判断( judgment的名词复数 )； 鉴定； 评价； 审判 | |
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258
amassing
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| v.积累，积聚( amass的现在分词 ) | |
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259
obsolete
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| adj.已废弃的，过时的 | |
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260
revel
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| vi.狂欢作乐，陶醉；n.作乐，狂欢 | |
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261
enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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262
ascetic
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| adj.禁欲的；严肃的 | |
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263
awed
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| adj.充满敬畏的，表示敬畏的v.使敬畏，使惊惧( awe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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264
gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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265
homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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266
obsolescence
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| n.过时，陈旧，废弃 | |
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267
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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268
uncouth
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| adj.无教养的，粗鲁的 | |
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269
enigmas
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| n.难于理解的问题、人、物、情况等，奥秘( enigma的名词复数 ) | |
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270
brooks
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| n.小溪( brook的名词复数 ) | |
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271
aloof
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| adj.远离的；冷淡的，漠不关心的 | |
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272
professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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273
aglow
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| adj.发亮的；发红的；adv.发亮地 | |
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274
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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275
ecstasies
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| 狂喜( ecstasy的名词复数 )； 出神； 入迷； 迷幻药 | |
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276
Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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277
abide
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| vi.遵守；坚持；vt.忍受 | |
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278
monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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279
blotted
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| 涂污( blot的过去式和过去分词 )； （用吸墨纸）吸干 | |
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280
appall
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| vt.使惊骇，使大吃一惊 | |
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281
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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282
portentous
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| adj.不祥的，可怕的，装腔作势的 | |
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283
stilted
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| adj.虚饰的；夸张的 | |
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284
clogged
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| （使）阻碍( clog的过去式和过去分词 )； 淤滞 | |
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285
trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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286
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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287
domed
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| adj. 圆屋顶的, 半球形的, 拱曲的 动词dome的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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288
tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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289
chatter
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| vi.／n.喋喋不休；短促尖叫；(牙齿)打战 | |
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290
exultant
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| adj.欢腾的，狂欢的，大喜的 | |
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291
insurgent
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| adj.叛乱的，起事的；n.叛乱分子 | |
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292
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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