Clara blushed and looked very happy at all this; for I think up to this time she had been rather frightened of Ellen. As for me I felt young again, and strange hopes of my youth were mingling2 with the pleasure of the present; almost destroying it, and quickening it into something like pain.
As we passed through the short and winding3 reaches of the now quickly lessening4 stream, Ellen said: “How pleasant this little river is to me, who am used to a great wide wash of water; it almost seems as if we shall have to stop at every reach-end. I expect before I get home this evening I shall have realised what a little country England is, since we can so soon get to the end of its biggest river.”
“It is not big,” said I, “but it is pretty.”
“Yes,” she said, “and don’t you find it difficult to imagine the times when this little pretty country was treated by its folk as if it had been an ugly characterless waste, with no delicate beauty to be guarded, with no heed5 taken of the ever fresh pleasure of the recurring6 seasons, and changeful weather, and diverse quality of the soil, and so forth7? How could people be so cruel to themselves?”
“And to each other,” said I. Then a sudden resolution took hold of me, and I said: “Dear neighbour, I may as well tell you at once that I find it easier to imagine all that ugly past than you do, because I myself have been part of it. I see both that you have divined something of this in me; and also I think you will believe me when I tell you of it, so that I am going to hide nothing from you at all.”
She was silent a little, and then she said: “My friend, you have guessed right about me; and to tell you the truth I have followed you up from Runnymede in order that I might ask you many questions, and because I saw that you were not one of us; and that interested and pleased me, and I wanted to make you as happy as you could be. To say the truth, there was a risk in it,” said she, blushing —“I mean as to Dick and Clara; for I must tell you, since we are going to be such close friends, that even amongst us, where there are so many beautiful women, I have often troubled men’s minds disastrously8. That is one reason why I was living alone with my father in the cottage at Runnymede. But it did not answer on that score; for of course people came there, as the place is not a desert, and they seemed to find me all the more interesting for living alone like that, and fell to making stories of me to themselves — like I know you did, my friend. Well, let that pass. This evening, or to-morrow morning, I shall make a proposal to you to do something which would please me very much, and I think would not hurt you.”
I broke in eagerly, saying that I would do anything in the world for her; for indeed, in spite of my years and the too obvious signs of them (though that feeling of renewed youth was not a mere1 passing sensation, I think)— in spite of my years, I say, I felt altogether too happy in the company of this delightful9 girl, and was prepared to take her confidences for more than they meant perhaps.
She laughed now, but looked very kindly10 on me. “Well,” she said, “meantime for the present we will let it be; for I must look at this new country that we are passing through. See how the river has changed character again: it is broad now, and the reaches are long and very slow-running. And look, there is a ferry!”
I told her the name of it, as I slowed off to put the ferry-chain over our heads; and on we went passing by a bank clad with oak trees on our left hand, till the stream narrowed again and deepened, and we rowed on between walls of tall reeds, whose population of reed sparrows and warblers were delightfully11 restless, twittering and chuckling12 as the wash of the boats stirred the reeds from the water upwards13 in the still, hot morning.
She smiled with pleasure, and her lazy enjoyment14 of the new scene seemed to bring out her beauty doubly as she leaned back amidst the cushions, though she was far from languid; her idleness being the idleness of a person, strong and well-knit both in body and mind, deliberately15 resting.
“Look!” she said, springing up suddenly from her place without any obvious effort, and balancing herself with exquisite16 grace and ease; “look at the beautiful old bridge ahead!”
“I need scarcely look at that,” said I, not turning my head away from her beauty. “I know what it is; though” (with a smile) “we used not to call it the Old Bridge time agone.”
She looked down upon me kindly, and said, “How well we get on now you are no longer on your guard against me!”
And she stood looking thoughtfully at me still, till she had to sit down as we passed under the middle one of the row of little pointed17 arches of the oldest bridge across the Thames.
“O the beautiful fields!” she said; “I had no idea of the charm of a very small river like this. The smallness of the scale of everything, the short reaches, and the speedy change of the banks, give one a feeling of going somewhere, of coming to something strange, a feeling of adventure which I have not felt in bigger waters.”
I looked up at her delightedly; for her voice, saying the very thing which I was thinking, was like a caress18 to me. She caught my eye and her cheeks reddened under their tan, and she said simply:
“I must tell you, my friend, that when my father leaves the Thames this summer he will take me away to a place near the Roman wall in Cumberland; so that this voyage of mine is farewell to the south; of course with my goodwill19 in a way; and yet I am sorry for it. I hadn’t the heart to tell Dick yesterday that we were as good as gone from the Thames-side; but somehow to you I must needs tell it.”
She stopped and seemed very thoughtful for awhile, and then said smiling:
“I must say that I don’t like moving about from one home to another; one gets so pleasantly used to all the detail of the life about one; it fits so harmoniously20 and happily into one’s own life, that beginning again, even in a small way, is a kind of pain. But I daresay in the country which you come from, you would think this petty and unadventurous, and would think the worse of me for it.”
She smiled at me caressingly21 as she spoke22, and I made haste to answer: “O, no, indeed; again you echo my very thoughts. But I hardly expected to hear you speak so. I gathered from all I have heard that there was a great deal of changing of abode23 amongst you in this country.”
“Well,” she said, “of course people are free to move about; but except for pleasure-parties, especially in harvest and hay-time, like this of ours, I don’t think they do so much. I admit that I also have other moods than that of stay-at-home, as I hinted just now, and I should like to go with you all through the west country — thinking of nothing,” concluded she smiling.
“I should have plenty to think of,” said I.
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1
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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mingling
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| adj.混合的 | |
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winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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4
lessening
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| 减轻，减少，变小 | |
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5
heed
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| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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recurring
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| adj.往复的，再次发生的 | |
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7
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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8
disastrously
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| ad.灾难性地 | |
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9
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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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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11
delightfully
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| 大喜，欣然 | |
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12
chuckling
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的现在分词 ) | |
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13
upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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14
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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15
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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16
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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17
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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18
caress
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| vt./n.爱抚，抚摸 | |
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19
goodwill
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| n.善意，亲善，信誉，声誉 | |
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harmoniously
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| 和谐地，调和地 | |
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caressingly
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| 爱抚地，亲切地 | |
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22
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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23
abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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