Now the Ken1 is a pleasant water, and the road up the Glenkens a fine road to travel. But I went it that morning heavily—rather, indeed, like one who goes to the burying of a friend than like a lover setting out to see his mistress.
I turned me down through the woods to Earlstoun. There were signs of the still recent return of the family. Here on the gate of the lodge3 was the effaced4 escutcheon of Colonel Theophilus Oglethorpe, which Alexander Gordon had not yet had time to replace with the{155} ancient arms of his family. For indeed it was to Colonel William, Sandy Gordon’s brother, he who had led us to Edinburgh in the Convention year, that the recovery of the family estates was due.
I had not expected any especially kind welcome. The laird of Earlstoun had been a mighty6 Covenanter, and now wore his prisonments and sufferings somewhat ostentatiously, like so many orders of merit. He would think little of one who was a minister of the uncovenanted Kirk, and who, though holding the freedom of that Kirk as his heart’s belief, yet, nevertheless, demeaned him to take the pay of the State. To be faithful and devoted7 in service were not enough for Alexander Gordon. To please him one must do altogether as he had done, think entirely8 as he thought.
Yet I was to be more kindly9 received than I anticipated.
It was in the midst of the road where the wood, turning sharp along the waterside, a narrow path twines10 and twists through sparkling birches and trembling alders11. The pools slept black beneath as I looked down upon them from some craggy pinnacle12 to which the grey hill lichen13 clung. The salmon14 poised15 themselves{156} motionless, save for a waving fin2, below the fish-leaps, ready for their rush upstream when the floods should come down brown with peat water from Cairnsmore and the range of Kells.
All at once, as I stood dreaming, I heard a gay voice lilting at a song. I wavered a moment in act to flee, my heart almost standing16 still to listen.
For I knew among a thousand the voice of Mary Gordon. But I had no time to conceal17 myself. A gleam of white and lilac through the bushes, a bright reflection as of sunshine on the pool—then the whole day brightened and she stood before me.
The song instantly stilled itself on her lips.
We stood face to face. It seemed to me that she paled a little. But perhaps it was only that I, who desired so greatly to see any evidence of emotion, saw part of that which I desired.
The next moment she came forward with her hand frankly18 outstretched.
“I bid you welcome to Earlstoun,” she said. “Alas19! that my father should this day be from home. He is gone to Kirkcudbright. But my mother and I will show you hospitality till he{157} return. My father hears a great word of you, he tells us. The country tongue speaks well of your labours.”
Now it seemed to me that in thus speaking she smiled to herself, and that put me from answering. I could do naught20 but be stiffly silent.
“I thank you, Mistress Mary, for your kind courtesy!” was all that I found within me to say. For I felt that she must despise me for a country lout21 of no manners and ungentle birth. So at least I thought at the time.
We passed without speech through the scattering22 shadows of the birches, and I saw that her hair (on which she wore no covering) had changed from its ancient yellow as of ripened23 corn into a sunny brown. Yet as I looked furtively24, here and there the gentle crispen wavelets seemed to be touched and flecked with threads of its ancient sheen, a thing which filled me strangely with a desire to caress25 with my hand its desirable beauty—so carnal and wicked are the thoughts of the heart of man.
But when I saw her so lightsome and dainty, so full of delight and the admirable joy of living, a sullen26 sort of anger came over me that I should chance to love one who could in no wise{158} love me again, nor yet render me the return which I so greatly desired.
“You have travelled all the long way from the Manse of Balmaghie?” she said, suddenly falling back to my side where the path was wider, as if she, too, felt the pause of constraint27.
“Nay,” I answered, “I have been at Ardarroch with my father and mother for two days. And to-morrow I must return to the people among whom I labour.”
She stole a quick glance at me from beneath her long dark lashes28. There was infinite teasing mischief29 in the flashing of her eyes.
“You have an empty manse by the waterside of Dee. Ye will doubtless be looking for some douce country lass to fill it.”
The words were kindly enough spoken, yet in the very frankness of the speech I recognised the distance she was putting between us. But I had not been trained in the school of quick retorts nor of the light debate of maidens30. For all that I had a will of mine own, and would not permit that any woman born of woman should play cat’s-cradle with Quintin MacClellan.
“Lady,” said I, “there is, indeed, an empty manse down yonder by the Dee, and I am looking for one to fill it. But I will have none who{159} cannot love me for myself, and also who will not love the work to which I have set my hand.”
She held up her hand in quick merriment.
“Do not be afraid,” she cried, gaily32. “I was not thinking of making you an offer!”
And then she laughed so mirthsome a peal33 that all against my will I was forced to join her.
And this mended matters wonderfully. For after that, though I had my own troubles with her and my heart-breaks as all shall hear, yet never was she again the haughty34 maiden31 of the first sermon and the midsummer kirk door.
“They tell me that once ye brought me all the way from the Bennan-top to the tower of Lochinvar, where our Auntie Jean was biding35?”
“I found no claims to your good-will on that,” said I, mindful of the day of my first way going to Edinburgh; “but I would fain have you think well of me now.”
“Ye are still over great a Whig. Mind that I stand for the White Rose,” she said, stamping her foot merrily.
“’Tis a matter ye ken nothing about,” said I, roughly. “Maidens had better let the affairs of State alone. Methinks the White Rose has brought little good to you and yours.”
“I tell you what, Sir Minister,” she cried,{160} mocking me, “there are two great tubs in the pool below the falls. Do you get into one and I will take the other. I will fly the white pennon and you the blue. Then let us each take a staff and tilt36 at one another. If you upset me, ’pon honour, I will turn Whig, but if you are ducked in the pond, you must wear henceforth the colours of the true King. ’Tis an equal bargain. You agree?”
But before I could reply we were near by the gate of Earlstoun, and there came out a lady wrapped in a shawl, and this though the day was hot and the autumnal air had never an edge upon it.
“Mother,” cried Mary Gordon, running eagerly to meet her. The lady in the plaid seemed not to hear, but turned aside by the path which led along the water to the north.
The girl ran after her and caught her mother by the arm.
“Here is Mr. MacClellan, the minister from Balmaghie, come to see my father,” said she. “Bide, mother, and make him welcome.”
The lady stopped stiffly till I had come immediately in front of her.
“You are a minister of the Established and{161} Uncovenanted Kirk?” she asked me, eyeing me sternly enough.
I told her that I had been ordained37 a week before.
“Then you have indeed broken your faith with the Persecuted38 Remnant, as they tell me?” she went on, keeping her eyes blankly upon my face.
“Nay,” said I; “I have the old ways still at heart and will stand till death by the faith delivered to the martyrs39.”
“What do ye, then, clad in the rags of the State?”
Whereat I told the Lady of Earlstoun how that I was with all my heart resolved to fight the Kirk’s battle for her ancient liberties and for the power to rule within her own borders. But that if those in authority gave us not the hearing and liberty we desired, I, for one, would shake off the dust of the unworthy Kirk of Scotland from my feet—as, indeed, I was well resolved to do.
But Mary Gordon broke in on my eager explanation.
“Mother, mother,” she cried, “come your ways in and entertain the guest. Let your questionings keep till our father comes from{162} Kirkcudbright. Assuredly they will have a stormy fortnight of it then. Let the lad now break bread and cheese.”
The lady sighed and clasped her hands.
“I suppose,” she said, “it must even be so; for men are carnal and their bodies must be fed. Alas, there are but few who care for the health of their souls! As for me, I was about to retire to the wood that I might for the hundred three score and ninth time renew my covenanting40 engagements.”
“You must break them very often, mother, that they are ever needing mending,” said her daughter, not so unkindly as the words look when written down, but rather carelessly, like one who has been oftentimes over the same ground and knows the landmarks41 by heart.
“Mary, Mary,” answered her mother, “I fear there is no serious or spiritual interest in you. Your father spoils and humours you. And so you have grown up—not like that godly lad Alexander Gordon the younger, who when he was but three years of his age had read the Bible through nineteen times, and could rattle42 off the books of the Old and New Testaments43 whiles I was counting ten.”
“Aye, mother,” replied the lass, “and in{163} addition could make faces behind your back all the time he was doing it!”
But the lady appeared not to hear her daughter. She continued to clasp her hands convulsively before her, and to repeat over and over again the words, “Eh, the blessed laddie—the blessed, blessed laddie!”
How long we might have stood thus in the glaring sun I know not; but, without waiting for her mother to take the lead or to go in of her own accord, Mary Gordon wheeled her round by the arm and led her unresisting towards the courtyard gate. She accompanied her daughter with the same weary unconcern and passionless preoccupation she had shown from the first, twisting and pulling the fringes of the shawl between her fingers, while her thin lips moved, either in covenant-making or in the murmured praises of her favourite child.
The room to which we were brought was a large one with panels of oak carven at the cornices into quaint44 and formal ornaments45.
Mary went to the stairhead and cried down as to one in the kitchen: “Thomas Allen! Thomas Allen!”
A thin, querulous voice arose from the{164} depths: “Sic a fash! Wha’s come stravagin’ at this time o’ day? He will be wantin’ victual dootless. I never saw the like——”
“Thomas Allen! Haste ye fast, Thomas!”
“Comin’, mem, comin’! What’s your fret46? There’s naebody in the deid-thraws,[10] is there?”
As the last words were uttered, an old serving-man, in a blue side-coat of thirty years before, with threadbare lace falling low at the neck and hands in a forgotten fashion, appeared at the doorway47. His bald and shining head had still a few lyart locks clinging like white fringes about the sides. These, however, were not allowed to grow downward in the natural manner, but were trained as gardeners train fruit trees against walls that look to the south. They climbed directly upward so that the head of Thomas Allen was criss-crossed in both directions by streaks48 of hair, interlaced like the fingers of one’s hands netted together. But owing to the natural haste with which Thomas did his work, these were never all seen in place at one time. Invariably they had fallen to one side or the other, and being stiffened49 with candle grease or other greyish unguent50, they stood{165} out at all angles like goose quills51 from a scrivener’s inkpot.
During the perfunctory repast which was finally brought forward and placed on the table by the reluctant Thomas, Mistress Mary sat directly opposite to me with her chin resting on her fingers and her elbows on the table. Her mother, at the upper end of the chamber52, occupied herself in looking out of the window, occasionally clasping her hands in the urgency of her supplications or giving vent5 to a pitiful moan which indicated her sense of the hopeless iniquity53 of mankind.
Then with more kindliness54 than she had ever yet shown me, Mary Gordon asked of my people of Balmaghie, whether the call had been unanimous, who abode55 with me in the manse, and many other questions, to all of which I answered as well as I could. For the truth is, that the nearness of so admirable a maid and the directness of her gaze wrought56 in me a kind of desperation, so that it was all I could do to keep from telling her then that I had come to the house of Earlstoun to ask her to be my wife.
Not that I had the wildest hope of a favourable57 answer, but simply from inexperience at the{166} business of making love to a young lass I blundered blindly on. Plain ram-stam Hob could have bested me fairly at that. For he had not talked so long to the good-wives of the Lothians without getting a well-hung tongue in the head of him.
I looked sideways at the Lady of Earlstoun. She was mumbling58 at her devotions, or perhaps meditating59 other and more personal covenantings. Mary Gordon and I were in a manner alone.
“Mistress Mary,” I said, suddenly leaning towards her, my desperation getting the better of my natural prudence60, “I know that I speak wholly without hope. But I came to-day to tell you that I love you. I am but a cotter’s lad, but I have loved you ever since I ferried you, a little maid, past the muskets61 of the troopers.”
I looked straight enough at her now. I could see the colour rise a little in her cheek, while a strange expression of wonder and pride, with something that was neither, overspread her face. Up to this point I might have been warned, but I was not to be holden now.
“Before I had no right, nor, indeed, any opportunity to tell you this. But now, as minister{167} of a parish, I have an income that will compare not unfavourably with that of most of the smaller gentry62 of the county.”
The girl nodded, with a swift hardening of the nostril63.
“It will doubtless be a fine income,” she said, with a touch of scorn. “Did I understand you to offer me your manse and income?”
“I offer you that which neither dishonours64 an honest girl to hear or yet an honest man to speak. I am offering you my best service, the faith and devotion of a man who truly loves you.”
“I thank you, sir,” she said, lifting up her head and letting her eyes dwell on me with some of their former haughtiness65; “I am honoured indeed. Your position, your manse, your glebe! How many acres did you say it was? Your income, good as that of a laird. And you come offering all these to Mary Gordon? Sir, I bid you carry your business transactions to the county market-place. Mary Gordon is not to be bought and sold. When she loves, she will give herself for love and love alone. Aye, were it to a poke-laden houseless cadger66 by the roadside, or a ploughman staggering between the furrows67!”{168}
And with that she rose and walked swiftly to the door. I could hear her foot die away through the courtyard; and going blankly to the window, I watched her slim figure glance between the clumps68 of trees, now in the light, now in the shadow, and anon lost in the yellowing depths of the forest.
Nor, though I watched all through the long hot afternoon, did she return till she came home riding upon her father’s horse, with Sandy Gordon himself walking bareheaded beside his daughter, as if he had been escorting a queen on her coronation day.
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1
ken
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| n.视野，知识领域 | |
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fin
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| n.鳍；(飞机的)安定翼 | |
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lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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effaced
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| v.擦掉( efface的过去式和过去分词 )；抹去；超越；使黯然失色 | |
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vent
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| n.通风口，排放口；开衩；vt.表达，发泄 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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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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10
twines
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| n.盘绕( twine的名词复数 )；麻线；捻；缠绕在一起的东西 | |
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alders
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| n.桤木( alder的名词复数 ) | |
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pinnacle
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| n.尖塔，尖顶，山峰；(喻)顶峰 | |
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lichen
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| n.地衣, 青苔 | |
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salmon
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| n.鲑，大马哈鱼，橙红色的 | |
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poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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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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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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naught
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| n.无，零 [=nought] | |
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lout
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| n.粗鄙的人；举止粗鲁的人 | |
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scattering
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| n.[物]散射；散乱，分散；在媒介质中的散播adj.散乱的；分散在不同范围的；广泛扩散的；（选票）数量分散的v.散射(scatter的ing形式)；散布；驱散 | |
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ripened
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| v.成熟，使熟( ripen的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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furtively
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| adv. 偷偷地, 暗中地 | |
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caress
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| vt./n.爱抚，抚摸 | |
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sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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constraint
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| n.(on)约束，限制；限制(或约束)性的事物 | |
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lashes
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| n.鞭挞( lash的名词复数 )；鞭子；突然猛烈的一击；急速挥动v.鞭打( lash的第三人称单数 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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maidens
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| 处女( maiden的名词复数 )； 少女； 未婚女子； （板球运动）未得分的一轮投球 | |
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maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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peal
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| n.钟声；v.鸣响 | |
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haughty
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| adj.傲慢的，高傲的 | |
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biding
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| v.等待，停留( bide的现在分词 )；居住；（过去式用bided）等待；面临 | |
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tilt
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| v.(使)倾侧；(使)倾斜；n.倾侧；倾斜 | |
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ordained
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| v.任命（某人）为牧师( ordain的过去式和过去分词 )；授予（某人）圣职；（上帝、法律等）命令；判定 | |
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persecuted
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| （尤指宗教或政治信仰的）迫害(~sb. for sth.)( persecute的过去式和过去分词 )； 烦扰，困扰或骚扰某人 | |
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39
martyrs
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| n.martyr的复数形式；烈士( martyr的名词复数 )；殉道者；殉教者；乞怜者（向人诉苦以博取同情） | |
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40
covenanting
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| v.立约，立誓( covenant的现在分词 ) | |
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41
landmarks
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| n.陆标( landmark的名词复数 )；目标；（标志重要阶段的）里程碑 ~ (in sth)；有历史意义的建筑物（或遗址） | |
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42
rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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43
testaments
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| n.遗嘱( testament的名词复数 )；实际的证明 | |
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44
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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45
ornaments
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| n.装饰( ornament的名词复数 )；点缀；装饰品；首饰v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的第三人称单数 ) | |
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46
fret
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| v.(使)烦恼；(使)焦急；(使)腐蚀，(使)磨损 | |
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47
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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48
streaks
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| n.（与周围有所不同的）条纹( streak的名词复数 )；（通常指不好的）特征（倾向）；（不断经历成功或失败的）一段时期v.快速移动( streak的第三人称单数 )；使布满条纹 | |
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49
stiffened
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| 加强的 | |
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50
unguent
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| n.（药）膏；润滑剂；滑油 | |
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51
quills
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| n.（刺猬或豪猪的）刺( quill的名词复数 )；羽毛管；翮；纡管 | |
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52
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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53
iniquity
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| n.邪恶；不公正 | |
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54
kindliness
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| n.厚道，亲切，友好的行为 | |
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55
abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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56
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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57
favourable
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| adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的 | |
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58
mumbling
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| 含糊地说某事，叽咕，咕哝( mumble的现在分词 ) | |
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meditating
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| a.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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60
prudence
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| n.谨慎，精明，节俭 | |
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61
muskets
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| n.火枪，（尤指）滑膛枪( musket的名词复数 ) | |
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62
gentry
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| n.绅士阶级，上层阶级 | |
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63
nostril
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| n.鼻孔 | |
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64
dishonours
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| 不名誉( dishonour的名词复数 )； 耻辱； 丢脸； 丢脸的人或事 | |
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65
haughtiness
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| n.傲慢；傲气 | |
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66
cadger
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| n.乞丐；二流子；小的油容量；小型注油器 | |
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67
furrows
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| n.犁沟( furrow的名词复数 )；（脸上的）皱纹v.犁田，开沟( furrow的第三人称单数 ) | |
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68
clumps
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| n.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的名词复数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声v.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的第三人称单数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声 | |
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