The following Thursday was changeable, damp, and gloomy; and thenight threatened to be windy and unpleasant. Stockdale had goneaway to Knollsea in the morning, to be present at some commemorationservice there, and on his return he was met by the attractive Lizzyin the passage. Whether influenced by the tide of cheerfulnesswhich had attended him that day, or by the drive through the openair, or whether from a natural disposition1 to let bygones alone, heallowed himself to be fascinated into forgetfulness of the greatcoatincident, and upon the whole passed a pleasant evening; not so muchin her society as within sound of her voice, as she sat talking inthe back parlour to her mother, till the latter went to bed.
Shortly after this Mrs. Newberry retired2, and then Stockdaleprepared to go upstairs himself. But before he left the room heremained standing3 by the dying embers awhile, thinking long of onething and another; and was only aroused by the flickering4 of hiscandle in the socket5 as it suddenly declined and went out. Knowingthat there were a tinder-box, matches, and another candle in hisbedroom, he felt his way upstairs without a light. On reaching hischamber he laid his hand on every possible ledge6 and corner for thetinderbox, but for a long time in vain. Discovering it at length,Stockdale produced a spark, and was kindling8 the brimstone, when hefancied that he heard a movement in the passage. He blew harder atthe lint9, the match flared10 up, and looking by aid of the blue lightthrough the door, which had been standing open all this time, he wassurprised to see a male figure vanishing round the top of thestaircase with the evident intention of escaping unobserved. Thepersonage wore the clothes which Lizzy had been brushing, andsomething in the outline and gait suggested to the minister that thewearer was Lizzy herself.
But he was not sure of this; and, greatly excited, Stockdaledetermined to investigate the mystery, and to adopt his own way fordoing it. He blew out the match without lighting11 the candle, wentinto the passage, and proceeded on tiptoe towards Lizzy's room. Afaint grey square of light in the direction of the chamber-window ashe approached told him that the door was open, and at once suggestedthat the occupant was gone. He turned and brought down his fistupon the handrail of the staircase: 'It was she; in her latehusband's coat and hat!'
Somewhat relieved to find that there was no intruder in the case,yet none the less surprised, the minister crept down the stairs,softly put on his boots, overcoat, and hat, and tried the frontdoor. It was fastened as usual: he went to the back door, foundthis unlocked, and emerged into the garden. The night was mild andmoonless, and rain had lately been falling, though for the presentit had ceased. There was a sudden dropping from the trees andbushes every now and then, as each passing wind shook their boughs13.
Among these sounds Stockdale heard the faint fall of feet upon theroad outside, and he guessed from the step that it was Lizzy's. Hefollowed the sound, and, helped by the circumstance of the windblowing from the direction in which the pedestrian moved, he gotnearly close to her, and kept there, without risk of beingoverheard. While he thus followed her up the street or lane, as itmight indifferently be called, there being more hedge than houses oneither side, a figure came forward to her from one of the cottagedoors. Lizzy stopped; the minister stepped upon the grass andstopped also.
'Is that Mrs. Newberry?' said the man who had come out, whose voiceStockdale recognized as that of one of the most devout14 members ofhis congregation.
'It is,' said Lizzy.
'I be quite ready--I've been here this quarter-hour.'
'Ah, John,' said she, 'I have bad news; there is danger to-night forour venture.'
'And d'ye tell o't! I dreamed there might be.'
'Yes,' she said hurriedly; 'and you must go at once round to wherethe chaps are waiting, and tell them they will not be wanted tillto-morrow night at the same time. I go to burn the lugger off.'
'I will,' he said; and instantly went off through a gate, Lizzycontinuing her way.
On she tripped at a quickening pace till the lane turned into theturnpike-road, which she crossed, and got into the track forRingsworth. Here she ascended15 the hill without the leasthesitation, passed the lonely hamlet of Holworth, and went down thevale on the other side. Stockdale had never taken any extensivewalks in this direction, but he was aware that if she persisted inher course much longer she would draw near to the coast, which washere between two and three miles distant from Nether-Moynton; and asit had been about a quarter-past eleven o'clock when they set out,her intention seemed to be to reach the shore about midnight.
Lizzy soon ascended a small mound16, which Stockdale at the same timeadroitly skirted on the left; and a dull monotonous17 roar burst uponhis ear. The hillock was about fifty yards from the top of thecliffs, and by day it apparently18 commanded a full view of the bay.
There was light enough in the sky to show her disguised figureagainst it when she reached the top, where she paused, andafterwards sat down. Stockdale, not wishing on any account to alarmher at this moment, yet desirous of being near her, sank upon hishands and knees, crept a little higher up, and there stayed still.
The wind was chilly19, the ground damp, and his position one in whichhe did not care to remain long. However, before he had decided20 toleave it, the young man heard voices behind him. What theysignified he did not know; but, fearing that Lizzy was in danger, hewas about to run forward and warn her that she might be seen, whenshe crept to the shelter of a little bush which maintained aprecarious existence in that exposed spot; and her form was absorbedin its dark and stunted21 outline as if she had become part of it.
She had evidently heard the men as well as he. They passed nearhim, talking in loud and careless tones, which could be heard abovethe uninterrupted washings of the sea, and which suggested that theywere not engaged in any business at their own risk. This proved tobe the fact: some of their words floated across to him, and causedhim to forget at once the coldness of his situation.
'A lugger, about fifty tons.'
'From Cherbourg, I suppose?'
'Yes, 'a b'lieve.'
'But it don't all belong to Owlett?'
'O no. He's only got a share. There's another or two in it--afarmer and such like, but the names I don't know.'
The voices died away, and the heads and shoulders of the mendiminished towards the cliff, and dropped out of sight.
'My darling has been tempted23 to buy a share by that unbelieverOwlett,' groaned24 the minister, his honest affection for Lizzy havingquickened to its intensest point during these moments of risk to herperson and name. 'That's why she's here,' he said to himself. 'O,it will be the ruin of her!'
His perturbation was interrupted by the sudden bursting out of abright and increasing light from the spot where Lizzy was in hiding.
A few seconds later, and before it had reached the height of ablaze25, he heard her rush past him down the hollow like a stone froma sling26, in the direction of home. The light now flared high andwide, and showed its position clearly. She had kindled27 a bough12 offurze and stuck it into the bush under which she had been crouching;the wind fanned the flame, which crackled fiercely, and threatenedto consume the bush as well as the bough. Stockdale paused justlong enough to notice thus much, and then followed rapidly the routetaken by the young woman. His intention was to overtake her, andreveal himself as a friend; but run as he would he could see nothingof her. Thus he flew across the open country about Holworth,twisting his legs and ankles in unexpected fissures28 and descents,till, on coming to the gate between the downs and the road, he wasforced to pause to get breath. There was no audible movement eitherin front or behind him, and he now concluded that she had not outrunhim, but that, hearing him at her heels, and believing him one ofthe excise29 party, she had hidden herself somewhere on the way, andlet him pass by.
He went on at a more leisurely30 pace towards the village. Onreaching the house he found his surmise31 to be correct, for the gatewas on the latch32, and the door unfastened, just as he had left them.
Stockdale closed the door behind him, and waited silently in thepassage. In about ten minutes he heard the same light footstep thathe had heard in going out; it paused at the gate, which opened andshut softly, and then the door-latch was lifted, and Lizzy came in.
Stockdale went forward and said at once, 'Lizzy, don't befrightened. I have been waiting up for you.'
She started, though she had recognized the voice. 'It is Mr.
Stockdale, isn't it?' she said.
'Yes,' he answered, becoming angry now that she was safe indoors,and not alarmed. 'And a nice game I've found you out in to-night.
You are in man's clothes, and I am ashamed of you!'
Lizzy could hardly find a voice to answer this unexpected reproach.
'I am only partly in man's clothes,' she faltered33, shrinking back tothe wall. 'It is only his greatcoat and hat and breeches that I'vegot on, which is no harm, as he was my own husband; and I do it onlybecause a cloak blows about so, and you can't use your arms. I havegot my own dress under just the same--it is only tucked in! Willyou go away upstairs and let me pass? I didn't want you to see meat such a time as this!'
'But I have a right to see you! How do you think there can beanything between us now?' Lizzy was silent. 'You are a smuggler,'
he continued sadly.
'I have only a share in the run,' she said.
'That makes no difference. Whatever did you engage in such a tradeas that for, and keep it such a secret from me all this time?'
'I don't do it always. I only do it in winter-time when 'tis newmoon.'
'Well, I suppose that's because it can't be done anywhen else . . .
You have regularly upset me, Lizzy.'
'I am sorry for that,' Lizzy meekly34 replied.
'Well now,' said he more tenderly, 'no harm is done as yet. Won'tyou for the sake of me give up this blamable and dangerous practicealtogether?'
'I must do my best to save this run,' said she, getting rather huskyin the throat. 'I don't want to give you up--you know that; but Idon't want to lose my venture. I don't know what to do now! Why Ihave kept it so secret from you is that I was afraid you would beangry if you knew.'
'I should think so! I suppose if I had married you without findingthis out you'd have gone on with it just the same?'
'I don't know. I did not think so far ahead. I only went to-nightto burn the folks off, because we found that the excisemen knewwhere the tubs were to be landed.'
'It is a pretty mess to be in altogether, is this,' said thedistracted young minister. 'Well, what will you do now?'
Lizzy slowly murmured the particulars of their plan, the chief ofwhich were that they meant to try their luck at some other point ofthe shore the next night; that three landing-places were alwaysagreed upon before the run was attempted, with the understandingthat, if the vessel was 'burnt off' from the first point, which wasRingsworth, as it had been by her to-night, the crew should attemptto make the second, which was Lulstead Cove7, on the second night;and if there, too, danger threatened, they should on the third nighttry the third place, which was behind a headland further west.
'Suppose the officers hinder them landing there too?' he said, hisattention to this interesting programme displacing for a moment hisconcern at her share in it.
'Then we shan't try anywhere else all this dark--that's what we callthe time between moon and moon--and perhaps they'll string the tubsto a stray-line, and sink 'em a little-ways from shore, and take thebearings; and then when they have a chance they'll go to creep for'em.'
'What's that?'
'O, they'll go out in a boat and drag a creeper--that's a grapnel--along the bottom till it catch hold of the stray-line.'
The minister stood thinking; and there was no sound within doors butthe tick of the clock on the stairs, and the quick breathing ofLizzy, partly from her walk and partly from agitation35, as she stoodclose to the wall, not in such complete darkness but that he coulddiscern against its whitewashed36 surface the greatcoat and broad hatwhich covered her.
'Lizzy, all this is very wrong,' he said. 'Don't you remember thelesson of the tribute-money? "Render unto Caesar the things thatare Caesar's." Surely you have heard that read times enough in yourgrowing up?'
'But the spirit of the text is in force just the same.'
'My father did it, and so did my grandfather, and almost everybodyin Nether-Moynton lives by it, and life would be so dull if itwasn't for that, that I should not care to live at all.'
'I am nothing to live for, of course,' he replied bitterly. 'Youwould not think it worth while to give up this wild business andlive for me alone?'
'I have never looked at it like that.'
'And you won't promise and wait till I am ready?'
'I cannot give you my word to-night.' And, looking thoughtfullydown, she gradually moved and moved away, going into the adjoiningroom, and closing the door between them. She remained there in thedark till he was tired of waiting, and had gone up to his ownchamber.
Poor Stockdale was dreadfully depressed38 all the next day by thediscoveries of the night before. Lizzy was unmistakably afascinating young woman, but as a minister's wife she was hardly tobe contemplated39. 'If I had only stuck to father's little grocerybusiness, instead of going in for the ministry40, she would havesuited me beautifully!' he said sadly, until he remembered that inthat case he would never have come from his distant home to Nether-Moynton, and never have known her.
The estrangement41 between them was not complete, but it wassufficient to keep them out of each other's company. Once duringthe day he met her in the garden-path, and said, turning areproachful eye upon her, 'Do you promise, Lizzy?' But she did notreply. The evening drew on, and he knew well enough that Lizzywould repeat her excursion at night--her half-offended manner hadshown that she had not the slightest intention of altering her plansat present. He did not wish to repeat his own share of theadventure; but, act as he would, his uneasiness on her accountincreased with the decline of day. Supposing that an accidentshould befall her, he would never forgive himself for not beingthere to help, much as he disliked the idea of seeming tocountenance such unlawful escapades.
收听单词发音 |
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disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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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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flickering
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| adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的 | |
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socket
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| n.窝，穴，孔，插座，插口 | |
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ledge
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| n.壁架，架状突出物；岩架，岩礁 | |
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cove
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| n.小海湾，小峡谷 | |
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kindling
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| n. 点火, 可燃物 动词kindle的现在分词形式 | |
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lint
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| n.线头；绷带用麻布，皮棉 | |
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Flared
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| adj. 端部张开的, 爆发的, 加宽的, 漏斗式的 动词flare的过去式和过去分词 | |
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11
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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12
bough
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| n.大树枝，主枝 | |
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boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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14
devout
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| adj.虔诚的，虔敬的，衷心的 (n.devoutness) | |
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ascended
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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mound
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| n.土墩，堤，小山；v.筑堤，用土堆防卫 | |
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monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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stunted
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| adj.矮小的；发育迟缓的 | |
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vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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ablaze
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| adj.着火的，燃烧的；闪耀的，灯火辉煌的 | |
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sling
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| vt.扔；悬挂；n.挂带；吊索，吊兜；弹弓 | |
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kindled
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| （使某物）燃烧，着火( kindle的过去式和过去分词 )； 激起（感情等）； 发亮，放光 | |
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fissures
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| n.狭长裂缝或裂隙( fissure的名词复数 )；裂伤；分歧；分裂v.裂开( fissure的第三人称单数 ) | |
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excise
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| n.(国产)货物税；vt.切除，删去 | |
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leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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surmise
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| v./n.猜想，推测 | |
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latch
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| n.门闩，窗闩；弹簧锁 | |
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faltered
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| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
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meekly
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| adv.温顺地，逆来顺受地 | |
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agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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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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pouted
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| v.撅（嘴）( pout的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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contemplated
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| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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ministry
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| n.(政府的)部；牧师 | |
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estrangement
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| n.疏远，失和，不和 | |
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