“Well!” said Aurelius, “we could not live if we had nothing in common with the cave-men. A man who was a mere4 fishmonger or a mere philologer could not live a day without artificial aid. Scratch a philologer sufficiently5 hard and you will find a sort of a cave-man.”
[77]
“I think,” continued Mr Morgan, “that we ought to prove our self-respect by going soberly back on our steps to see what by-ways took us out of Gwithavon to this point.”
“I’m not afraid of you at that game,” said Aurelius. “I have often played it during church services, or rather after them. A church service needs no further defence if it can provide a number of boys with a chance of good wool-gathering.”
“Very true,” said Mr Torrance, who always agreed with Aurelius when it was possible. A fancy had struck him, and instead of turning it into a sonnet6 he said: “I like to think that the original wool-gatherers were men whose taste it was to wander the mountains and be before-hand with the nesting birds, gathering stray wool from the rocks and thorns, a taste that took them into all sorts of wild new places without over-loading them with wool, or with profit or applause.”
“Very pretty, Frank,” said Aurelius, who had himself now gone wool-gathering and gave us the benefit of it. He told us that he had just recalled a church and a preacher whose voice used to enchant7 his boyhood into a half-dream. The light was dim as with gold dust. It was[78] warm and sleepy, and to the boy all the other worshippers seemed to be asleep. The text was the three verses of the first chapter of Genesis which describe the work of creation on the fifth day. He heard the clergyman’s voice murmuring, “Let the waters bring forth9 abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl10 that may fly above the earth in the open firmament12 of heaven.”
“That was enough,” said Aurelius, “for me it was all the sermon. It summoned up before me a coast of red crags and a black sea that was white where the waves got lost in the long corridors between the crags. The moon, newly formed to rule the night, stood full, large, and white, at the top of the sky, which was as black as the sea and cloudless. And out of the water were rising, by twos and threes, but sometimes in multitudes like a cloud, the birds who were to fly in the open firmament of heaven. Out of the black waste emerged sea-birds, one at a time, their long white wings spread wide out at first, but then as they paused on the surface, uplifted like the sides of a lyre; in a moment they were skimming this way and that, and, rising up in circles, were presently screaming around the moon. Several had only[79] risen a little way when, falling back into the sea, they vanished, there, as I supposed, destined13 by the divine purpose to be deprived of their wings and to become fish. Eagles as red as the encircling crags came up also, but always solitary14; they ascended15 as upon a whirlwind in one or two long spirals and, blackening the moon for a moment, towered out of sight. The little singing birds were usually cast up in cloudlets, white and yellow and blue and dappled, and, after hovering16 uncertainly at no great height, made for the crags, where they perched above the white foam18, piping, warbling, and twittering, after their own kinds, either singly or in concert. Ever and anon flocks of those who had soared now floated downward across the moon and went over my head with necks outstretched, crying towards the mountains, moors19, and marshes20, or sloped still lower and alighted upon the water, where they screamed whenever the surface yawned at a new birth of white or many-coloured wings. Gradually the sea was chequered from shore to horizon with birds, and the sky was throbbing21 continually with others, so that the moon could either not be seen at all, or only in slits22 and wedges. The crags were covered, as if with moss23 and leaves, by lesser24 birds who[80] mingled25 their voices as if it were a dawn of May....”
In my turn I now went off wool-gathering, so that I cannot say how the fifth day ended in the fancy of Aurelius, if you call it fancy. It being then near the end of winter, that vision of birds set me thinking of the nests to come. I went over in my mind the eggs taken and to be taken by Philip and me at Lydiard Constantine. All of last year’s were in one long box, still haunted by the cheapest scent26 of the village shop. I had not troubled to arrange them; there was a confusion of moor-hens’ and coots’ big freckled27 eggs with the lesser blue or white or olive eggs, the blotted28, blotched, and scrawled29 eggs. For a minute they were forgotten during the recollection of a poem I had begun to copy out, and had laid away with the eggs. It was the first poem I had ever read and re-read for my own pleasure, and I was copying it out in my best hand-writing, the capitals in red ink. I had got as far as “Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest.” I tried to repeat the verses but could not, and so I returned to the eggs. I thought of April when we should once again butt30 our way through thickets31 of stiff, bristling32 stems, through thorn and briar and[81] bramble in the double hedges. We should find the thrushes’ nests in a certain copse of oak and blackthorn where the birds used hardly anything but moss, and you could see them far off among the dark branches, which seldom had many leaves, but were furred over with lichens33. We would go to all those little ponds shadowed by hazels close to the farms, where there was likely to be a solitary moorhen’s home, and up into the pollard willow34 which once had four starling’s eggs at the bottom of a long narrow pocket. In all those spring days we had no conscious aim but finding nests, and if we were not scrambling35 in a wood we walked with heads lifted up to the trees, turned aside to the hedges, or bent36 down to the grass or undergrowth. We were not curious about the eggs; questions of numbers or variation in size, shape or colour, troubled us but fitfully. Sun, rain, wind, deep mud, water over the boots and knees, scratches to arms, legs, and face, dust in the eyes, fear of gamekeepers and farmers, excitement, dizziness, weariness, all were summed up by the plain or marked eggs in the scent box; they were all that visibly remained of these things, and I valued them in the same way and for the same reason as the athlete valued the parsley[82] crown. The winning of this one or that was recalled with regret, sometimes that I had taken more than I should have done from the same nest, sometimes that I had not taken as many as would have been excusable; I blushed with annoyance37 because we had not revisited certain nests which were unfinished or empty when we discovered them—the plough-boys doubtless had robbed them completely, or they had merely produced young birds. How careless the country boys were, putting eggs into their hats and often forgetting all about them, often breaking them wantonly. I envied them their opportunities and despised them for making so little use of them.
I thought of the flowers we tramped over, the smell and taste of cowslips and primroses38, and various leaves, and of the young brier shoots which we chewed and spat39 out again as we walked. I do not know what Aurelius might have been saying, but I began to count up the Sundays that must pass before there would be any chance of finding rooks’ eggs, not at Lydiard, but at the rookery nearest to Abercorran House. Thus I was reminded of the rookery in the half-dozen elms of a farm-house home field, close by the best fishing-place of all[83] at Lydiard. There the arrow-headed reeds grew in thick beds, and the water looked extraordinarily40 mysterious on our side of them, as if it might contain fabulous41 fish. Only last season I had left my baited line out there while I slipped through the neighbouring hedge to look for a reed-bunting’s nest; and when I returned I had to pull in an empty line which some monster had gnawed42 through, escaping with hooks and bait. I wonder Philip did not notice. It was just there, between the beds of arrow-head and that immense water dock on the brink43. I vowed44 to try again. Everybody had seen the monster, or at least the swirl45 made as he struck out into the deeps at a passing tread. “As long as my arm, I daresay,” said the carter, cracking his whip emphatically with a sort of suggestion that the fish was not to be caught by the like of us. Well, we shall see.
As usual the idea of fishing was connected with my aunt Rachel. There was no fishing worth speaking of unless we stayed with her in our holidays. The water in the ponds at Lydiard Constantine provoked magnificent hopes. I could have enjoyed fishing by those arrow-heads without a bait, so fishy46 did it look, especially on Sundays, when sport was forbidden:—it was[84] unbearable47 to see that look and lack rod and line. The fascinating look of water is indescribable, but it enables me to understand how
“Simple Simon went a-fishing
For to catch a whale,
But all the water he had got
Was in his mother’s pail.”
I have seen that look in tiny ponds, and have fished in one against popular advice, only giving it up because I caught newts there and nothing else.
But to my wool-gathering. In the Library, with Aurelius talking, I could see that shadowed water beside the reeds and the float in the midst. In fact I always had that picture at my command. We liked the water best when it was quite smooth; the mystery was greater, and we used to think that we caught more fish out of it in this state. I hoped it would be a still summer, and warm. It was nearly three quarters of a year since last we were in that rookery meadow—eight months since I had tasted my aunt’s doughy49 cake. I can see her making it, first stoning the raisins50 while the dough48 in a pan by the fire was rising; when she thought neither of us was looking she stoned them with her teeth, but this did not shock me,[85] and now I come to think of it they were very white even teeth, not too large or too small, so that I wonder no man ever married her for them alone. I am glad no man did marry her—at least, I was glad then. For she would probably have given up making doughy cakes full of raisins and spices, if she had married. I suppose that what with making cakes and wiping the dough off her fingers, and wondering if we had got drowned in the river, she had no time for lovers. She existed for those good acts which are mostly performed in the kitchen, for supplying us with lamb and mint sauce, and rhubarb tart51 with cream, when we came in from birds-nesting. How dull it must be for her, thought I, sitting alone there at Lydiard Constantine, the fishing over, the birds not laying yet, no nephews to be cared for, and therefore no doughy cakes, for she could not be so greedy as to make them for herself and herself alone. Aunt Rachel lived alone, when she was without us, in a little cottage in a row, at the edge of the village. Hers was an end house. The rest were neat and merely a little stained by age; hers was hidden by ivy52, which thrust itself through the walls and up between the flagstones of the floor, flapped in at the windows, and spread itself so densely[86] over the panes53 that the mice ran up and down it, and you could see their pale, silky bellies54 through the glass—often they looked in and entered. The ivy was full of sparrows’ nests, and the neighbours were indignant that she would not have them pulled out; even we respected them.
To live there always, I thought, would be bliss55, provided that Philip was with me, always in a house covered with ivy and conducted by an aunt who baked and fried for you and tied up your cuts, and would clean half a hundred perchlings for you without a murmur8, though by the end of it her face and the adjacent windows were covered with the flying scales. “Why don’t you catch two or three really big ones?” she would question, sighing for weariness, but still smiling at us, and putting on her crafty-looking spectacles. “Whew, if we could,” we said one to another. It seemed possible for the moment; for she was a wonderful woman, and the house wonderful too, no anger, no sorrow, no fret56, such a large fire-place, everything different from London, and better than anything in London except Abercorran House. The ticking of her three clocks was delicious, especially very early in the morning as you lay awake, or when you got home tired at twilight57, before[87] lamps were lit. Everything had been as it was in Aunt Rachel’s house for untold58 time; it was natural like the trees; also it was never stale; you never came down in the morning feeling that you had done the same yesterday and would do the same to-morrow, as if each day was a new, badly written line in a copy-book, with the same senseless words at the head of every page. Why couldn’t we always live there? There was no church or chapel59 for us—Philip had never in his life been to either. Sunday at Lydiard Constantine was not the day of grim dulness when everyone was set free from work, only to show that he or she did not know what to do or not to do; if they had been chained slaves these people from Candelent Street and elsewhere could not have been stiffer or more savagely60 solemn.
Those adult people were a different race. I had no thought that Philip or I could become like that, and I laughed at them without a pang61, not knowing what was to save Philip from such an end. How different from those people was my aunt, her face serene62 and kind, notwithstanding that she was bustling63 about all day and had trodden her heels down and had let her hair break out into horns and wisps.
[88]
I thought of the race of women and girls. I thought (with a little pity) that they were nicer than men. I would rather be a man, I mused64, yet I was sure women were better. I would not give up my right to be a man some day; but for the present there was no comparison between the two in my affections; and I should not have missed a single man except Aurelius. Nevertheless, women did odd things. They always wore gloves when they went out, for example. Now, if I put gloves on my hands, it was almost as bad as putting a handkerchief over my eyes or cotton wool in my ears. They picked flowers with gloved hands. Certainly they had their weaknesses. But think of the different ways of giving an apple. A man caused it to pass into your hands in a way that made it annoying to give thanks; a woman gave herself with it, it was as if the apple were part of her, and you took it away and ate it in peace, sitting alone, thinking of nothing. A boy threw an apple at you as if he wanted to knock your teeth out with it, and, of course, you threw it back at him with the same intent; a girl gave it in such a way that you wanted to give it back, if you were not somehow afraid. I began thinking of three girls who all lived[89] near my aunt and would do anything I wanted, as if it was not I but they that wanted it. Perhaps it was. Perhaps they wanted nothing except to give. Well, and that was rather stupid, too.
Half released from the spell by one of the voices in the Library, I turned to a dozen things at once—as what time it was, whether one of the pigeons would have laid its second egg by now, whether Monday’s post would bring a letter from a friend who was in Kent, going about the woods with a gamekeeper who gave him squirrels, stoats, jays, magpies65, an owl11, and once a woodcock, to skin. I recalled the sweet smell of the squirrels; it was abominable66 to kill them, but I liked skinning them.... I turned to thoughts of the increasing row of books on my shelf. First came The Compleat Angler. That gave me a brief entry into a thinly populated world of men rising early, using strange baits, catching67 many fish, talking to milkmaids with beautiful voices and songs fit for them. The book—in a cheap and unattractive edition—shut up between its gilded68 covers a different, embalmed69, enchanted70 life without any care. Philip and I knew a great deal of it by heart, and took a strong fancy to certain passages[90] and phrases, so that we used to repeat out of all reason “as wholesome71 as a pearch of Rhine,” which gave a perfect image of actual perch17 swimming in clear water down the green streets of their ponds on sunny days.... Then there were Sir Walter Scott’s poems, containing the magic words—
“And, Saxon, I am Rhoderick Dhu.”
Next, Robinson Crusoe, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, the Iliad, a mass of almost babyish books, tattered72 and now never touched, and lastly The Adventures of King Arthur and the Round Table. I heard the Lady of the Lake say to Merlin (who had a face like Aurelius) “Inexorable man, thy powers are resistless”: moonlit waters overhung by mountains, and crags crowned by towers, boats with mysterious dark freight; knights73 taller than Roland, trampling74 and glittering; sorceries, battles, dragons, kings, and maidens75, stormed or flitted through my mind, some only as words and phrases, some as pictures. It was a shadow entertainment, with an indefinable quality of remoteness tinged76 by the pale Arthurian moonlight and its reflection in that cold lake, which finally suggested the solid comfort of tea at my[91] aunt’s house, and thick slices, “cut ugly,” of the doughy cake.
At this point Jessie came in to say that tea was ready. “So am I,” said I, and we raced downstairs. Jessie won.
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1
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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philology
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| n.语言学；语文学 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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sonnet
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| n.十四行诗 | |
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enchant
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| vt.使陶醉，使入迷；使着魔，用妖术迷惑 | |
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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fowl
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| n.家禽，鸡，禽肉 | |
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owl
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| n.猫头鹰，枭 | |
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firmament
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| n.苍穹；最高层 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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14
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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15
ascended
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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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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17
perch
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| n.栖木，高位，杆；v.栖息，就位，位于 | |
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18
foam
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| v./n.泡沫，起泡沫 | |
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19
moors
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| v.停泊，系泊（船只）( moor的第三人称单数 ) | |
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marshes
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| n.沼泽，湿地( marsh的名词复数 ) | |
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21
throbbing
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| a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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slits
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| n.狭长的口子，裂缝( slit的名词复数 )v.切开，撕开( slit的第三人称单数 )；在…上开狭长口子 | |
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23
moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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lesser
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| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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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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scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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27
freckled
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| adj.雀斑；斑点；晒斑；（使）生雀斑v.雀斑，斑点( freckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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28
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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scrawled
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| 乱涂，潦草地写( scrawl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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butt
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| n.笑柄；烟蒂；枪托；臀部；v.用头撞或顶 | |
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thickets
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| n.灌木丛( thicket的名词复数 )；丛状物 | |
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bristling
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| a.竖立的 | |
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lichens
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| n.地衣( lichen的名词复数 ) | |
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willow
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| n.柳树 | |
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35
scrambling
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的现在分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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36
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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annoyance
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| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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primroses
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| n.报春花( primrose的名词复数 )；淡黄色；追求享乐（招至恶果） | |
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spat
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| n.口角，掌击；v.发出呼噜呼噜声 | |
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extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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41
fabulous
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| adj.极好的；极为巨大的；寓言中的，传说中的 | |
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42
gnawed
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| 咬( gnaw的过去式和过去分词 )； （长时间） 折磨某人； （使）苦恼； （长时间）危害某事物 | |
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43
brink
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| n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘，边沿 | |
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44
vowed
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| 起誓，发誓（vow的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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45
swirl
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| v.(使)打漩，(使)涡卷；n.漩涡，螺旋形 | |
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46
fishy
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| adj. 值得怀疑的 | |
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unbearable
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| adj.不能容忍的；忍受不住的 | |
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48
dough
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| n.生面团；钱，现款 | |
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doughy
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| adj.面团的，苍白的，半熟的；软弱无力 | |
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50
raisins
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| n.葡萄干( raisin的名词复数 ) | |
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tart
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| adj.酸的；尖酸的，刻薄的；n.果馅饼；淫妇 | |
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52
ivy
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| n.常青藤，常春藤 | |
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53
panes
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| 窗玻璃( pane的名词复数 ) | |
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54
bellies
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| n.肚子( belly的名词复数 )；腹部；（物体的）圆形或凸起部份；腹部…形的 | |
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bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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56
fret
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| v.(使)烦恼；(使)焦急；(使)腐蚀，(使)磨损 | |
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57
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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untold
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| adj.数不清的，无数的 | |
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chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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60
savagely
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| adv. 野蛮地，残酷地 | |
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pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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bustling
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| adj.喧闹的 | |
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64
mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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65
magpies
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| 喜鹊（magpie的复数形式） | |
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66
abominable
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| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
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67
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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68
gilded
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| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
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69
embalmed
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| adj.用防腐药物保存（尸体）的v.保存（尸体）不腐( embalm的过去式和过去分词 )；使不被遗忘；使充满香气 | |
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70
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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71
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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72
tattered
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| adj.破旧的，衣衫破的 | |
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73
knights
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| 骑士； （中古时代的）武士( knight的名词复数 )； 骑士； 爵士； （国际象棋中）马 | |
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74
trampling
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| 踩( trample的现在分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯 | |
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75
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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76
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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