CHAPTER X. A TROUBLING OF THE WATERS

 One evening in late June Mrs. Williamson was sitting by her kitchen window. Her knitting lay unheeded in her lap, and Timothy, though he nestled ingratiatingly against her foot as he lay on the rug and purred his loudest, was unregarded. She rested her face on her hand and looked out of the window, across the distant harbour, with troubled eyes.

 

“I guess I must speak,” she thought wistfully. “I hate to do it. I always did hate meddling¹. My mother always used to say that ninety-nine times out of a hundred the last state of a meddler³ and them she meddled⁴ with was worse than the first. But I guess it’s my duty. I was Margaret’s friend, and it is my duty to protect her child any way I can. If the Master does go back across there to meet her I must tell him what I think about it.”

 

Overhead in his room, Eric was walking about whistling. Presently he came downstairs, thinking of the orchard⁵, and the girl who would be waiting for him there.

 

As he crossed the little front entry he heard Mrs. Williamson’s voice calling to him.

 

“Mr. Marshall, will you please come here a moment?”

 

He went out to the kitchen. Mrs. Williamson looked at him deprecatingly. There was a flush on her faded cheek and her voice trembled.

 

“Mr. Marshall, I want to ask you a question. Perhaps you will think it isn’t any of my business. But it isn’t because I want to meddle². No, no. It is only because I think I ought to speak. I have thought it over for a long time, and it seems to me that I ought to speak. I hope you won’t be angry, but even if you are I must say what I have to say. Are you going back to the old Connors orchard to meet Kilmeny Gordon?”

 

For a moment an angry flush burned in Eric’s face. It was more Mrs. Williamson’s tone than her words which startled and annoyed him.

 

“Yes, I am, Mrs. Williamson,” he said coldly. “What of it?”

 

“Then, sir,” said Mrs. Williamson with more firmness, “I have got to tell you that I don’t think you are doing right. I have been suspecting all along that that was where you went every evening, but I haven’t said a word to any one about it. Even my husband doesn’t know. But tell me this, Master. Do Kilmeny’s uncle and aunt know that you are meeting her there?”

 

“Why,” said Eric, in some confusion, “I—I do not know whether they do or not. But Mrs. Williamson, surely you do not suspect me of meaning any harm or wrong to Kilmeny Gordon?”

 

“No, I don’t, Master. I might think it of some men, but never of you. I don’t for a minute think that you would do her or any woman any wilful⁶ wrong. But you may do her great harm for all that. I want you to stop and think about it. I guess you haven’t thought. Kilmeny can’t know anything about the world or about men, and she may get to thinking too much of you. That might break her heart, because you couldn’t ever marry a dumb girl like her. So I don’t think you ought to be meeting her so often in this fashion. It isn’t right, Master. Don’t go to the orchard again.”

 

Without a word Eric turned away, and went upstairs to his room. Mrs. Williamson picked up her knitting with a sigh.

 

“That’s done, Timothy, and I’m real thankful,” she said. “I guess there’ll be no need of saying anything more. Mr. Marshall is a fine young man, only a little thoughtless. Now that he’s got his eyes opened I’m sure he’ll do what is right. I don’t want Margaret’s child made unhappy.”

 

Her husband came to the kitchen door and sat down on the steps to enjoy his evening smoke, talking between whiffs to his wife of Elder Tracy’s church row, and Mary Alice Martin’s beau, the price Jake Crosby was giving for eggs, the quantity of hay yielded by the hill meadow, the trouble he was having with old Molly’s calf⁷, and the respective merits of Plymouth Rock and Brahma roosters. Mrs. Williamson answered at random⁸, and heard not one word in ten.

 

“What’s got the Master, Mother?” inquired old Robert, presently. “I hear him striding up and down in his room ‘sif he was caged. Sure you didn’t lock him in by mistake?”

 

“Maybe he’s worried over the way Seth Tracy’s acting⁹ in school,” suggested Mrs. Williamson, who did not choose that her gossipy husband should suspect the truth about Eric and Kilmeny Gordon.

 

“Shucks, he needn’t worry a morsel¹⁰ over that. Seth’ll quiet down as soon as he finds he can’t run the Master. He’s a rare good teacher—better’n Mr. West was even, and that’s saying something. The trustees are hoping he’ll stay for another term. They’re going to ask him at the school meeting to-morrow, and offer him a raise of supplement.”

 

Upstairs, in his little room under the eaves, Eric Marshall was in the grip of the most intense and overwhelming emotion he had ever experienced.

 

Up and down, to and fro, he walked, with set lips and clenched¹¹ hands. When he was wearied out he flung himself on a chair by the window and wrestled¹² with the flood of feeling.

 

Mrs. Williamson’s words had torn away the delusive¹³ veil with which he had bound his eyes. He was face to face with the knowledge that he loved Kilmeny Gordon with the love that comes but once, and is for all time. He wondered how he could have been so long blind to it. He knew that he must have loved her ever since their first meeting that May evening in the old orchard.

 

And he knew that he must choose between two alternatives—either he must never go to the orchard again, or he must go as an avowed¹⁴ lover to woo him a wife.

 

Worldly prudence¹⁵, his inheritance from a long line of thrifty¹⁶, cool-headed ancestors, was strong in Eric, and he did not yield easily or speedily to the dictates¹⁷ of his passion. All night he struggled against the new emotions that threatened to sweep away the “common sense” which David Baker¹⁸ had bade him take with him when he went a-wooing. Would not a marriage with Kilmeny Gordon be an unwise thing from any standpoint?

 

Then something stronger and greater and more vital than wisdom or unwisdom rose up in him and mastered him. Kilmeny, beautiful, dumb Kilmeny was, as he had once involuntarily thought, “the one maid” for him. Nothing should part them. The mere¹⁹ idea of never seeing her again was so unbearable²⁰ that he laughed at himself for having counted it a possible alternative.

 

“If I can win Kilmeny’s love I shall ask her to be my wife,” he said, looking out of the window to the dark, southwestern hill beyond which lay his orchard.

 

The velvet²¹ sky over it was still starry²²; but the water of the harbour was beginning to grow silvery in the reflection of the dawn that was breaking in the east.

 

“Her misfortune will only make her dearer to me. I cannot realize that a month ago I did not know her. It seems to me that she has been a part of my life for ever. I wonder if she was grieved that I did not go to the orchard last night—if she waited for me. If she does, she does not know it herself yet. It will be my sweet task to teach her what love means, and no man has ever had a lovelier, purer, pupil.”

 

At the annual school meeting, the next afternoon, the trustees asked Eric to take the Lindsay school for the following year. He consented unhesitatingly.

 

That evening he went to Mrs. Williamson, as she washed her tea dishes in the kitchen.

 

“Mrs. Williamson, I am going back to the old Connors orchard to see Kilmeny again to-night.”

 

She looked at him reproachfully.

 

“Well, Master, I have no more to say. I suppose it wouldn’t be of any use if I had. But you know what I think of it.”

 

“I intend to marry Kilmeny Gordon if I can win her.”

 

An expression of amazement²³ came into the good woman’s face. She looked scrutinizingly at the firm mouth and steady gray eyes for a moment. Then she said in a troubled voice,

 

“Do you think that is wise, Master? I suppose Kilmeny is pretty; the egg peddler told me she was; and no doubt she is a good, nice girl. But she wouldn’t be a suitable wife for you—a girl that can’t speak.”

 

“That doesn’t make any difference to me.”

 

“But what will your people say?”

 

“I have no ‘people’ except my father. When he sees Kilmeny he will understand. She is all the world to me, Mrs. Williamson.”

 

“As long as you believe that there is nothing more to be said,” was the quiet answer, “I’d be a little bit afraid if I was you, though. But young people never think of those things.”

 

“My only fear is that she won’t care for me,” said Eric soberly.

 

Mrs. Williamson surveyed the handsome, broad-shouldered young man shrewdly.

 

“I don’t think there are many women would say you ‘no’, Master. I wish you well in your wooing, though I can’t help thinking you’re doing a daft-like thing. I hope you won’t have any trouble with Thomas and Janet. They are so different from other folks there is no knowing. But take my advice, Master, and go and see them about it right off. Don’t go on meeting Kilmeny unbeknownst to them.”

 

“I shall certainly take your advice,” said Eric, gravely. “I should have gone to them before. It was merely thoughtlessness on my part. Possibly they do know already. Kilmeny may have told them.”

 

Mrs. Williamson shook her head decidedly.

 

“No, no, Master, she hasn’t. They’d never have let her go on meeting you there if they had known. I know them too well to think of that for a moment. Go you straight to them and say to them just what you have said to me. That is your best plan, Master. And take care of Neil. People say he has a notion of Kilmeny himself. He’ll do you a bad turn if he can, I’ve no doubt. Them foreigners can’t be trusted—and he’s just as much a foreigner as his parents before him—though he HAS been brought up on oatmeal and the shorter catechism, as the old saying has it. I feel that somehow—I always feel it when I look at him singing in the choir²⁴.”

 

“Oh, I am not afraid of Neil,” said Eric carelessly. “He couldn’t help loving Kilmeny—nobody could.”

 

“I suppose every young man thinks that about his girl—if he’s the right sort of young man,” said Mrs. Williamson with a little sigh.

 

She watched Eric out of sight anxiously.

 

“I hope it’ll all come out right,” she thought. “I hope he ain’t making an awful mistake—but—I’m afraid. Kilmeny must be very pretty to have bewitched him so. Well, I suppose there is no use in my worrying over it. But I do wish he had never gone back to that old orchard and seen her.”

1 meddling   

v.干涉，干预（他人事务）( meddle的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• He denounced all "meddling" attempts to promote a negotiation. 他斥责了一切“干预”促成谈判的企图。 来自辞典例句
• They liked this field because it was never visited by meddling strangers. 她们喜欢这块田野，因为好事的陌生人从来不到那里去。 来自辞典例句

2 meddle   

v.干预，干涉，插手

参考例句：

• I hope he doesn't try to meddle in my affairs.我希望他不来干预我的事情。
• Do not meddle in things that do not concern you.别参与和自己无关的事。

3 meddler   

n.爱管闲事的人，干涉者

参考例句：

• "I know you, you scoundrel! I have heard of you before. You are Holmes, the meddler." “我知道你，这个恶棍。我以前听过你。你是福尔摩斯，爱管闲事的人。” 来自互联网

4 meddled   

v.干涉，干预（他人事务）( meddle的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Someone has meddled with the photographs I laid out so carefully. 有人把我精心布置的照片弄乱了。 来自辞典例句
• The gifts of charity meddled with a man's private affair. 慈善团体的帮助实际上是干涉私人的事务。 来自互联网

5 orchard   

n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场

参考例句：

• My orchard is bearing well this year.今年我的果园果实累累。
• Each bamboo house was surrounded by a thriving orchard.每座竹楼周围都是茂密的果园。

6 wilful   

adj.任性的，故意的

参考例句：

• A wilful fault has no excuse and deserves no pardon.不能宽恕故意犯下的错误。
• He later accused reporters of wilful distortion and bias.他后来指责记者有意歪曲事实并带有偏见。

7 calf   

n.小牛，犊，幼仔，小牛皮

参考例句：

• The cow slinked its calf.那头母牛早产了一头小牛犊。
• The calf blared for its mother.牛犊哞哞地高声叫喊找妈妈。

8 random   

adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动

参考例句：

• The list is arranged in a random order.名单排列不分先后。
• On random inspection the meat was found to be bad.经抽查，发现肉变质了。

9 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

10 morsel   

n.一口，一点点

参考例句：

• He refused to touch a morsel of the food they had brought.他们拿来的东西他一口也不吃。
• The patient has not had a morsel of food since the morning.从早上起病人一直没有进食。

11 clenched   

v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He clenched his fists in anger. 他愤怒地攥紧了拳头。
• She clenched her hands in her lap to hide their trembling. 她攥紧双手放在腿上，以掩饰其颤抖。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 wrestled   

v.（与某人）搏斗( wrestle的过去式和过去分词 )；扭成一团；扭打；（与…）摔跤

参考例句：

• As a boy he had boxed and wrestled. 他小的时候又是打拳又是摔跤。
• Armed guards wrestled with the intruder. 武装警卫和闯入者扭打起来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 delusive   

adj.欺骗的，妄想的

参考例句：

• Most of the people realized that their scheme was simply a delusive snare.大多数人都认识到他们的诡计不过是一个骗人的圈套。
• Everyone knows that fairy isles are delusive and illusive things,still everyone wishes they were real.明知神山缥缈，却愿其有。

14 avowed   

adj.公开声明的，承认的v.公开声明，承认( avow的过去式和过去分词)

参考例句：

• An aide avowed that the President had known nothing of the deals. 一位助理声明，总统对这些交易一无所知。
• The party's avowed aim was to struggle against capitalist exploitation. 该党公开宣称的宗旨是与资本主义剥削斗争。 来自《简明英汉词典》

15 prudence   

n.谨慎，精明，节俭

参考例句：

• A lack of prudence may lead to financial problems.不够谨慎可能会导致财政上出现问题。
• The happy impute all their success to prudence or merit.幸运者都把他们的成功归因于谨慎或功德。

16 thrifty   

adj.节俭的；兴旺的；健壮的

参考例句：

• Except for smoking and drinking,he is a thrifty man.除了抽烟、喝酒，他是个生活节俭的人。
• She was a thrifty woman and managed to put aside some money every month.她是个很会持家的妇女，每月都设法存些钱。

17 dictates   

n.命令，规定，要求( dictate的名词复数 )v.大声讲或读( dictate的第三人称单数 )；口授；支配；摆布

参考例句：

• Convention dictates that a minister should resign in such a situation. 依照常规部长在这种情况下应该辞职。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He always follows the dictates of common sense. 他总是按常识行事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

18 baker   

n.面包师

参考例句：

• The baker bakes his bread in the bakery.面包师在面包房内烤面包。
• The baker frosted the cake with a mixture of sugar and whites of eggs.面包师在蛋糕上撒了一层白糖和蛋清的混合料。

19 mere   

adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过

参考例句：

• That is a mere repetition of what you said before.那不过是重复了你以前讲的话。
• It's a mere waste of time waiting any longer.再等下去纯粹是浪费时间。

20 unbearable   

adj.不能容忍的；忍受不住的

参考例句：

• It is unbearable to be always on thorns.老是处于焦虑不安的情况中是受不了的。
• The more he thought of it the more unbearable it became.他越想越觉得无法忍受。

21 velvet   

n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的

参考例句：

• This material feels like velvet.这料子摸起来像丝绒。
• The new settlers wore the finest silk and velvet clothing.新来的移民穿着最华丽的丝绸和天鹅绒衣服。

22 starry   

adj.星光照耀的, 闪亮的

参考例句：

• He looked at the starry heavens.他瞧着布满星星的天空。
• I like the starry winter sky.我喜欢这满天星斗的冬夜。

23 amazement   

n.惊奇，惊讶

参考例句：

• All those around him looked at him with amazement.周围的人都对他投射出惊异的眼光。
• He looked at me in blank amazement.他带着迷茫惊诧的神情望着我。

24 choir   

n.唱诗班，唱诗班的席位，合唱团，舞蹈团；v.合唱

参考例句：

• The choir sang the words out with great vigor.合唱团以极大的热情唱出了歌词。
• The church choir is singing tonight.今晚教堂歌唱队要唱诗。