The boy, who was stiffly polite to her (when Tommy was angry he became very polite), told her that he had been invited to the Spittal, the seat of the Rintoul family, and that he understood there were some charming girls there.
"I hope you will like them," Grizel said pleasantly.
"If you could see how they will like me!" he wanted to reply; but of course he could not, and unfortunately there was no one by to say it for him. Tommy often felt this want of a secretary.
The abject12 one found a glove of Grizel's, that she did not know she had lost, and put it in his pocket. There it lay, unknown to her. He knew that he must not even ask them to bury it with him in his grave. This was a little thing to ask, but too much for him. He saw his effects being examined after all that was mortal of T. Sandys had been consigned13 to earth, and this pathetic little glove coming to light. Ah, then, then Grizel would know! By the way, what would she have known? I am sure I cannot tell you. Nor could Tommy, forced to face the question in this vulgar way, have told you. Yet, whatever it was, it gave him some moist moments. If Grizel saw him in this mood, her reproachful look implied that he was sentimentalizing again. How little this chit understood him!
The man of the world sometimes came upon the glove in his pocket, and laughed at it, as such men do when they recall their callow youth. He took walks with Grizel without her knowing that she accompanied him; or rather, he let her come, she was so eager. In his imagination (for bright were the dreams of Thomas!) he saw her looking longingly14 after him, just as the dog looks; and then, not being really a cruel man, he would call over his shoulder, "Put on your hat, little woman; you can come." Then he conceived her wandering with him through the Den11 and Caddam Wood, clinging to his arm and looking up adoringly at him. "What a loving little soul it is!" he said, and pinched her ear, whereat she glowed with pleasure. "But I forgot," he would add, bantering15 her; "you don't admire me. Heigh-ho! Grizel wants to admire me, but she can't!" He got some satisfaction out of these flights of fancy, but it had a scurvy16 way of deserting him in the hour of greatest need; where was it, for instance, when the real Grizel appeared and fixed17 that inquiring eye on him?
He went to the Spittal several times, Elspeth with him when she cared to go; for Lady Rintoul and all the others had to learn and remember that, unless they made much of Elspeth, there could be no T. Sandys for them. He glared at anyone, male or female, who, on being introduced to Elspeth, did not remain, obviously impressed, by her side. "Give pleasure to Elspeth or away I go," was written all over him. And it had to be the right kind of pleasure, too. The ladies must feel that she was more innocent than they, and talk accordingly. He would walk the flower-garden with none of them until he knew for certain that the man walking it with little Elspeth was a person to be trusted. Once he was convinced of this, however, he was very much at their service, and so little to be trusted himself that perhaps they should have had careful brothers also. He told them, one at a time, that they were strangely unlike all the other women he had known, and held their hands a moment longer than was absolutely necessary, and then went away, leaving them and him a prey18 to conflicting and puzzling emotions.
Lord Rintoul, whose hair was so like his skin that in the family portraits he might have been painted in one colour, could never rid himself of the feeling that it must be a great thing to a writing chap to get a good dinner; but her ladyship always explained him away with an apologetic smile which went over his remarks like a piece of india-rubber, so that in the end he had never said anything. She was a slight, pretty woman of nearly forty, and liked Tommy because he remembered so vividly19 her coming to the Spittal as a bride. He even remembered how she had been dressed—her white bonnet20, for instance.
"For long," Tommy said, musing21, "I resented other women in white bonnets22; it seemed profanation23."
"How absurd!" she told him, laughing. "You must have been quite a small boy at the time."
"But with a lonely boy's passionate24 admiration25 for beautiful things," he answered; and his gravity was a gentle rebuke26 to her. "It was all a long time ago," he said, taking both her hands in his, "but I never forget, and, dear lady, I have often wanted to thank you." What he was thanking her for is not precisely27 clear, but she knew that the artistic28 temperament29 is an odd sort of thing, and from this time Lady Rintoul liked Tommy, and even tried to find the right wife for him among the families of the surrounding clergy30. His step was sometimes quite springy when he left the Spittal; but Grizel's shadow was always waiting for him somewhere on the way home, to take the life out of him, and after that it was again, oh, sorrowful disillusion31! oh, world gone gray! Grizel did not admire him. T. Sandys was no longer a wonder to Grizel. He went home to that as surely as the labourer to his evening platter.
And now we come to the affair of the Slugs. Corp had got a holiday, and they were off together fishing the Drumly Water, by Lord Rintoul's permission. They had fished the Drumly many a time without it, and this was to be another such day as those of old. The one who woke at four was to rouse the other. Never had either waked at four; but one of them was married now, and any woman can wake at any hour she chooses, so at four Corp was pushed out of bed, and soon thereafter they took the road. Grizel's blinds were already up. "Do you mind," Corp said, "how often, when we had boasted we were to start at four and didna get roaded till six, we wriggled32 by that window so that Grizel shouldna see us?"
"She usually did see us," Tommy replied ruefully. "Grizel always spotted33 us, Corp, when we had anything to hide, and missed us when we were anxious to be seen."
"There was no jouking her," said Corp. "Do you mind how that used to bother you?" a senseless remark to a man whom it was bothering still—or shall we say to a boy? For the boy came back to Tommy when he heard the Drumly singing; it was as if he had suddenly seen his mother looking young again. There had been a thunder-shower as they drew near, followed by a rush of wind that pinned them to a dike34, swept the road bare, banged every door in the glen, and then sank suddenly as if it had never been, like a mole35 in the sand. But now the sun was out, every fence and farm-yard rope was a string of diamond drops. There was one to every blade of grass; they lurked36 among the wild roses; larks37, drunken with song, shook them from their wings. The whole earth shone so gloriously with them that for a time Tommy ceased to care whether he was admired. We can pay nature no higher compliment.
But when they came to the Slugs! The Slugs of Kenny is a wild crevice39 through which the Drumly cuts its way, black and treacherous40, into a lovely glade41 where it gambols42 for the rest of its short life; you would not believe, to see it laughing, that it had so lately escaped from prison. To the Slugs they made their way—not to fish, for any trout43 that are there are thinking for ever of the way out and of nothing else, but to eat their luncheon44, and they ate it sitting on the mossy stones their persons had long ago helped to smooth, and looking at a roan-branch, which now, as then, was trailing in the water.
There were no fish to catch, but there was a boy trying to catch them. He was on the opposite bank; had crawled down it, only other boys can tell how, a barefooted urchin45 of ten or twelve, with an enormous bagful of worms hanging from his jacket button. To put a new worm on the hook without coming to destruction, he first twisted his legs about a young birch, and put his arms round it. He was after a big one, he informed Corp, though he might as well have been fishing in a treatise46 on the art of angling.
Corp exchanged pleasantries with him; told him that Tommy was Captain Ure, and that he was his faithful servant Alexander Bett, both of Edinburgh. Since the birth of his child, Corp had become something of a humourist. Tommy was not listening. As he lolled in the sun he was turning, without his knowledge, into one of the other Tommies. Let us watch the process.
He had found a half-fledged mavis lying dead in the grass. Remember also how the larks had sung after rain.
Tommy lost sight and sound of Corp and the boy. What he seemed to see was a baby lark38 that had got out of its nest sideways, a fall of half a foot only, but a dreadful drop for a baby. "You can get back this way," its mother said, and showed it the way, which was quite easy, but when the baby tried to leap, it fell on its back. Then the mother marked out lines on the ground, from one to the other of which it was to practise hopping47, and soon it could hop2 beautifully so long as its mother was there to say every moment, "How beautifully you hop!" "Now teach me to hop up," the little lark said, meaning that it wanted to fly; and the mother tried to do that also, but in vain; she could soar up, up, up bravely, but could not explain how she did it. This distressed48 her very much, and she thought hard about how she had learned to fly long ago last year, but all she could recall for certain was that you suddenly do it. "Wait till the sun comes out after rain," she said, half remembering. "What is sun? What is rain?" the little bird asked. "If you cannot teach me to fly, teach me to sing." "When the sun comes out after rain," the mother replied, "then you will know how to sing." The rain came, and glued the little bird's wings together. "I shall never be able to fly nor to sing," it wailed49. Then, of a sudden, it had to blink its eyes; for a glorious light had spread over the world, catching50 every leaf and twig51 and blade of grass in tears, and putting a smile into every tear. The baby bird's breast swelled52, it did not know why; and it fluttered from the ground, it did not know how. "The sun has come out after the rain," it trilled. "Thank you, sun; thank you, thank you! Oh, mother, did you hear me? I can sing!" And it floated up, up, up, crying, "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" to the sun. "Oh, mother, do you see me? I am flying!" And being but a baby, it soon was gasping53, but still it trilled the same ecstasy54, and when it fell panting to earth it still trilled, and the distracted mother called to it to take breath or it would die, but it could not stop. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" it sang to the sun till its little heart burst.
With filmy eyes Tommy searched himself for the little pocket-book in which he took notes of such sad thoughts as these, and in place of the book he found a glove wrapped in silk paper. He sat there with it in his hand, nodding his head over it so broken-heartedly you could not have believed that he had forgotten it for several days.
Death was still his subject; but it was no longer a bird he saw: it was a very noble young man, and his white, dead face stared at the sky from the bottom of a deep pool. I don't know how he got there, but a woman who would not admire him had something to do with it. No sun after rain had come into that tragic55 life. To the water that had ended it his white face seemed to be saying, "Thank you, thank you, thank you." It was the old story of a faithless woman. He had given her his heart, and she had played with it. For her sake he had striven to be famous; for her alone had he toiled56 through dreary57 years in London, the goal her lap, in which he should one day place his book—a poor, trivial little work, he knew (yet much admired by the best critics). Never had his thoughts wandered for one instant of that time to another woman; he had been as faithful in life as in death; and now she came to the edge of the pool and peered down at his staring eyes and laughed.
He had got thus far when a shout from Corp brought him, dazed, to his feet. It had been preceded by another cry, as the boy and the sapling he was twisted round toppled into the river together, uprooted58 stones and clods pounding after them and discolouring the pool into which the torrent59 rushes between rocks, to swirl60 frantically61 before it dives down a narrow channel and leaps into another caldron.
There was no climbing down those precipitous rocks. Corp was shouting, gesticulating, impotent. "How can you stand so still?" he roared.
For Tommy was standing62 quite still, like one not yet thoroughly63 awake. The boy's head was visible now and again as he was carried round in the seething64 water; when he came to the outer ring down that channel he must infallibly go, and every second or two he was in a wider circle.
Tommy was awake now, and he could not stand still and see a boy drown before his eyes. He knew that to attempt to save him was to face a terrible danger, especially as he could not swim; but he kicked off his boots. There was some gallantry in the man.
"You wouldna dare!" Corp cried, aghast.
Tommy hesitated for a moment, but he had abundance of physical courage. He clenched65 his teeth and jumped. But before he jumped he pushed the glove into Corp's hand, saying, "Give her that, and tell her it never left my heart." He did not say who she was; he scarcely knew that he was saying it. It was his dream intruding66 on reality, as a wheel may revolve67 for a moment longer after the spring breaks.
Corp saw him strike the water and disappear. He tore along the bank as he had never run before, until he got to the water's edge below the Slugs, and climbed and fought his way to the scene of the disaster. Before he reached it, however, we should have had no hero had not the sapling, the cause of all this pother, made amends68 by barring the way down the narrow channel. Tommy was clinging to it, and the boy to him, and, at some risk, Corp got them both ashore69, where they lay gasping like fish in a creel.
The boy was the first to rise to look for his fishing-rod, and he was surprised to find no six-pounder at the end of it. "She has broke the line again!" he said; for he was sure then and ever afterwards that a big one had pulled him in.
Corp slapped him for his ingratitude70; but the man who had saved this boy's life wanted no thanks. "Off to your home with you, wherever it is," he said to the boy, who obeyed silently; and then to Corp: "He is a little fool, Corp, but not such a fool as I am." He lay on his face, shivering, not from cold, not from shock, but in a horror of himself. I think it may fairly be said that he had done a brave if foolhardy thing; it was certainly to save the boy that he had jumped, and he had given himself a moment's time in which to draw back if he chose, which vastly enhances the merit of the deed. But sentimentality had been there also, and he was now shivering with a presentiment71 of the length to which it might one day carry him.
They lit a fire among the rocks, at which he dried his clothes, and then they set out for home, Corp doing all the talking. "What a town there will be about this in Thrums!" was his text; and he was surprised when Tommy at last broke silence by saying passionately72: "Never speak about this to me again, Corp, as long as you live. Promise me that. Promise never to mention it to anyone. I want no one to know what I did to-day, and no one will ever know unless you tell; the boy can't tell, for we are strangers to him."
"He thinks you are a Captain Ure, and that I'm Alexander Bett, his servant," said Corp. "I telled him that for a divert."
"Then let him continue to think that."
Of course Corp promised. "And I'll go to the stake afore I break my promise," he swore, happily remembering one of the Jacobite oaths. But he was puzzled. They would make so much of Tommy if they knew. They would think him a wonder. Did he not want that?
"No," Tommy replied.
"You used to like it; you used to like it most michty."
"I have changed."
"Ay, you have; but since when? Since you took to making printed books?"
Tommy did not say, but it was more recently than that. What he was surrendering no one could have needed to be told less than he; the magnitude of the sacrifice was what enabled him to make it. He was always at home among the superlatives; it was the little things that bothered him. In his present fear of the ride that sentimentality might yet goad6 him to, he craved73 for mastery over self; he knew that his struggles with his Familiar usually ended in an embrace, and he had made a passionate vow74 that it should be so no longer. The best beginning of the new man was to deny himself the glory that would be his if his deed were advertised to the world. Even Grizel must never know of it—Grizel, whose admiration was so dear to him. Thus he punished himself, and again I think he deserves respect.
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1
esteemed
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| adj.受人尊敬的v.尊敬( esteem的过去式和过去分词 )；敬重；认为；以为 | |
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hop
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| n.单脚跳，跳跃；vi.单脚跳，跳跃；着手做某事；vt.跳跃，跃过 | |
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velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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malicious
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| adj.有恶意的，心怀恶意的 | |
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goaded
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| v.刺激( goad的过去式和过去分词 )；激励；（用尖棒）驱赶；驱使（或怂恿、刺激）某人 | |
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goad
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| n.刺棒，刺痛物；激励；vt.激励，刺激 | |
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intentionally
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| ad.故意地，有意地 | |
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quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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haughty
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| adj.傲慢的，高傲的 | |
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conservatory
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| n.温室，音乐学院；adj.保存性的，有保存力的 | |
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den
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| n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室 | |
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abject
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| adj.极可怜的，卑屈的 | |
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consigned
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| v.把…置于（令人不快的境地）( consign的过去式和过去分词 )；把…托付给；把…托人代售；丟弃 | |
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longingly
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| adv. 渴望地 热望地 | |
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bantering
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| adj.嘲弄的v.开玩笑，说笑，逗乐( banter的现在分词 )；（善意地）取笑，逗弄 | |
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16
scurvy
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| adj.下流的，卑鄙的，无礼的；n.坏血病 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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musing
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| n. 沉思，冥想 adj. 沉思的, 冥想的 动词muse的现在分词形式 | |
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bonnets
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| n.童帽( bonnet的名词复数 )；（烟囱等的）覆盖物；（苏格兰男子的）无边呢帽；（女子戴的）任何一种帽子 | |
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profanation
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| n.亵渎 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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rebuke
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| v.指责，非难，斥责 [反]praise | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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clergy
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| n.[总称]牧师，神职人员 | |
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31
disillusion
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| vt.使不再抱幻想，使理想破灭 | |
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32
wriggled
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| v.扭动，蠕动，蜿蜒行进( wriggle的过去式和过去分词 )；（使身体某一部位）扭动；耍滑不做，逃避（应做的事等） | |
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33
spotted
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| adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的 | |
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dike
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| n.堤，沟；v.开沟排水 | |
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mole
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| n.胎块；痣；克分子 | |
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lurked
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| vi.潜伏，埋伏（lurk的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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larks
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| n.百灵科鸟（尤指云雀）( lark的名词复数 )；一大早就起床；鸡鸣即起；（因太费力而不想干时说）算了v.百灵科鸟（尤指云雀）( lark的第三人称单数 )；一大早就起床；鸡鸣即起；（因太费力而不想干时说）算了 | |
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38
lark
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| n.云雀，百灵鸟；n.嬉戏，玩笑；vi.嬉戏 | |
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crevice
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| n.(岩石、墙等)裂缝；缺口 | |
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treacherous
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| adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的 | |
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41
glade
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| n.林间空地，一片表面有草的沼泽低地 | |
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gambols
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| v.蹦跳，跳跃，嬉戏( gambol的第三人称单数 ) | |
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trout
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| n.鳟鱼；鲑鱼(属) | |
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luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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urchin
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| n.顽童；海胆 | |
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treatise
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| n.专著；(专题)论文 | |
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47
hopping
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| n. 跳跃 动词hop的现在分词形式 | |
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48
distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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49
wailed
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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50
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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51
twig
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| n.小树枝，嫩枝；v.理解 | |
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52
swelled
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| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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53
gasping
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| adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词 | |
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54
ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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55
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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56
toiled
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的过去式和过去分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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uprooted
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| v.把（某物）连根拔起( uproot的过去式和过去分词 )；根除；赶走；把…赶出家园 | |
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59
torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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60
swirl
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| v.(使)打漩，(使)涡卷；n.漩涡，螺旋形 | |
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61
frantically
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| ad.发狂地, 发疯地 | |
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62
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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63
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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64
seething
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| 沸腾的，火热的 | |
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65
clenched
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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66
intruding
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| v.侵入，侵扰，打扰( intrude的现在分词)；把…强加于 | |
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67
revolve
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| vi.(使)旋转；循环出现 | |
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68
amends
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| n. 赔偿 | |
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69
ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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70
ingratitude
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| n.忘恩负义 | |
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71
presentiment
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| n.预感，预觉 | |
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72
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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73
craved
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| 渴望，热望( crave的过去式 )； 恳求，请求 | |
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vow
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| n.誓(言)，誓约；v.起誓，立誓 | |
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