The days were few then at Dunnet Landing, and I let each of them slip away unwillingly2 as a miser3 spends his coins. I wished to have one of my first weeks back again, with those long hours when nothing happened except the growth of herbs and the course of the sun. Once I had not even known where to go for a walk; now there were many delightful4 things to be done and done again, as if I were in London. I felt hurried and full of pleasant engagements, and the days flew by like a handful of flowers flung to the sea wind.
At last I had to say good-by to all my Dunnet Landing friends, and my homelike place in the little house, and return to the world in which I feared to find myself a foreigner. There may be restrictions5 to such a summer's happiness, but the ease that belongs to simplicity6 is charming enough to make up for whatever a simple life may lack, and the gifts of peace are not for those who live in the thick of battle.
I was to take the small unpunctual steamer that went down the bay in the afternoon, and I sat for a while by my window looking out on the green herb garden, with regret for company. Mrs. Todd had hardly spoken all day except in the briefest and most disapproving7 way; it was as if we were on the edge of a quarrel. It seemed impossible to take my departure with anything like composure. At last I heard a footstep, and looked up to find that Mrs. Todd was standing8 at the door.
“I've seen to everything now,” she told me in an unusually loud and business-like voice. “Your trunks are on the w'arf by this time. Cap'n Bowden he come and took 'em down himself, an' is going to see that they're safe aboard. Yes, I've seen to all your 'rangements,” she repeated in a gentler tone. “These things I've left on the kitchen table you'll want to carry by hand; the basket needn't be returned. I guess I shall walk over towards the Port now an' inquire how old Mis' Edward Caplin is.”
I glanced at my friend's face, and saw a look that touched me to the heart. I had been sorry enough before to go away.
“I guess you'll excuse me if I ain't down there to stand around on the w'arf and see you go,” she said, still trying to be gruff. “Yes, I ought to go over and inquire for Mis' Edward Caplin; it's her third shock, and if mother gets in on Sunday she'll want to know just how the old lady is.” With this last word Mrs. Todd turned and left me as if with sudden thought of something she had forgotten, so that I felt sure she was coming back, but presently I heard her go out of the kitchen door and walk down the path toward the gate. I could not part so; I ran after her to say good-by, but she shook her head and waved her hand without looking back when she heard my hurrying steps, and so went away down the street.
When I went in again the little house had suddenly grown lonely, and my room looked empty as it had the day I came. I and all my belongings9 had died out of it, and I knew how it would seem when Mrs. Todd came back and found her lodger10 gone. So we die before our own eyes; so we see some chapters of our lives come to their natural end.
I found the little packages on the kitchen table. There was a quaint11 West Indian basket which I knew its owner had valued, and which I had once admired; there was an affecting provision laid beside it for my seafaring supper, with a neatly12 tied bunch of southernwood and a twig13 of bay, and a little old leather box which held the coral pin that Nathan Todd brought home to give to poor Joanna.
There was still an hour to wait, and I went up the hill just above the schoolhouse and sat there thinking of things, and looking off to sea, and watching for the boat to come in sight. I could see Green Island, small and darkly wooded at that distance; below me were the houses of the village with their apple-trees and bits of garden ground. Presently, as I looked at the pastures beyond, I caught a last glimpse of Mrs. Todd herself, walking slowly in the footpath14 that led along, following the shore toward the Port. At such a distance one can feel the large, positive qualities that control a character. Close at hand, Mrs. Todd seemed able and warm-hearted and quite absorbed in her bustling15 industries, but her distant figure looked mateless and appealing, with something about it that was strangely self-possessed and mysterious. Now and then she stooped to pick something,—it might have been her favorite pennyroyal,—and at last I lost sight of her as she slowly crossed an open space on one of the higher points of land, and disappeared again behind a dark clump16 of juniper and the pointed17 firs.
As I came away on the little coastwise steamer, there was an old sea running which made the surf leap high on all the rocky shores. I stood on deck, looking back, and watched the busy gulls18 agree and turn, and sway together down the long slopes of air, then separate hastily and plunge19 into the waves. The tide was setting in, and plenty of small fish were coming with it, unconscious of the silver flashing of the great birds overhead and the quickness of their fierce beaks20. The sea was full of life and spirit, the tops of the waves flew back as if they were winged like the gulls themselves, and like them had the freedom of the wind. Out in the main channel we passed a bent-shouldered old fisherman bound for the evening round among his lobster21 traps. He was toiling22 along with short oars23, and the dory tossed and sank and tossed again with the steamer's waves. I saw that it was old Elijah Tilley, and though we had so long been strangers we had come to be warm friends, and I wished that he had waited for one of his mates, it was such hard work to row along shore through rough seas and tend the traps alone. As we passed I waved my hand and tried to call to him, and he looked up and answered my farewells by a solemn nod. The little town, with the tall masts of its disabled schooners24 in the inner bay, stood high above the flat sea for a few minutes then it sank back into the uniformity of the coast, and became indistinguishable from the other towns that looked as if they were crumbled25 on the furzy-green stoniness26 of the shore.
The small outer islands of the bay were covered among the ledges27 with turf that looked as fresh as the early grass; there had been some days of rain the week before, and the darker green of the sweet-fern was scattered28 on all the pasture heights. It looked like the beginning of summer ashore29, though the sheep, round and warm in their winter wool, betrayed the season of the year as they went feeding along the slopes in the low afternoon sunshine. Presently the wind began to blow and we struck out seaward to double the long sheltering headland of the cape30, and when I looked back again, the islands and the headland had run together and Dunnet Landing and all its coasts were lost to sight.
点击收听单词发音
1 lustre | |
n.光亮,光泽;荣誉 | |
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2 unwillingly | |
adv.不情愿地 | |
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3 miser | |
n.守财奴,吝啬鬼 (adj.miserly) | |
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4 delightful | |
adj.令人高兴的,使人快乐的 | |
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5 restrictions | |
约束( restriction的名词复数 ); 管制; 制约因素; 带限制性的条件(或规则) | |
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6 simplicity | |
n.简单,简易;朴素;直率,单纯 | |
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7 disapproving | |
adj.不满的,反对的v.不赞成( disapprove的现在分词 ) | |
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8 standing | |
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的 | |
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9 belongings | |
n.私人物品,私人财物 | |
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10 lodger | |
n.寄宿人,房客 | |
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11 quaint | |
adj.古雅的,离奇有趣的,奇怪的 | |
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12 neatly | |
adv.整洁地,干净地,灵巧地,熟练地 | |
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13 twig | |
n.小树枝,嫩枝;v.理解 | |
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14 footpath | |
n.小路,人行道 | |
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15 bustling | |
adj.喧闹的 | |
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16 clump | |
n.树丛,草丛;vi.用沉重的脚步行走 | |
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17 pointed | |
adj.尖的,直截了当的 | |
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18 gulls | |
n.鸥( gull的名词复数 )v.欺骗某人( gull的第三人称单数 ) | |
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19 plunge | |
v.跳入,(使)投入,(使)陷入;猛冲 | |
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20 beaks | |
n.鸟嘴( beak的名词复数 );鹰钩嘴;尖鼻子;掌权者 | |
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21 lobster | |
n.龙虾,龙虾肉 | |
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22 toiling | |
长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的现在分词 ); 艰难缓慢地移动,跋涉 | |
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23 oars | |
n.桨,橹( oar的名词复数 );划手v.划(行)( oar的第三人称单数 ) | |
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24 schooners | |
n.(有两个以上桅杆的)纵帆船( schooner的名词复数 ) | |
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25 crumbled | |
(把…)弄碎, (使)碎成细屑( crumble的过去式和过去分词 ); 衰落; 坍塌; 损坏 | |
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26 stoniness | |
冷漠,一文不名 | |
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27 ledges | |
n.(墙壁,悬崖等)突出的狭长部分( ledge的名词复数 );(平窄的)壁架;横档;(尤指)窗台 | |
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28 scattered | |
adj.分散的,稀疏的;散步的;疏疏落落的 | |
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29 ashore | |
adv.在(向)岸上,上岸 | |
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30 cape | |
n.海角,岬;披肩,短披风 | |
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