The path which Babbie took that day is lost in blaeberry leaves now, and my little maid and I lately searched for an hour before we found the well. It was dry, choked with broom and stones, and broken rusty6 pans, but we sat down where Babbie and Gavin had talked, and I stirred up many memories. Probably two of those pans, that could be broken in the hands to-day like shortbread, were Nanny’s, and almost certainly the stones are fragments from the great slab7 that used to cover the well. Children like to peer into wells to see what the world is like at the other side, and so this covering was necessary. Rob Angus was the strong man who bore the stone to Caddam, flinging it a yard before him at a time. The well had also a wooden lid with leather hinges, and over this the stone was dragged.
Gavin arrived at the well in time to offer Babbie the loan of his arms. In her struggle she had taken her lips into her mouth, but in vain did she tug8 at the stone, which refused to do more than turn round on the wood. But for her presence, the minister’s efforts would have been equally futile9. Though not strong, however, he had the national horror of being beaten before a spectator, and once at school he had won a fight by telling his big antagonist10 to come on until the boy was tired of pummelling him. As he fought with the stone now, pains shot through his head, and his arms threatened to come away at the shoulders; but remove it he did.
“How strong you are!” Babbie said with open admiration11.
I am sure no words of mine could tell how pleased the minister was; yet he knew he was not strong, and might have known that she had seen him do many things far more worthy12 of admiration without admiring them. This, indeed, is a sad truth, that we seldom give our love to what is worthiest13 in its object.
163
“How curious that we should have met here,” Babbie said, in her dangerously friendly way, as they filled the pans. “Do you know I quite started when your shadow fell suddenly on the stone. Did you happen to be passing through the wood?”
“Did you? I only saw a man hiding behind a tree, and of course I knew it could not be you.”
Gavin looked at her sharply, but she was not laughing at him.
“It was I,” he admitted; “but I was not exactly hiding behind the tree.”
“You had only stepped behind it for a moment,” suggested the Egyptian.
Her gravity gave way to laughter under Gavin’s suspicious looks, but the laughing ended abruptly15. She had heard a noise in the wood, Gavin heard it too, and they both turned round in time to see two ragged1 boys running from them. When boys are very happy they think they must be doing wrong, and in a wood, of which they are among the natural inhabitants, they always take flight from the enemy, adults, if given time. For my own part, when I see a boy drop from a tree I am as little surprised as if he were an apple or a nut. But Gavin was startled, picturing these spies handing in the new sensation about him at every door, as a district visitor distributes tracts16. The gypsy noted17 his uneasiness and resented it.
“What does it feel like to be afraid?” she asked, eyeing him.
“I am afraid of nothing,” Gavin answered, offended in turn.
“Yes, you are. When you saw me come out of Nanny’s you crept behind a tree; when these boys showed themselves you shook. You are afraid of being seen with me. Go away, then; I don’t want you.”
164
“Another name for it,” Babbie interposed.
“Not at all; but I owe it to my position to be careful. Unhappily, you do not seem to feel—to recognise—to know——”
“To know what?”
“Let us avoid the subject.”
“No,” the Egyptian said, petulantly19. “I hate not to be told things. Why must you be ‘prudent?’”
“You should see,” Gavin replied, awkwardly, “that there is a—a difference between a minister and a gypsy.”
“But if I am willing to overlook it?” asked Babbie, impertinently.
Gavin beat the brushwood mournfully with his staff.
“I cannot allow you,” he said, “to talk disrespectfully of my calling. It is the highest a man can follow. I wish——”
He checked himself; but he was wishing she could see him in his pulpit.
“I suppose,” said the gypsy, reflectively, “one must be very clever to be a minister.”
“As for that——” answered Gavin, waving his hand grandly.
“And it must be nice, too,” continued Babbie, “to be able to speak for a whole hour to people who can neither answer nor go away. Is it true that before you begin to preach you lock the door to keep the congregation in?”
“I must leave you if you talk in that way.”
“I only wanted to know.”
“Oh, Babbie, I am afraid you have little acquaintance with the inside of churches. Do you sit under anybody?”
“Do I sit under anybody?” repeated Babbie, blankly.
Is it any wonder that the minister sighed? “Whom 165 do you sit under?” was his form of salutation to strangers.
“I mean, where do you belong?” he said.
“Wanderers,” Babbie answered, still misunderstanding him, “belong to nowhere in particular.”
“I am only asking you if you ever go to church?”
“Oh, that is what you mean. Yes, I go often.”
“What church?”
“You promised not to ask questions.”
“I only mean what denomination20 do you belong to?”
“Oh, the—the——Is there an English church denomination?”
“Well, that is my denomination,” said Babbie, cheerfully. “Some day, though, I am coming to hear you preach. I should like to see how you look in your gown.”
“We don’t wear gowns.”
“What a shame! But I am coming, nevertheless. I used to like going to church in Edinburgh.”
“You have lived in Edinburgh?”
“We gypsies have lived everywhere,” Babbie said, lightly, though she was annoyed at having mentioned Edinburgh.
“But all gypsies don’t speak as you do,” said Gavin, puzzled again. “I don’t understand you.”
“Of course you dinna,” replied Babbie, in broad Scotch22. “Maybe, if you did, you would think that it’s mair imprudent in me to stand here cracking clavers wi’ the minister than for the minister to waste his time cracking wi’ me.”
“Then why do it?”
“Because——Oh, because prudence and I always take different roads.”
“Tell me who you are, Babbie,” the minister entreated23; “at least, tell me where your encampment is.”
“You have warned me against imprudence,” she said.
166
“I want,” Gavin continued, earnestly, “to know your people, your father and mother.”
“Why?”
At that Babbie’s fingers played on one of the pans, and, for the moment, there was no more badinage25 in her.
“You are a good man,” she said, abruptly; “but you will never know my parents.”
“Are they dead?”
“They may be; I cannot tell.”
“This is all incomprehensible to me.”
“I suppose it is. I never asked any one to understand me.”
“Perhaps not,” said Gavin, excitedly; “but the time has come when I must know everything of you that is to be known.”
“You must never speak to me in that way again,” she said, in a warning voice.
“In what way?”
Gavin knew what way very well, but he thirsted to hear in her words what his own had implied. She did not choose to oblige him, however.
“You never will understand me,” she said. “I daresay I might be more like other people now, if—if I had been brought up differently. Not,” she added, passionately27, “that I want to be like others. Do you never feel, when you have been living a humdrum28 life for months, that you must break out of it, or go crazy?”
“My life is not humdrum. It is full of excitement, anxieties, pleasures, and I am too fond of the pleasures. Perhaps it is because I have more of the luxuries of life than you that I am so content with my lot.”
“Why, what can you know of luxuries?”
167
“I have eighty pounds a year.”
Babbie laughed. “Are ministers so poor?” she asked, calling back her gravity.
“It is a considerable sum,” said Gavin, a little hurt, for it was the first time he had ever heard any one speak disrespectfully of eighty pounds.
The Egyptian looked down at her ring, and smiled.
“I shall always remember your saying that,” she told him, “after we have quarrelled.”
“We shall not quarrel,” said Gavin, decidedly.
“Oh, yes, we shall.”
“We might have done so once, but we know each other too well now.”
“That is why we are to quarrel.”
“About what?” said the minister. “I have not blamed you for deriding30 my stipend31, though how it can seem small in the eyes of a gypsy——”
“Who can afford,” broke in Babbie, “to give Nanny seven shillings a week?”
“True,” Gavin said, uncomfortably, while the Egyptian again toyed with her ring. She was too impulsive32 to be reticent33 except now and then, and suddenly she said, “You have looked at this ring before now. Do you know that if you had it on your finger you would be more worth robbing than with eighty pounds in each of your pockets?”
“Where did you get it?” demanded Gavin, fiercely.
“I am sorry I told you that,” the gypsy said, regretfully.
“Tell me how you got it,” Gavin insisted, his face now hard.
“Now, you see, we are quarrelling.”
“I must know.”
“No, but I have forgotten myself too long. Where did you get that ring?”
168
“Good afternoon to you,” said the Egyptian, lifting her pans.
“It is not good afternoon,” he cried, detaining her. “It is good-bye for ever, unless you answer me.”
“As you please,” she said. “I will not tell you where I got my ring. It is no affair of yours.”
“Yes, Babbie, it is.”
She was not, perhaps, greatly grieved to hear him say so, for she made no answer.
“You are no gypsy,” he continued, suspiciously.
“Perhaps not,” she answered, again taking the pans.
“This dress is but a disguise.”
“It may be. Why don’t you go away and leave me?”
“I am going,” he replied, wildly. “I will have no more to do with you. Formerly35 I pitied you, but——”
He could not have used a word more calculated to rouse the Egyptian’s ire, and she walked away with her head erect36. Only once did she look back, and it was to say—
“This is prudence—now.”
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收听单词发音
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1
ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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demurely
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| adv.装成端庄地，认真地 | |
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skulking
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| v.潜伏，偷偷摸摸地走动，鬼鬼祟祟地活动( skulk的现在分词 ) | |
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rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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slab
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| n.平板，厚的切片；v.切成厚板，以平板盖上 | |
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tug
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| v.用力拖(或拉)；苦干；n.拖；苦干；拖船 | |
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9
futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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10
antagonist
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| n.敌人，对抗者，对手 | |
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11
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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12
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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13
worthiest
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| 应得某事物( worthy的最高级 )； 值得做某事； 可尊敬的； 有（某人或事物）的典型特征 | |
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truthful
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| adj.真实的，说实话的，诚实的 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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16
tracts
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| 大片土地( tract的名词复数 )； 地带； （体内的）道； （尤指宣扬宗教、伦理或政治的）短文 | |
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17
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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prudence
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| n.谨慎，精明，节俭 | |
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19
petulantly
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20
denomination
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| n.命名，取名，(度量衡、货币等的)单位 | |
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21
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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scotch
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| n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
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entreated
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| 恳求，乞求( entreat的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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stoutly
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| adv.牢固地，粗壮的 | |
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badinage
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| n.开玩笑，打趣 | |
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26
receded
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的过去式和过去分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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27
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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humdrum
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| adj.单调的，乏味的 | |
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29
vehemence
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| n.热切；激烈；愤怒 | |
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30
deriding
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| v.取笑，嘲笑( deride的现在分词 ) | |
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stipend
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| n.薪贴；奖学金；养老金 | |
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32
impulsive
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| adj.冲动的，刺激的；有推动力的 | |
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33
reticent
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| adj.沉默寡言的；言不如意的 | |
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34
haughtily
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| adv. 傲慢地, 高傲地 | |
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35
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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