Dorian Wimpole was at the tail of the procession, which grew more and more crowded every moment. For one space of the march he even had the misfortune to lose it altogether; owing to the startling activity which the rotund cheese when it escaped from his hands showed, in descending9 a somewhat steep road toward the river. But in recent days he had gained a pleasure in practical events which was like a second youth. He managed to find a stray taxi-cab; and had little difficulty in picking up again the trail of the extraordinary cortège. Inquiries10 addressed to a policeman with a black eye outside the House of Commons informed him sufficiently11 of the rebels’ line of retreat or advance, or whatever it was; and in a very short time he beheld12 the unmistakable legion once more. It was unmistakable, because in front of it there walked a red-headed giant, apparently13 carrying with him a wooden portion of some public building; and also because so big a crowd had never followed any man in England for a long time past. But except for such things the unmistakable crowd might well have been mistaken for another one. Its aspect had been altered almost as much as if it had grown horns or tusks14; for many of the company walked with outlandish weapons like iron teeth or horns, bills and pole axes, and spears with strangely shaped heads. What was stranger still, whole rows and rows of them had rifles, and even marched with a certain discipline; and yet again, others seemed to have snatched up household or workshop tools, meat axes, pick axes, hammers and even carving15 knives. Such things need be none the less deadly because they are domestic. They have figured in millions of private murders before they appeared in any public war.
Dorian was so fortunate as to meet the flame-haired Captain almost face to face, and easily fell into step with him at the head of the march. Humphrey Pump walked on the other side, with the celebrated17 cask suspended round his neck by something resembling braces18, as if it were a drum. Mr. Wimpole had himself taken the opportunity of his brief estrangement19 to carry the cheese somewhat more easily in a very large, loose, waterproof20 knapsack on his shoulders. The effect in both cases was to suggest dreadful deformities in two persons who happened to be exceptionally cleanly built. The Captain, who seemed to be in tearing and towering spirits, gained great pleasure from this. But Dorian had his sources of amusement too.
“What have you been doing with yourselves since you lost my judicious21 guidance?” he asked, laughing, “and why are parts of you a dull review and parts of you a fancy dress ball? What have you been up to?”
“We’ve been shopping,” said Mr. Patrick Dalroy, with some pride. “We are country cousins. I know all about shopping; let us see, what are the phrases about it? Look at those rifles now! We got them quite at a bargain. We went to all the best gunsmiths in London, and we didn’t pay much. In fact, we didn’t pay anything. That’s what is called a bargain, isn’t it? Surely, I’ve seen in those things they send to ladies something about ‘giving them away.’ Then we went to a remnant sale. At least, it was a remnant sale when we left. And we bought that piece of stuff we’ve tied round the sign. Surely, it must be what ladies called chiffon?”
Dorian lifted his eyes and perceived that a very coarse strip of red rag, possibly collected from a dustbin, had been tied round the wooden sign-post by way of a red flag of revolution.
“Not what ladies call chiffon?” inquired the Captain with anxiety. “Well, anyhow, it is what chiffoniers call it. But as I’m going to call on a lady shortly, I’ll try to remember the distinction.”
“Is your shopping over, may I ask?” asked Mr. Wimpole.
“All but one thing,” answered the other. “I must find a music shop—you know what I mean. Place where they sell pianos and things of that sort.”
“Look here,” said Dorian, “this cheese is pretty heavy as it is. Have I got to carry a piano, too?”
“You misunderstand me,” said the Captain, calmly. And as he had never thought of music shops until his eye had caught one an instant before, he darted22 into the doorway23. Returning almost immediately with a long parcel under his arm, he resumed the conversation.
“Did you go anywhere else,” asked Dorian, “except to shops?”
“Anywhere else!” cried Patrick, indignantly, “haven’t you got any country cousins? Of course we went to all the right places. We went to the Houses of Parliament. But Parliament isn’t sitting; so there are no eggs of the quality suitable for elections. We went to the Tower of London—you can’t tire country cousins like us. We took away some curiosities of steel and iron. We even took away the halberds from the Beef-eaters. We pointed24 out that for the purpose of eating beef (their only avowed25 public object) knives and forks had always been found more convenient. To tell the truth, they seemed rather relieved to be relieved of them.”
“And may I ask,” said the other with a smile, “where you are off to now?”
“Another beauty spot!” cried the Captain, boisterously26, “no tiring the country cousin! I am going to show my young friends from the provinces what is perhaps the finest old country house in England. We are going to Ivywood, not far from that big watering place they call Pebblewick.”
“I see,” said Dorian; and for the first time looked back with intelligent trouble on his face, on the marching ranks behind him.
“Captain Dalroy,” said Dorian Wimpole, in a slightly altered tone, “there is one thing that puzzles me. Ivywood talked about having set the police to catch us; and though this is a pretty big crowd, I simply cannot believe that the police, as I knew them in my youth, could not catch us. But where are the police? You seem to have marched through half London with much (if you’ll excuse me) of the appearance of carrying murderous weapons. Lord Ivywood threatened that the police would stop us. Well, why didn’t they stop us?”
“Your subject,” said Patrick, cheerfully, “divides itself into three heads.”
“I hope not,” said Dorian.
“There really are three reasons why the police should not be prominent in this business; as their worst enemy cannot say that they were.”
He began ticking off the three on his own huge fingers; and seemed to be quite serious about it.
“First,” he said, “you have been a long time away from town. Probably you do not know a policeman when you see him. They do not wear helmets, as our line regiments28 did after the Prussians had won. They wear fezzes, because the Turks have won. Shortly, I have little doubt, they will wear pigtails, because the Chinese have won. It is a very interesting branch of moral science. It is called Efficiency.
“Second,” explained the Captain, “you have, perhaps, omitted to notice that a very considerable number of those wearing such fezzes are walking just behind us. Oh, yes, it’s quite true. Don’t you remember that the whole French Revolution really began because a sort of City Militia29 refused to fire on their own fathers and wives; and even showed some slight traces of a taste for firing on the other side? You’ll see lots of them behind; and you can tell them by their revolver belts and their walking in step; but don’t look back on them too much. It makes them nervous.”
“And the third reason?” asked Dorian.
“For the real reason,” answered Patrick, “I am not fighting a hopeless fight. People who have fought in real fights don’t, as a rule. But I noticed something singular about the very point you mention. Why are there no more police? Why are there no more soldiers? I will tell you. There really are very few policemen or soldiers left in England today.”
“Surely, that,” said Wimpole, “is an unusual complaint.”
“But very clear,” said the Captain, gravely, “to anyone who has ever seen sailors or soldiers. I will tell you the truth. Our rulers have come to count on the bare bodily cowardice30 of a mass of Englishmen, as a sheep dog counts on the cowardice of a flock of sheep. Now, look here, Mr. Wimpole, wouldn’t a shepherd be wise to limit the number of his dogs if he could make his sheep pay by it? At the end you might find millions of sheep managed by a solitary31 dog. But that is because they are sheep. Suppose the sheep were turned by a miracle into wolves. There are very few dogs they could not tear in pieces. But, what is my practical point, there are really very few dogs to tear.”
“You don’t mean,” said Dorian, “that the British Army is practically disbanded?”
“There are the sentinels outside Whitehall,” replied Patrick, in a low voice. “But, indeed, your question puts me in a difficulty. No; the army is not entirely32 disbanded, of course. But the British army—. Did you ever hear, Wimpole, of the great destiny of the Empire?”
“I seem to have heard the phrase,” replied his companion.
“It is in four acts,” said Dalroy. “Victory over barbarians33. Employment of barbarians. Alliance with barbarians. Conquest by barbarians. That is the great destiny of Empire.”
“I think I begin to see what you mean,” returned Dorian Wimpole. “Of course Ivywood and the authorities do seem very prone34 to rely on the sepoy troops.”
“And other troops as well,” said Patrick. “I think you will be surprised when you see them.”
He tramped on for a while in silence and then said, with some air of abruptness35, which yet did not seem to be entirely a changing of the subject,
“Do you know the man who lives now on the estate next to Ivywood?”
“No,” replied Dorian, “I am told he keeps himself very much to himself.”
“And his estate, too,” said Patrick, rather gloomily. “If you would climb his garden-wall, Wimpole, I think you would find an answer to a good many of your questions. Oh, yes, the right honourable36 gentlemen are making full provision for public order and national defence—in a way.”
He fell into an almost sullen37 silence again; and several villages had been passed before he spoke38 again.
They tramped through the darkness; and dawn surprised them somewhere in the wilder and more wooded parts where the roads began to rise and roam. Dalroy gave an exclamation39 of pleasure and pointed ahead, drawing the attention of Dorian to the distance. Against the silver and scarlet40 bars of the daybreak could be seen afar a dark purple dome16, with a crown of dark green leaves; the place they had called Roundabout.
Dalroy’s spirit seemed to revive at the sight, with the customary accompaniment of the threat of vocalism.
“Been making any poems lately?” he asked of Wimpole.
“Nothing particular,” replied the poet.
“Then,” said the Captain, portentously41, clearing his throat, “you shall listen to one of mine, whether you like it or not—nay, the more you dislike it the longer and longer it will be. I begin to understand why soldiers want to sing when on the march; and also why they put up with such rotten songs.
“The Druids waved their golden knives
And danced around the Oak,
When they had sacrificed a man;
But though the learnèd search and scan
No single modern person can
Entirely see the joke;
But though they cut the throats of men
They cut not down the tree,
And from the blood the saplings sprang
Of oak-woods yet to be.
But Ivywood, Lord Ivywood,
He clings and crawls as ivy would
About the sacred tree.
“King Charles he fled from Worcester fight
And hid him in an Oak;
Would trace and praise his every act,
Or argue that he was in fact
A strict and sainted bloke;
But not by him the sacred woods
Have lost their fancies free,
And though he was extremely big,
He did not break the tree.
But Ivywood, Lord Ivywood,
He breaks the tree as ivy would
And eats the woods as ivy would
Between us and the sea.
As oaken as the beams above
When the great Lover sailors love
Was kissed by Death at sea.
But though for him the oak-trees fell
To build the oaken ships,
And honoured even the chips.
But Ivywood, Lord Ivywood,
He hates the tree as ivy would,
As the dragon of the ivy would,
That has us in his grips.”
They were ascending47 a sloping road, walled in on both sides by solemn woods, which somehow seemed as watchful48 as owls49 awake. Though daybreak was going over them with banners, scrolls50 of scarlet and gold, and with a wind like trumpets52 of triumph, the dark woods seemed to hold their secret like dark, cool cellars; nor was the strong sunlight seen in them, save in one or two brilliant shafts53, that looked like splintered emeralds.
“I should not wonder,” said Dorian, “if the ivy does not find the tree knows a thing or two also.”
“The tree does,” assented54 the Captain. “The trouble was that until a little while ago the tree did not know that it knew.”
There was a silence; and as they went up the incline grew steeper and steeper, and the tall trees seemed more and more to be guarding something from sight, as with the grey shields of giants.
“Do you remember this road, Hump?” asked Dalroy of the innkeeper.
“Yes,” answered Humphrey Pump, and said no more; but few have ever heard such fulness in an affirmative.
They marched on in silence and about two hours afterward55, toward eleven o’clock, Dalroy called a halt in the forest, and said that everybody had better have a few hours’ sleep. The impenetrable quality in the woods and the comparative softness of the carpet of beech-mast, made the spot as appropriate as the time was inappropriate. And if anyone thinks that common people, casually56 picked up in a street, could not follow a random57 leader on such a journey or sleep at his command in such a spot, given the state of the soul, then someone knows no history.
“I’m afraid,” said Dalroy, “you’ll have to have your supper for breakfast. I know an excellent place for having breakfast, but it’s too exposed for sleep. And sleep you must have; so we won’t unpack58 the stores just now. We’ll lie down like Babes in the Wood, and any bird of an industrious59 disposition60 is free to start covering me with leaves. Really, there are things coming, before which you will want sleep.”
When they resumed the march it was nearly the middle of the afternoon; and the meal which Dalroy insisted buoyantly on describing as breakfast was taken about that mysterious hour when ladies die without tea. The steep road had consistently grown steeper and steeper; and steeper; and at last, Dalroy said to Dorian Wimpole,
“Don’t drop that cheese again just here, or it will roll right away down into the woods. I know it will. No scientific calculations of grades and angles are necessary; because I have seen it do so myself. In fact, I have run after it.”
Wimpole realised they were mounting to the sharp edge of a ridge61, and in a few moments he knew by the oddness in the shape of the trees what it had been that the trees were hiding.
They had been walking along a swelling, woodland path beside the sea. On a particular high plateau, projecting above the shore, stood some dwarfed62 and crippled apple-trees, of whose apples no man alive would have eaten, so sour and salt they must be. All the rest of the plateau was bald and featureless, but Pump looked at every inch of it, as if at an inhabited place.
“This is where we’ll have breakfast,” he said, pointing to the naked grassy63 waste. “It’s the best inn in England.”
Some of his audience began to laugh, but somehow suddenly ceased doing so, as Dalroy strode forward and planted the sign of “The Old Ship” on the desolate64 sea-shore.
“And now,” he said, “you have charge of the stores we brought, Hump, and we will picnic. As it said in a song I once sang,
“The Saracen’s Head out of Araby came,
King Richard riding in arms like flame,
And where he established his folk to be fed
He set up his spear, and the Saracen’s Head.”
It was nearly dusk before the mob, much swelled65 by the many discontented on the Ivywood estates, reached the gates of Ivywood House. Strategically, and for the purposes of a night surprise, this might have done credit to the Captain’s military capacity. But the use to which he put it actually was what some might call eccentric. When he had disposed his forces, with strict injunctions of silence for the first few minutes, he turned to Pump, and said,
“And now, before we do anything else, I’m going to make a noise.”
And he produced from under brown paper what appeared to be a musical instrument.
“A summons to parley66?” inquired Dorian, with interest, “a trumpet51 of defiance67, or something of that kind?”
“No,” said Patrick, “a serenade.”
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1
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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symbolic
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| adj.象征性的，符号的，象征主义的 | |
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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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swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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urns
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| n.壶( urn的名词复数 )；瓮；缸；骨灰瓮 | |
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goblets
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| n.高脚酒杯( goblet的名词复数 ) | |
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reclaimed
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| adj.再生的；翻造的；收复的；回收的v.开拓( reclaim的过去式和过去分词 )；要求收回；从废料中回收（有用的材料）；挽救 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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13
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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tusks
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| n.（象等动物的）长牙( tusk的名词复数 )；獠牙；尖形物；尖头 | |
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carving
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| n.雕刻品，雕花 | |
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dome
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| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
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celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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braces
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| n.吊带，背带；托架( brace的名词复数 )；箍子；括弧；（儿童）牙箍v.支住( brace的第三人称单数 )；撑牢；使自己站稳；振作起来 | |
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estrangement
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| n.疏远，失和，不和 | |
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waterproof
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| n.防水材料；adj.防水的；v.使...能防水 | |
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21
judicious
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| adj.明智的，明断的，能作出明智决定的 | |
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darted
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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24
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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25
avowed
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| 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) | |
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26
boisterously
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| adv.喧闹地，吵闹地 | |
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27
ivy
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| n.常青藤，常春藤 | |
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28
regiments
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| （军队的）团( regiment的名词复数 )； 大量的人或物 | |
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29
militia
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| n.民兵，民兵组织 | |
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cowardice
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| n.胆小，怯懦 | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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barbarians
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| n.野蛮人( barbarian的名词复数 )；外国人；粗野的人；无教养的人 | |
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prone
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| adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的 | |
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abruptness
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| n. 突然，唐突 | |
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honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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38
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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exclamation
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| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
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scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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portentously
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tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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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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acorns
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| n.橡子，栎实( acorn的名词复数 ) | |
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grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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46
smote
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| v.猛打，重击，打击( smite的过去式 ) | |
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ascending
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| adj.上升的，向上的 | |
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watchful
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| adj.注意的，警惕的 | |
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owls
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| n.猫头鹰( owl的名词复数 ) | |
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scrolls
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| n.（常用于录写正式文件的）纸卷( scroll的名词复数 )；卷轴；涡卷形（装饰）；卷形花纹v.（电脑屏幕上）从上到下移动（资料等），卷页( scroll的第三人称单数 )；（似卷轴般）卷起；（像展开卷轴般地）将文字显示于屏幕 | |
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51
trumpet
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| n.喇叭，喇叭声；v.吹喇叭，吹嘘 | |
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trumpets
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| 喇叭( trumpet的名词复数 )； 小号； 喇叭形物； （尤指）绽开的水仙花 | |
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shafts
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| n.轴( shaft的名词复数 )；（箭、高尔夫球棒等的）杆；通风井；一阵（疼痛、害怕等） | |
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54
assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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random
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| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
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58
unpack
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| vt.打开包裹（或行李），卸货 | |
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industrious
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| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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62
dwarfed
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| vt.（使）显得矮小（dwarf的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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63
grassy
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| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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65
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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66
parley
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| n.谈判 | |
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67
defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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