It was six o’clock of a cold September morning when Sir Robert—or Mr. Tuke, as we must now know him—woke in his room off the stable-yard of the old “George” inn at Winchester. Lying lazily snoozed amongst the pillows, he reviewed, with some amused satisfaction, the first courses of that scheme of reformation he had mapped out for himself, whereof two rather sleepless1 nights at Farnham and his present quarters—the result of an abstention in the matter of numerous “nightcaps,” which habit had made necessary to slumber—were the prologue2. Now, the little battle fought and won, he preened3 his moral feathers smugly, and felt clear-eyed and very good indeed. As to the mysterious estate—the last stage on the journey to which he should cover that day—he had soon learned to accept its acquisition with that sweetness of irresponsibility that was his most engaging and aggravating4 characteristic. But, after all, he had an excellent digestion—in common with a great many men of the eighteenth century—and was little inclined to dyspeptic brooding over problems.
Now, as he lay, his half-dreaming glance was arrested by a coloured print after George Morland hanging on the wall over against him. The like he remembered dimly to have known in a nursery of long ago—a picture that had often set his young soul wandering by lanes of enchantment5. Nothing could have served better to confirm and make abiding6 his present mood. He was a boy again, an apple-skinned Ulysses, with the limitless possibilities of the unknown before him. Without stain or guile7 he passed beyond the narrow margins8 of the print into a land that no mortal foot but his own had yet trodden.
Indeed, for the moment he was a child again, and there is nothing in after-life like the pure imaginings of such. To the child every incident is a picture framed and hung upon a wall. The memory of these pictures abides9 long, then fades a little and a little more. We are hardly conscious of them in old age, or at least feel hardly the ecstasy10 of their atmosphere. In acquiring our identities (Keats’s phrase), what don’t we lose? We find a fact for a dream—a wretched exchange. But the first possession doesn’t altogether go. It recurs11 to us at odd moments in little sweet mental vertigoes—never so much, perhaps, as during that half-waking hour of dawn when we are least conscious of our material selves.
Then to think of a dewy morning down; of a pleached alley12 of fruit-trees in blossom; of a windy common; of the mystery of snow and brooding distances; of a Christmas-tree, even, and the mingled13 ravishing smell of lighted tapers14 and banked fir-branches, is momentarily to recall the amazing romance and illimitableness of life; is to be quit of the dreariness15 of conviction, and to stand once more at the foot of the green slope, and look up and wonder whither the clouds are sailing over the far summit. A few artists, a few writers, a few musicians, have the power, or the instinct, to inspire us with these ancient imaginings; and such as can, we must dearly love, though they may never stand in the front ranks of their fellows. The child is the only real genius; and perhaps these have remained morally children. In mid-life they can arrest and record the fugitive16 retrospections that to the most of us are only bubbles broken away from the far-distant spring of life, to be caught at and to vanish on the prick17 of possession. God bless them! they are our best earnest of the spiritual.
Out of his luminous18 stupor19 on that grassy20 borderland of dawn, the dreamer came with a full heart, and, it must be confessed, a biting consciousness of emptiness in his stomach.
He sprang out of bed, and bathed and dressed to the hissing21 accompaniment of ostlers in the yard below and to the clank of horse-hoofs on the cobble-stones.
He breakfasted, as men did in those days, as if he were victualling for a siege, and had great thoughts of kissing the chambermaid when he fee’d her—but refrained.
By half-past nine he was on the road, with a heart full of gaiety, and a recurring22 wonder for his destination, and clattered23 under the old west gateway24 of the town with a song on his lips—
She was throated like the stare—
Well-a-day!
She was white as buds of May—
Well-a-day!
Her bodie was besprent,
That to kiss her was a joy beyond compare,
Well-a-day!
Would for redness all dismay—
Well-a-day!
For falser than the serpent were her lips.
Once with passion I did rave—
Well-a-day!
Now I will not, though she say
Well-a-day!
For the cry of damnéd Love
All her beauty doth disprove,
And her heart it is a stone above his grave.
Mr. Tuke had not a good voice. The chords of vibration30 were beyond his control. But his breast was lined with romance, and this led him to give some melodious31 effect to the sentiment of words that did not seem, it must be admitted, appropriate to his rather riotous32 character.
He left the old city and took the Stockbridge road; and presently, entering between country hedgerows, looped his reins33 slackly and let his horse amble35 fairly as he listed.
The sunshine in his soul was constitutional, inextinguishable, and not reflected from his surroundings; for the day was bitter for the time of year, and the wind stuck as rigidly36 in the northeast as if the stiff-pointing weathercocks had nailed it there. The greyness, however, emphasized the sparkle of hip27 and holly37 and all red berries; for every dull mood of Nature has its compensations to shame us out of peevishness38. A squirrel ran from branch to root of a beech-tree like a stain of rust39; a cloud of fieldfares went down the sky and wheeled, disintegrated40, as if they were so much blown powder; the ruddocks twinkled in the hedges like dead leaves flicked41 by the wind.
The horseman had an eye and a heart for all. He was of good, lovable material, whatever the hitherto courses of his bad days and worser nights.
By and by he came out upon country very wild and barren. The road heaved and dropped by way of grim and treeless downs, through whose cropped surface-grass the white chalk smote42 upwards43 like death in a sick man’s face. For leagues the sterile44 slopes seemed stretching onwards; and no sign of life was on them all, but here and there a flapping crow—no music of it, but, in some more sheltered hollow, the sweet lark’s broken ground-song.
And the further he rode, the more confirmed in desolation grew the scenery. There was a wild forlorn beauty about it all, nevertheless—a clean-blown freshness that seemed to set the hillsides pulsing with opal tints45, like near-extinguished ashes breathed upon.
Something, familiar to those days, was wanting, however; and the solitary46 rider peered for the something, unwilling47 to believe that a tract48 so lonely could be innocent of a certain unchancy landmark49. He had already loosened his pistols in the holsters, and was riding with a greater regard for surprises.
He topped a hillock, and “Ah!” quoth he; “I could not be mistaken.”
On a high swell50 of ground, right in his path, as it seemed, a structure like a massive clothes’-horse, open at an angle, stood up against the sky. From its crowning beams a short slack or two of chain depended; but these were quit for the time of any ugly burden—a void that by no means pleased the traveller.
“When the boggart tumbles, the crows re-gather,” he murmured sententiously; but he set to singing again, though with an eye alert for mishaps51.
Nothing occurred, however; nor had he sighted a solitary soul moving in the breadth of the wide landscape, when—without a change being obvious in the character of the latter—he found himself descending52 a steep slope to a little long township of queer and ancient houses.
Here at a pleasant small tavern53—on whose sign-board, as he approached, he read the legend “The First Inn” (the reverse slyly exhibited, to the eternal merriment of chuckleheads, the obvious antiperistasis of “The Last Out”)—he drew rein34, and found he had reached the village of Stockbridge, which was in truth that halting-place on his last stage, from which he was, as he had learned, to take a by-road, some five or six miles, to his destination.
Into the tap he strode; and there were a few gaping54 rustics55 swilling56 their muddy quarts, and the landlord, a wizened57, bent-stick of a man, behind the bar.
“Oblige me by sending some one to look after my horse,” said Mr. Tuke to this person.
The person shifted a glass or two, covertly58 eyeing the stranger through rheumy slits59 of lids; but answer made he none.
Mr. Tuke repeated his request—still without result. He turned sharply on one of the grinning hinds60.
“He be stone deaf, master.”
The old man put a wrinkled claw to his ear, and shook his head.
“Eh!” said Mr. Tuke. “You refuse?”
He flushed in surprised anger, when at the moment a girl came into the bar, and addressed him in a bright civil voice.
“Grandfather’s deaf, sir,” she said; “and I was out of the way. I’ll send your horse to the stable. And what shall I draw for your honour?”
She was fresh and desirable as a spring of sweet water to a thirsty traveller. An old yellow handkerchief, of cherished silk, was knotted about her head, yet none so jealously but that a curl or two might escape—like tendrils of Tantalus his vine—for the teasing of fervid63 souls; and her gown, girdled under her bosom64 and fastened there with a favour of Michaelmas daisy, smelt65 of lavender and was the colour of it. She was tall, too, for a Hebe of the downs, and her arms, bare to the elbow, were tanned of a soft ivory—as were her hands, that were fine and capable-looking.
She gazed honestly at our gentleman from eyes as full of brown harmonies as a starling’s back; and he had no thought but to return her gaze with complete admiration66.
“Can you give me to eat?” he said. “Anything will do.” And “Surely, sir,” she answered, “if simple fare will serve your honour.”
She showed him into a queer little parlour, with a long latticed window that looked into a vegetable garden ruddy with apple-trees, and fetched cloth and salt from a corner cupboard, while he sat down by an old grumbling67 grandfather clock and watched her movements.
“Who is the landlord of this good tavern?” said he.
“George Pollack, sir; and I am his granddaughter, at your service.”
“Would you were. And what is your name, my pretty maid?”
“Elizabeth, I was christened,” said she; “and Betty am I called.”
His last words suggesting an old nursery rhyme—“And what is your fortune, my pretty maid?” he could not help murmuring.
“Self-possession,” said she with a smile, and whisked out of the room.
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1
sleepless
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| adj.不睡眠的，睡不著的，不休息的 | |
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prologue
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| n.开场白，序言；开端，序幕 | |
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3
preened
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| v.（鸟）用嘴整理（羽毛）( preen的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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4
aggravating
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| adj.恼人的，讨厌的 | |
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enchantment
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| n.迷惑，妖术，魅力 | |
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6
abiding
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| adj.永久的，持久的，不变的 | |
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guile
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| n.诈术 | |
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8
margins
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| 边( margin的名词复数 )； 利润； 页边空白； 差数 | |
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abides
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| 容忍( abide的第三人称单数 )； 等候； 逗留； 停留 | |
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10
ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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recurs
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| 再发生，复发( recur的第三人称单数 ) | |
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alley
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| n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路 | |
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13
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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14
tapers
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| （长形物体的）逐渐变窄( taper的名词复数 )； 微弱的光； 极细的蜡烛 | |
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15
dreariness
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| 沉寂，可怕，凄凉 | |
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16
fugitive
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| adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者 | |
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17
prick
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| v.刺伤，刺痛，刺孔；n.刺伤，刺痛 | |
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18
luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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19
stupor
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| v.昏迷；不省人事 | |
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20
grassy
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| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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21
hissing
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| n. 发嘶嘶声, 蔑视 动词hiss的现在分词形式 | |
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22
recurring
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| adj.往复的，再次发生的 | |
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23
clattered
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| 发出咔哒声（clatter的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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24
gateway
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| n.大门口，出入口，途径，方法 | |
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25
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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26
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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27
hip
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| n.臀部，髋；屋脊 | |
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28
comely
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| adj.漂亮的，合宜的 | |
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29
slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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30
vibration
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| n.颤动，振动；摆动 | |
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31
melodious
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| adj.旋律美妙的，调子优美的，音乐性的 | |
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32
riotous
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| adj.骚乱的；狂欢的 | |
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33
reins
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| 感情，激情； 缰( rein的名词复数 )； 控制手段； 掌管； （成人带着幼儿走路以防其走失时用的）保护带 | |
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34
rein
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| n.疆绳，统治，支配；vt.以僵绳控制，统治 | |
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35
amble
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| vi.缓行，漫步 | |
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36
rigidly
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| adv.刻板地，僵化地 | |
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37
holly
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| n.[植]冬青属灌木 | |
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38
peevishness
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| 脾气不好；爱发牢骚 | |
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39
rust
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| n.锈；v.生锈；(脑子)衰退 | |
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40
disintegrated
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| v.（使）破裂[分裂，粉碎]，（使）崩溃( disintegrate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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41
flicked
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| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的过去式和过去分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
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42
smote
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| v.猛打，重击，打击( smite的过去式 ) | |
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43
upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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44
sterile
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| adj.不毛的，不孕的，无菌的，枯燥的，贫瘠的 | |
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45
tints
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| 色彩( tint的名词复数 )； 带白的颜色； （淡色）染发剂； 痕迹 | |
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46
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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47
unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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48
tract
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| n.传单，小册子，大片(土地或森林) | |
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49
landmark
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| n.陆标，划时代的事，地界标 | |
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50
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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51
mishaps
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| n.轻微的事故，小的意外( mishap的名词复数 ) | |
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52
descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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53
tavern
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| n.小旅馆，客栈；小酒店 | |
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54
gaping
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| adj.口的；张口的；敞口的；多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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55
rustics
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| n.有农村或村民特色的( rustic的名词复数 )；粗野的；不雅的；用粗糙的木材或树枝制作的 | |
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56
swilling
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| v.冲洗( swill的现在分词 )；猛喝；大口喝；（使）液体流动 | |
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57
wizened
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| adj.凋谢的；枯槁的 | |
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58
covertly
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| adv.偷偷摸摸地 | |
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59
slits
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| n.狭长的口子，裂缝( slit的名词复数 )v.切开，撕开( slit的第三人称单数 )；在…上开狭长口子 | |
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60
hinds
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| n.（常指动物腿）后面的( hind的名词复数 )；在后的；（通常与can或could连用）唠叨不停；滔滔不绝 | |
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61
ails
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| v.生病( ail的第三人称单数 )；感到不舒服；处境困难；境况不佳 | |
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62
bawled
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| v.大叫，大喊( bawl的过去式和过去分词 )；放声大哭；大声叫出；叫卖（货物） | |
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63
fervid
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| adj.热情的；炽热的 | |
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64
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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65
smelt
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| v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼 | |
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66
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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67
grumbling
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| adj. 喃喃鸣不平的, 出怨言的 | |
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