Mr. Dickson McCunn completed the polishing of his smooth cheeks with the towel, glanced appreciatively at their reflection in the looking-glass, and then permitted his eyes to stray out of the window. In the little garden lilacs were budding, and there was a gold line of daffodils beside the tiny greenhouse. Beyond the sooty wall a birch flaunted1 its new tassels2, and the jackdaws were circling about the steeple of the Guthrie Memorial Kirk. A blackbird whistled from a thorn-bush, and Mr. McCunn was inspired to follow its example. He began a tolerable version of "Roy's Wife of Aldivalloch."
He felt singularly light-hearted, and the immediate3 cause was his safety razor. A week ago he had bought the thing in a sudden fit of enterprise, and now he shaved in five minutes, where before he had taken twenty, and no longer confronted his fellows, at least one day in three, with a countenance4 ludicrously mottled by sticking-plaster. Calculation revealed to him the fact that in his fifty-five years, having begun to shave at eighteen, he had wasted three thousand three hundred and seventy hours—or one hundred and forty days—or between four[Pg 18] and five months—by his neglect of this admirable invention. Now he felt that he had stolen a march on Time. He had fallen heir, thus late, to a fortune in unpurchasable leisure.
He began to dress himself in the sombre clothes in which he had been accustomed for thirty-five years and more to go down to the shop in Mearns Street. And then a thought came to him which made him discard the grey-striped trousers, sit down on the edge of his bed, and muse6.
Since Saturday the shop was a thing of the past. On Saturday at half-past eleven, to the accompaniment of a glass of dubious7 sherry, he had completed the arrangements by which the provision shop in Mearns Street, which had borne so long the legend of D. McCunn, together with the branches in Crossmyloof and the Shaws, became the property of a company, yclept the United Supply Stores, Limited. He had received in payment cash, debentures8 and preference shares, and his lawyers and his own acumen10 had acclaimed11 the bargain. But all the week-end he had been a little sad. It was the end of so old a song, and he knew no other tune5 to sing. He was comfortably off, healthy, free from any particular cares in life, but free too from any particular duties. "Will I be going to turn into a useless old man?" he asked himself.
But he had woke up this Monday to the sound of the blackbird, and the world, which had seemed rather empty twelve hours before, was now brisk and alluring12. His prowess in quick shaving assured him of his youth. "I'm no' that dead old," he[Pg 19] observed, as he sat on the edge of the bed, to his reflection in the big looking-glass.
It was not an old face. The sandy hair was a little thin on the top and a little grey at the temples, the figure was perhaps a little too full for youthful elegance13, and an athlete would have censured14 the neck as too fleshy for perfect health. But the cheeks were rosy15, the skin clear, and the pale eyes singularly childlike. They were a little weak, those eyes, and had some difficulty in looking for long at the same object, so that Mr. McCunn did not stare people in the face, and had, in consequence, at one time in his career acquired a perfectly16 undeserved reputation for cunning. He shaved clean, and looked uncommonly17 like a wise, plump schoolboy. As he gazed at his simulacrum he stopped whistling "Roy's Wife" and let his countenance harden into a noble sternness. Then he laughed, and observed in the language of his youth that "There was life in the auld18 dowg yet." In that moment the soul of Mr. McCunn conceived the Great Plan.
The first sign of it was that he swept all his business garments unceremoniously on to the floor. The next that he rootled at the bottom of a deep drawer and extracted a most disreputable tweed suit. It had once been what I believe is called a Lovat mixture, but was now a nondescript sub-fusc, with bright patches of colour like moss20 on whinstone. He regarded it lovingly, for it had been for twenty years his holiday wear, emerging annually21 for a hallowed month to be stained with salt and bleached22 with sun. He put it on, and stood shrouded23 in an[Pg 20] odour of camphor. A pair of thick nailed boots and a flannel24 shirt and collar completed the equipment of the sportsman. He had another long look at himself in the glass, and then descended25 whistling to breakfast. This time the tune was "Macgregor's Gathering," and the sound of it stirred the grimy lips of a man outside who was delivering coals—himself a Macgregor—to follow suit. Mr. McCunn was a very fountain of music that morning.
Tibby, the aged26 maid, had his newspaper and letters waiting by his plate, and a dish of ham and eggs frizzling near the fire. He fell to ravenously27 but still musingly28, and he had reached the stage of scones29 and jam before he glanced at his correspondence. There was a letter from his wife now holidaying at the Neuk Hydropathic. She reported that her health was improving, and that she had met various people who had known somebody who had known somebody else whom she had once known herself. Mr. McCunn read the dutiful pages and smiled. "Mamma's enjoying herself fine," he observed to the teapot. He knew that for his wife the earthly paradise was a hydropathic, where she put on her afternoon dress and every jewel she possessed30 when she rose in the morning, ate large meals of which the novelty atoned31 for the nastiness, and collected an immense casual acquaintance with whom she discussed ailments32, ministers, sudden deaths, and the intricate genealogies33 of her class. For his part he rancorously hated hydropathics, having once spent a black week under the roof of one in his wife's company. He detested34 the[Pg 21] food, the Turkish baths (he had a passionate35 aversion to baring his body before strangers), the inability to find anything to do and the compulsion to endless small talk. A thought flitted over his mind which he was too loyal to formulate36. Once he and his wife had had similar likings, but they had taken different roads since their child died. Janet! He saw again—he was never quite free from the sight—the solemn little white-frocked girl who had died long ago in the spring.
It may have been the thought of the Neuk Hydropathic, or more likely the thin clean scent38 of the daffodils with which Tibby had decked the table, but long ere breakfast was finished the Great Plan had ceased to be an airy vision and become a sober well-masoned structure. Mr. McCunn—I may confess it at the start—was an incurable39 romantic.
He had had a humdrum40 life since the day when he had first entered his uncle's shop with the hope of some day succeeding that honest grocer; and his feet had never strayed a yard from his sober rut. But his mind, like the Dying Gladiator's, had been far away. As a boy he had voyaged among books, and they had given him a world where he could shape his career according to his whimsical fancy. Not that Mr. McCunn was what is known as a great reader. He read slowly and fastidiously, and sought in literature for one thing alone. Sir Walter Scott had been his first guide, but he read the novels not for their insight into human character or for their historical pageantry, but because they gave him material wherewith to construct fantastic jour[Pg 22]neys. It was the same with Dickens. A lit tavern41, a stage-coach, post-horses, the clack of hoofs42 on a frosty road, went to his head like wine. He was a Jacobite not because he had any views on Divine Right, but because he had always before his eyes a picture of a knot of adventurers in cloaks, new landed from France, among the western heather.
On this select basis he had built up his small library—Defoe, Hakluyt, Hazlitt and the essayists, Boswell, some indifferent romances and a shelf of spirited poetry. His tastes became known, and he acquired a reputation for a scholarly habit. He was president of the Literary Society of the Guthrie Memorial Kirk, and read to its members a variety of papers full of a gusto which rarely became critical. He had been three times chairman at Burns Anniversary dinners, and had delivered orations43 in eulogy44 of the national Bard45; not because he greatly admired him—he thought him rather vulgar—but because he took Burns as an emblem46 of the un-Burns-like literature which he loved. Mr. McCunn was no scholar and was sublimely47 unconscious of background. He grew his flowers in his small garden-plot oblivious48 of their origin so long as they gave him the colour and scent he sought. Scent, I say, for he appreciated more than the mere49 picturesque50. He had a passion for words and cadences51, and would be haunted for weeks by a cunning phrase, savouring it as a connoisseur52 savours a vintage. Wherefore long ago, when he could ill afford it, he had purchased the Edinburgh Stevenson. They were the only large books on his shelves, for[Pg 23] he had a liking37 for small volumes—things he could stuff into his pocket in that sudden journey which he loved to contemplate53.
Only he had never taken it. The shop had tied him up for eleven months in the year, and the twelfth had always found him settled decorously with his wife in some seaside villa54. He had not fretted55, for he was content with dreams. He was always a little tired, too, when the holidays came, and his wife told him he was growing old. He consoled himself with tags from the more philosophic56 of his authors, but he scarcely needed consolation57. For he had large stores of modest contentment.
But now something had happened. A spring morning and a safety razor had convinced him that he was still young. Since yesterday he was a man of a large leisure. Providence58 had done for him what he would never have done for himself. The rut in which he had travelled so long had given place to open country. He repeated to himself one of the quotations59 with which he had been wont60 to stir the literary young men at the Guthrie Memorial Kirk:
"What's a man's age? He must hurry more, that's all;
When we mind labour, then only, we're too old—
What age had Methusalem when he begat Saul?"
He would go journeying—who but he?—pleasantly.[Pg 24]
It sounds a trivial resolve, but it quickened Mr. McCunn to the depths of his being. A holiday, and alone! On foot, of course, for he must travel light. He would buckle62 on a pack after the approved fashion. He had the very thing in a drawer upstairs, which he had bought some years ago at a sale. That and a waterproof63 and a stick, and his outfit64 was complete. A book, too, and, as he lit his first pipe, he considered what it should be. Poetry, clearly, for it was the Spring, and besides poetry could be got in pleasantly small bulk. He stood before his bookshelves trying to select a volume, rejecting one after another as inapposite. Browning—Keats, Shelley—they seemed more suited for the hearth65 than for the roadside. He did not want anything Scots, for he was of opinion that Spring came more richly in England and that English people had a better notion of it. He was tempted66 by the Oxford67 Anthology, but was deterred68 by its thickness, for he did not possess the thin-paper edition. Finally he selected Izaak Walton. He had never fished in his life, but The Compleat Angler seemed to fit his mood. It was old and curious and learned and fragrant69 with the youth of things. He remembered its falling cadences, its country songs and wise meditations70. Decidedly it was the right scrip for his pilgrimage.
Characteristically he thought last of where he was to go. Every bit of the world beyond his front door had its charms to the seeing eye. There seemed nothing common or unclean that fresh morning. Even a walk among coal-pits had its attractions....[Pg 25] But since he had the right to choose, he lingered over it like an epicure72. Not the Highlands, for Spring came late among their sour mosses73. Some place where there were fields and woods and inns, somewhere, too, within call of the sea. It must not be too remote, for he had no time to waste on train journeys; nor too near, for he wanted a countryside untainted. Presently he thought of Carrick. A good green land, as he remembered it, with purposeful white roads and public-houses sacred to the memory of Burns; near the hills but yet lowland, and with a bright sea chafing74 on its shores. He decided71 on Carrick, found a map and planned his journey.
Then he routed out his knapsack, packed it with a modest change of raiment, and sent out Tibby to buy chocolate and tobacco and to cash a cheque at the Strathclyde Bank. Till Tibby returned he occupied himself with delicious dreams.... He saw himself daily growing browner and leaner, swinging along broad highways or wandering in bypaths. He pictured his seasons of ease, when he unslung his pack and smoked in some clump76 of lilacs by a burnside—he remembered a phrase of Stevenson's somewhat like that. He would meet and talk with all sorts of folk; an exhilarating prospect77, for Mr. McCunn loved his kind. There would be the evening hour before he reached his inn, when, pleasantly tired, he would top some ridge78 and see the welcoming lights of a little town. There would be the lamp-lit after-supper time when he would read and reflect, and the start in the gay morning, when[Pg 26] tobacco tastes sweetest and even fifty-five seems young. It would be holiday of the purest, for no business now tugged79 at his coat-tails. He was beginning a new life, he told himself, when he could cultivate the seedling80 interests which had withered81 beneath the far-reaching shade of the shop. Was ever a man more fortunate or more free?
Tibby was told that he was going off for a week or two. No letters need be forwarded, for he would be constantly moving, but Mrs. McCunn at the Neuk Hydropathic would be kept informed of his whereabouts. Presently he stood on his doorstep, a stocky figure in ancient tweeds, with a bulging82 pack slung75 on his arm, and a stout83 hazel stick in his hand. A passer-by would have remarked an elderly shopkeeper bent9 apparently84 on a day in the country, a common little man on a prosaic85 errand. But the passer-by would have been wrong, for he could not see into the heart. The plump citizen was the eternal pilgrim; he was Jason, Ulysses, Eric the Red, Albuquerque, Cortez—starting out to discover new worlds.
Before he left Mr. McCunn had given Tibby a letter to post. That morning he had received an epistle from a benevolent86 acquaintance, one Mackintosh, regarding a group of urchins87 who called themselves the "Gorbals Die-Hards." Behind the premises88 in Mearns Street lay a tract19 of slums, full of mischievous89 boys with whom his staff waged truceless war. But lately there had started among them a kind of unauthorised and unofficial Boy Scouts90, who, without uniform or badge or any kind[Pg 27] of paraphernalia91, followed the banner of Sir Robert Baden-Powell and subjected themselves to a rude discipline. They were far too poor to join an orthodox troop, but they faithfully copied what they believed to be the practices of more fortunate boys. Mr. McCunn had witnessed their pathetic parades, and had even passed the time of day with their leader, a red-haired savage92 called Dougal. The philanthropic Mackintosh had taken an interest in the gang and now desired subscriptions93 to send them to camp in the country.
Mr. McCunn, in his new exhilaration, felt that he could not deny to others what he proposed for himself. His last act before leaving was to send Mackintosh ten pounds.[Pg 28]
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
flaunted
|
|
| v.炫耀，夸耀( flaunt的过去式和过去分词 )；有什么能耐就施展出来 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
tassels
|
|
| n.穗( tassel的名词复数 )；流苏状物；（植物的）穗；玉蜀黍的穗状雄花v.抽穗， （玉米）长穗须( tassel的第三人称单数 )；使抽穗， （为了使作物茁壮生长）摘去穗状雄花；用流苏装饰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
immediate
|
|
| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
countenance
|
|
| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
tune
|
|
| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
muse
|
|
| n.缪斯（希腊神话中的女神），创作灵感 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
dubious
|
|
| adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
debentures
|
|
| n.公司债券( debenture的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
bent
|
|
| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
acumen
|
|
| n.敏锐，聪明 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
acclaimed
|
|
| adj.受人欢迎的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
alluring
|
|
| adj.吸引人的，迷人的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
elegance
|
|
| n.优雅；优美，雅致；精致，巧妙 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
censured
|
|
| v.指责，非难，谴责( censure的过去式 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
rosy
|
|
| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
perfectly
|
|
| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
uncommonly
|
|
| adv. 稀罕(极，非常) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
auld
|
|
| adj.老的，旧的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
tract
|
|
| n.传单，小册子，大片(土地或森林) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
moss
|
|
| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
annually
|
|
| adv.一年一次，每年 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
bleached
|
|
| 漂白的，晒白的，颜色变浅的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
shrouded
|
|
| v.隐瞒( shroud的过去式和过去分词 )；保密 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
flannel
|
|
| n.法兰绒；法兰绒衣服 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
descended
|
|
| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
aged
|
|
| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
ravenously
|
|
| adv.大嚼地，饥饿地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
musingly
|
|
| adv.沉思地，冥想地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
29
scones
|
|
| n.烤饼，烤小圆面包( scone的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
possessed
|
|
| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
atoned
|
|
| v.补偿，赎（罪）( atone的过去式和过去分词 )；补偿，弥补，赎回 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
ailments
|
|
| 疾病（尤指慢性病），不适( ailment的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
genealogies
|
|
| n.系谱，家系，宗谱( genealogy的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
detested
|
|
| v.憎恶，嫌恶，痛恨( detest的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
passionate
|
|
| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
formulate
|
|
| v.用公式表示；规划；设计；系统地阐述 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
liking
|
|
| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
scent
|
|
| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
incurable
|
|
| adj.不能医治的，不能矫正的，无救的；n.不治的病人，无救的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
humdrum
|
|
| adj.单调的，乏味的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
tavern
|
|
| n.小旅馆，客栈；小酒店 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
hoofs
|
|
| n.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的名词复数 )v.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
orations
|
|
| n.（正式仪式中的）演说，演讲( oration的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
eulogy
|
|
| n.颂词；颂扬 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
bard
|
|
| n.吟游诗人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
emblem
|
|
| n.象征，标志；徽章 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
sublimely
|
|
| 高尚地，卓越地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
oblivious
|
|
| adj.易忘的，遗忘的，忘却的，健忘的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
mere
|
|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
picturesque
|
|
| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
cadences
|
|
| n.（声音的）抑扬顿挫( cadence的名词复数 )；节奏；韵律；调子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
connoisseur
|
|
| n.鉴赏家，行家，内行 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
contemplate
|
|
| vt.盘算，计议；周密考虑；注视，凝视 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
villa
|
|
| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
fretted
|
|
| 焦躁的，附有弦马的，腐蚀的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
philosophic
|
|
| adj.哲学的，贤明的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
consolation
|
|
| n.安慰，慰问 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
providence
|
|
| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
quotations
|
|
| n.引用( quotation的名词复数 )；[商业]行情（报告）；（货物或股票的）市价；时价 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
wont
|
|
| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
cram
|
|
| v.填塞，塞满，临时抱佛脚，为考试而学习 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
buckle
|
|
| n.扣子，带扣；v.把...扣住，由于压力而弯曲 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
waterproof
|
|
| n.防水材料；adj.防水的；v.使...能防水 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
outfit
|
|
| n.（为特殊用途的）全套装备，全套服装 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
hearth
|
|
| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
tempted
|
|
| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
Oxford
|
|
| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
deterred
|
|
| v.阻止，制止( deter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
fragrant
|
|
| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
meditations
|
|
| 默想( meditation的名词复数 )； 默念； 沉思； 冥想 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
decided
|
|
| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
72
epicure
|
|
| n.行家，美食家 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
mosses
|
|
| n. 藓类, 苔藓植物 名词moss的复数形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
74
chafing
|
|
| n.皮肤发炎v.擦热（尤指皮肤）( chafe的现在分词 )；擦痛；发怒；惹怒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
75
slung
|
|
| 抛( sling的过去式和过去分词 )； 吊挂； 遣送； 押往 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
76
clump
|
|
| n.树丛，草丛；vi.用沉重的脚步行走 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
77
prospect
|
|
| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
78
ridge
|
|
| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
79
tugged
|
|
| v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
80
seedling
|
|
| n.秧苗，树苗 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
81
withered
|
|
| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
82
bulging
|
|
| 膨胀； 凸出（部）； 打气； 折皱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
84
apparently
|
|
| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
85
prosaic
|
|
| adj.单调的，无趣的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
86
benevolent
|
|
| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
87
urchins
|
|
| n.顽童( urchin的名词复数 )；淘气鬼；猬；海胆 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
88
premises
|
|
| n.建筑物，房屋 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
89
mischievous
|
|
| adj.调皮的，恶作剧的，有害的，伤人的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
90
scouts
|
|
| 侦察员[机，舰]( scout的名词复数 )； 童子军； 搜索； 童子军成员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
91
paraphernalia
|
|
| n.装备；随身用品 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
92
savage
|
|
| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
93
subscriptions
|
|
| n.（报刊等的）订阅费( subscription的名词复数 )；捐款；（俱乐部的）会员费；捐助 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |