"With mimic1 din2 of stroke and ward3
The broadsword upon target jarr'd."
The Lady of the Lake.
Robin4 Anstruther was telling stories at the tea-table.
"I got acquainted with an American girl in rather a queer sort of way," he said, between cups. "It was in London, on the Duke of York's wedding-day. I'm rather a tall chap, you see, and in the crowd somebody touched me on the shoulder and a plaintive5 voice behind me said, 'You're such a big man, and I am so little, will you please help me to save my life? My mother was separated from me in the crowd somewhere as we were trying to reach the Berkeley, and I don't know what to do.' I was a trifle nonplused, but I did the best I could. She was a tiny thing, in a marvelous frock and a flowery hat and a silver girdle and chatelaine. In another minute she spied a second man, an officer, a full head taller than I am, broad shoulders, splendidly put up altogether. Bless me! if she didn't turn to him and say, 'Oh, you're so nice and big, you're even bigger than this other gentleman, and I need you both in this dreadful crush. If you'll be good enough to stand on either side of me, I shall be awfully6 obliged.' We exchanged amused glances of embarrassment8 over her blonde head, but there was no resisting the irresistible9. She was a small person, but she had the soul of a general, and we obeyed orders. We stood guard over her little ladyship for nearly an hour, and I must say she entertained us thoroughly10, for she was as clever as she was pretty. Then I got her a seat in one of the windows of my club, while the other man, armed with a full description, went out to hunt up the mother; and by Jove! he found her, too. She would have her mother, and her mother she had. They were awfully jolly people; they came to luncheon11 in my chambers12 at the Albany afterwards, and we grew to be great friends."
"I dare say she was an English girl masquerading," I remarked facetiously13. "What made you think her an American?"
"Oh, her general appearance and accent, I suppose."
"Probably she didn't say Barkley," observed Francesca cuttingly; "she would have been sure to commit that sort of solecism."
"Why, don't you say Barkley in the States?"
"Certainly not; we never call them the States, and with us c-l-e-r-k spells clerk, and B-e-r-k Berk."
"How very odd!" remarked Mr. Anstruther.
"No odder than your saying Bark, and not half as odd as your calling it Albany," I interpolated, to help Francesca.
"Quite so," said Mr. Anstruther; "but how do you say Albany in America?"
"Penelope and I allways call it Allbany," responded Francesca nonsensically, "but Salemina, who has been much in England, always calls it Albany."
This anecdote14 was the signal for Miss Ardmore to remark (apropos of her own discrimination and the American accent) that hearing a lady ask for a certain med'cine in a chemist's shop, she noted15 the intonation16, and inquired of the chemist, when the fair stranger had retired17, if she were not an American. "And she was!" exclaimed the Honorable Elizabeth triumphantly18. "And what makes it the more curious, she had been over here twenty years, and of course spoke19 English quite properly."
In avenging20 fancied insults, it is certainly more just to heap punishment on the head of the real offender21 than upon his neighbor, and it is a trifle difficult to decide why Francesca should chastise22 Mr. Macdonald for the good-humored sins of Mr. Anstruther and Miss Ardmore; yet she does so, nevertheless.
The history of these chastisements she recounts in the nightly half-hour which she spends with me when I am endeavoring to compose myself for sleep. Francesca is fluent at all times, but once seated on the foot of my bed she becomes eloquent23!
"It all began with his saying"--
This is her perennial24 introduction, and I respond as invariably, "What began?"
"Oh, to-day's argument with Mr. Macdonald. It was a literary quarrel this afternoon."
"'Fools rush in'"--I quoted.
"There is a good deal of nonsense in that old saw," she interrupted; "at all events, the most foolish fools I have ever known stayed still and didn't do anything. Rushing shows a certain movement of the mind, even if it is in the wrong direction. However, Mr. Macdonald is both opinionated and dogmatic, but his worst enemy could never call him a fool."
"I didn't allude27 to Mr. Macdonald."
"Don't you suppose I know to whom you alluded28, dear? Is not your style so simple, frank, and direct that a wayfaring29 girl can read it and not err25 therein? No, I am not sitting on your feet, and it is not time to go to sleep; I wonder you do not tire of making these futile30 protests. As a matter of fact, we began this literary discussion yesterday morning, but were interrupted; and knowing that it was sure to come up again, I prepared for it with Salemina. She furnished the ammunition31, so to speak, and I fired the guns."
"You always make so much noise with blank cartridges32 I wonder you ever bother about real shot," I remarked.
"Penelope, how can you abuse me when I am in trouble? Well, Mr. Macdonald was prating33, as usual, about the antiquity34 of Scotland and its aeons of stirring history. I am so weary of the venerableness of this country. How old will it have to be, I wonder, before it gets used to it? If it's the province of art to conceal35 art, it ought to be the province of age to conceal age, and it generally is. 'Everything doesn't improve with years,' I observed sententiously.
"'For instance?' he inquired.
"Of course you know how that question affected36 me! How I do dislike an appetite for specific details! It is simply paralyzing to a good conversation. Do you remember that silly game in which some one points a stick at you and says,' Beast, bird, or fish,--_beast_!' and you have to name one while he counts ten? If a beast has been requested, you can think of one fish and two birds, but no beasts. If he says '_Fish_,' all the beasts in the universe stalk through your memory, but not one finny, scaly37, swimming thing! Well, that is the effect of 'For instance?' on my faculties38. So I stumbled a bit, and succeeded in recalling, as objects which do not improve with age, mushrooms, women, and chickens, and he was obliged to agree with me, which nearly killed him. Then I said that although America is so fresh and blooming that people persist in calling it young, it is much older than it appears to the superficial eye. There is no real propriety39 in dating us as a nation from the Declaration of Independence in 1776, I said, nor even from the landing of the Pilgrims in 1620; nor, for that matter, from Columbus's discovery in 1492. It's my opinion, I asserted, that some of us had been there thousands of years before, but nobody had had the sense to discover us. We couldn't discover ourselves,--though if we could have foreseen how the sere40 and yellow nations of the earth would taunt41 us with youth and inexperience, we should have had to do something desperate!"
"That theory must have been very convincing to the philosophic42 Scots mind," I interjected.
"It was; even Mr. Macdonald thought it ingenious. 'And so,' I went on, 'we were alive and awake and beginning to make history when you Scots were only barelegged savages43 roaming over the hills and stealing cattle. It was a very bad habit of yours, that cattle-stealing, and one which you kept up too long.'
"'No worse a sin than your stealing land from the Indians,' he said.
"'Oh yes,' I answered, 'because it was a smaller one! Yours was a vice44, and ours a sin; or I mean it would have been a sin had we done it; but in reality we didn't steal land; we just _took_ it, reserving plenty for the Indians to play about on; and for every hunting-ground we took away we gave them in exchange a serviceable plough, or a school, or a nice Indian agent, or something. That was land-grabbing, if you like, but it is a habit you Britishers have still, while we gave it up when we reached years of discretion45.'"
"This is very illuminating," I interrupted, now thoroughly wide awake, "but it isn't my idea of a literary discussion."
"I am coming to that," she responded. "It was just at this point that, goaded46 into secret fury by my innocent speech about cattle-stealing, he began to belittle47 American literature, the poetry especially. Of course he waxed eloquent about the royal line of poet-kings that had made his country famous, and said the people who could claim Shakespeare had reason to be the proudest nation on earth. 'Doubtless,' I said. 'But do you mean to say that Scotland has any nearer claim upon Shakespeare than we have? I do not now allude to the fact that in the large sense he is the common property of the English-speaking world' (Salemina told me to say that), 'but Shakespeare died in 1616, and the union of Scotland with England didn't come about till 1707, nearly a century afterwards. You really haven't anything to do with him! But as for us, we didn't leave England until 1620, when Shakespeare had been perfectly48 dead four years. We took very good care not to come away too soon. Chaucer and Spenser were dead, too, and we had nothing to stay for!'"
I was obliged to relax here and give vent26 to a burst of merriment at Francesca's absurdities49.
"I could see that he had never regarded the matter in that light before," she went on gayly, encouraged by my laughter, "but he braced50 himself for the conflict, and said, 'I wonder that you didn't stay a little longer while you were about it. Milton and Ben Jonson were still alive; Bacon's Novum Organum was just coming out; and in thirty or forty years you could have had L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, and Paradise Lost; Newton's Principia, too, in 1687. Perhaps these were all too serious and heavy for your national taste; still, one sometimes likes to claim things one cannot fully7 appreciate. And then, too, if you had once begun to stay, waiting for the great things to happen and the great books to be written, you would never have gone, for there would still have been Browning, Tennyson, and Swinburne to delay you.'
"'If we couldn't stay to see out your great bards51, we certainly couldn't afford to remain and welcome your minor52 ones,' I answered frigidly53; 'but we wanted to be well out of the way before England united with Scotland, knowing that if we were uncomfortable as things were, it would be a good deal worse after the Union; and we had to come home, anyway, and start our own poets. Emerson, Whittier, Longfellow, Holmes, and Lowell had to be born.'
"'I suppose they had to be if you had set your mind on it,' he said, 'though personally I could have spared one or two on that roll of honor.'
"'Very probably,' I remarked, as thoroughly angry now as he intended I should be. 'We cannot expect you to appreciate all the American poets; indeed, you cannot appreciate all of your own, for the same nation doesn't always furnish the writers and the readers. Take your precious Browning, for example! There are hundreds of Browning Clubs in America, and I never heard of a single one in Scotland.'
"'No,' he retorted, 'I dare say; but there is a good deal in belonging to a people who can understand him without clubs!'"
"Oh, Francesca!" I exclaimed, sitting bolt upright among my pillows. "How _could_ you give him that chance! How could you! What did you say?"
"I said nothing," she replied mysteriously. "I did something much more to the point,--I cried!"
"_Cried?_"
"Yes, cried; not rivers and freshets of woe54, but small brooks55 and streamlets of helpless mortification56."
"What did he do then?"
"Why do you say 'do'?"
"Oh, I mean 'say,' of course. Don't trifle; go on. What did he say then?"
"There are some things too dreadful to describe," she answered, and wrapping her Italian blanket majestically57 about her she retired to her own apartment, shooting one enigmatical glance at me as she closed the door.
That glance puzzled me for some time after she left the room. It was as expressive58 and interesting a beam as ever darted59 from a woman's eye. The combination of elements involved in it, if an abstract thing may be conceived as existing in component60 parts, was something like this:--
One half, mystery.
One eighth, triumph.
One eighth, amusement.
One sixteenth, pride.
One sixteenth, shame.
One sixteenth, desire to confess.
One sixteenth, determination to conceal.
And all these delicate, complex emotions played together in a circle of arching eyebrow61, curving lip, and tremulous chin,--played together, mingling62 and melting into one another like fire and snow; bewildering, mystifying, enchanting63 the beholder64!
If Ronald Macdonald did--I am a woman, but, for one, I can hardly blame him!
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mimic
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| v.模仿，戏弄；n.模仿他人言行的人 | |
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din
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| n.喧闹声，嘈杂声 | |
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ward
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| n.守卫，监护，病房，行政区，由监护人或法院保护的人（尤指儿童）；vt.守护，躲开 | |
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robin
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| n.知更鸟，红襟鸟 | |
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plaintive
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| adj.可怜的，伤心的 | |
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awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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chambers
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| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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facetiously
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| adv.爱开玩笑地；滑稽地，爱开玩笑地 | |
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anecdote
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| n.轶事，趣闻，短故事 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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intonation
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| n.语调，声调；发声 | |
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retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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triumphantly
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| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
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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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avenging
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| adj.报仇的，复仇的v.为…复仇，报…之仇( avenge的现在分词 )；为…报复 | |
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offender
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| n.冒犯者，违反者，犯罪者 | |
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chastise
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| vt.责骂，严惩 | |
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eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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perennial
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| adj.终年的；长久的 | |
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err
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| vi.犯错误，出差错 | |
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vent
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| n.通风口，排放口；开衩；vt.表达，发泄 | |
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allude
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| v.提及，暗指 | |
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alluded
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| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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wayfaring
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| adj.旅行的n.徒步旅行 | |
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futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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ammunition
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| n.军火，弹药 | |
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cartridges
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| 子弹( cartridge的名词复数 )； （打印机的）墨盒； 录音带盒； （唱机的）唱头 | |
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prating
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| v.（古时用语）唠叨，啰唆( prate的现在分词 ) | |
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antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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scaly
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| adj.鱼鳞状的；干燥粗糙的 | |
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faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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propriety
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| n.正当行为；正当；适当 | |
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sere
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| adj.干枯的；n.演替系列 | |
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taunt
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| n.辱骂，嘲弄；v.嘲弄 | |
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philosophic
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| adj.哲学的，贤明的 | |
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savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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goaded
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| v.刺激( goad的过去式和过去分词 )；激励；（用尖棒）驱赶；驱使（或怂恿、刺激）某人 | |
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belittle
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| v.轻视，小看，贬低 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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absurdities
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| n.极端无理性( absurdity的名词复数 )；荒谬；谬论；荒谬的行为 | |
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braced
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| adj.拉牢的v.支住( brace的过去式和过去分词 )；撑牢；使自己站稳；振作起来 | |
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bards
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| n.诗人( bard的名词复数 ) | |
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minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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frigidly
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| adv.寒冷地；冷漠地；冷淡地；呆板地 | |
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woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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brooks
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| n.小溪( brook的名词复数 ) | |
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mortification
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| n.耻辱，屈辱 | |
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majestically
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| 雄伟地； 庄重地； 威严地； 崇高地 | |
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expressive
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| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
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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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component
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| n.组成部分，成分，元件；adj.组成的，合成的 | |
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eyebrow
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| n.眉毛，眉 | |
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mingling
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| adj.混合的 | |
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enchanting
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| a.讨人喜欢的 | |
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beholder
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| n.观看者，旁观者 | |
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