"And soon a score of fires, I ween,
From height, and hill, and cliff, were seen;
Each after each they glanced to sight,
As stars arise upon the night.
They gleamed on many a dusky tarn1,
Haunted by the lonely earn;
On many a cairn's grey pyramid,
Where urns2 of mighty3 chiefs lie hid."
The Lay of the Last Minstrel.
The rain continued at intervals4 throughout the day, but as the afternoon wore on the skies looked a trifle more hopeful. It would be "saft," no doubt, climbing the Law, but the bonfire must be lighted. Would Pettybaw be behind London? Would Pettybaw desert the Queen in her hour of need? Not though the rain were bursting the well-heads on Cawda; not though the swollen5 mountain burns drowned us to the knee! So off we started as the short midsummer night descended6.
We were to climb the Law, wait for the signal from Cawda's lonely height, and then fire Pettybaw's torch of loyalty7 to the little lady in black; not a blaze flaming out war and rumors8 of war, as was the beacon-fire on the old gray battlements of Edinburgh Castle in the days of yore, but a message of peace and good will. Pausing at a hut on the side of the great green mountain, we looked north toward Helva, white-crested with a wreath of vapor9. (You need not look on your map of Scotland for Cawda and Helva, for you will not find them any more than you will find Pettybaw and Inchcaldy.) One by one the tops of the distant hills began to clear, and with the glass we could discern the bonfire cairns upbuilt here and there for Scotland's evening sacrifice of love and fealty10. Cawda was still veiled, and Cawda was to give the signal for all the smaller fires. Pettybaw's, I suppose, was counted as a flash in the pan, but not one of the hundred patriots11 climbing the mountain side would have acknowledged it; to us the good name of the kingdom of Fife and the glory of the British Empire depended on Pettybaw fire. Some of us had misgivings12, too,--misgivings founded upon Miss Grieve's dismal13 prophecies. She had agreed to put nine lighted candles in each of our cottage windows at ten o'clock, but had declined to go out of her kitchen to see a procession, hear a band, or look at a bonfire. She had had a sair sickenin' day, an amount of work too wearifu' for one person by her lane. She hoped that the bonfire wasna built o' Mrs. Sinkler's coals nor Mr. Macbrose's kindlings, nor soaked with Mr. Cameron's paraffine; and she finished with the customary but irrelative and exasperating15 allusion16 to the exceedingly nice family with whom she had lived in Glasgy.
And still we toiled17 upward, keeping our doubts to ourselves. Jean was limping bravely, supported by Robin18 Anstruther's arm. Mr. Macdonald was ardently19 helping20 Francesca, who can climb like a chamois, but would doubtless rather be assisted. Her gypsy face shone radiant out of her black cloth hood21, and Ronald's was no less luminous22. I have never seen two beings more love-daft. They comport23 themselves as if they had read the manuscript of the tender passion, and were moving in exalted24 superiority through a less favored world,--a world waiting impatiently for the first number of the story to come out.
Still we climbed, and as we approached the Grey Lady (a curious rock very near the summit) somebody proposed three cheers for the Queen.
How the children hurrahed,--for the infant heart is easily inflamed,--and how their shrill25 Jubilee26 slogan pierced the mystery of the night, and went rolling on from glen to glen to the Firth of Forth27 itself! Then there was a shout from the rocketmen far out on the open moor,--"Cawda's clear! Cawda's clear!" Back against a silver sky stood the signal pile, and signal rockets flashed upward, to be answered from all the surrounding hills.
Now to light our own fire. One of the village committee solemnly took off his hat and poured on oil. The great moment had come. Brenda Macrae approached the sacred pile, and, tremulous from the effect of much contradictory28 advice, applied29 the torch. Silence, thou Grieve and others, false prophets of disaster! Who now could say that Pettybaw bonfire had been badly built, or that its fifteen tons of coal and twenty cords of wood had been unphilosophically heaped together!
The flames rushed toward the sky with ruddy blaze, shining with weird30 effect against the black fir-trees and the blacker night. Three cheers more! God save the Queen! May she reign31 over us, happy and glorious! And we cheered lustily, too, you may be sure! It was more for the woman than the monarch32; it was for the blameless life, not for the splendid monarchy33; but there was everything hearty34, and nothing alien in our tone, when we sang "God Save the Queen" with the rest of the Pettybaw villagers.
The land darkened; the wind blew chill. Willie, Mr. Macdonald, and Mr. Anstruther brought rugs, and found a sheltered nook for us where we might still watch the scene. There we sat, looking at the plains below, with all the village streets sparkling with light, with rockets shooting into the air and falling to earth in golden rain, with red lights flickering35 on the gray lakes, and with one beacon-fire after another gleaming from the hilltops, till we could count more than fifty answering one another from the wooded crests36 along the shore, some of them piercing the rifts37 of low-lying clouds till they seemed to be burning in mid-heaven.
Then, one by one, the distant fires faded, and as some of us still sat there silently, far, far away in the gray east there was a faint flush of carmine38 where the new dawn was kindling14 in secret. Underneath39 that violet bank of cloud the sun was forging his beams of light. The pole-star paled. The breath of the new morrow stole up out of the rosy40 gray. The wings of the morning stirred and trembled; and in the darkness and chill and mysterious awakening41, eyes looked into other eyes, hand sought hand, and cheeks touched each other in mute caress42.
1 tarn | |
n.山中的小湖或小潭 | |
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2 urns | |
n.壶( urn的名词复数 );瓮;缸;骨灰瓮 | |
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3 mighty | |
adj.强有力的;巨大的 | |
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4 intervals | |
n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 );间隔时间;[数学]区间;(戏剧、电影或音乐会的)幕间休息 | |
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5 swollen | |
adj.肿大的,水涨的;v.使变大,肿胀 | |
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6 descended | |
a.为...后裔的,出身于...的 | |
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7 loyalty | |
n.忠诚,忠心 | |
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8 rumors | |
n.传闻( rumor的名词复数 );[古]名誉;咕哝;[古]喧嚷v.传闻( rumor的第三人称单数 );[古]名誉;咕哝;[古]喧嚷 | |
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9 vapor | |
n.蒸汽,雾气 | |
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10 fealty | |
n.忠贞,忠节 | |
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11 patriots | |
爱国者,爱国主义者( patriot的名词复数 ) | |
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12 misgivings | |
n.疑虑,担忧,害怕;疑虑,担心,恐惧( misgiving的名词复数 );疑惧 | |
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13 dismal | |
adj.阴沉的,凄凉的,令人忧郁的,差劲的 | |
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14 kindling | |
n. 点火, 可燃物 动词kindle的现在分词形式 | |
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15 exasperating | |
adj. 激怒的 动词exasperate的现在分词形式 | |
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16 allusion | |
n.暗示,间接提示 | |
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17 toiled | |
长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的过去式和过去分词 ); 艰难缓慢地移动,跋涉 | |
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18 robin | |
n.知更鸟,红襟鸟 | |
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19 ardently | |
adv.热心地,热烈地 | |
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20 helping | |
n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的,辅助的 | |
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21 hood | |
n.头巾,兜帽,覆盖;v.罩上,以头巾覆盖 | |
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22 luminous | |
adj.发光的,发亮的;光明的;明白易懂的;有启发的 | |
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23 comport | |
vi.相称,适合 | |
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24 exalted | |
adj.(地位等)高的,崇高的;尊贵的,高尚的 | |
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25 shrill | |
adj.尖声的;刺耳的;v尖叫 | |
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26 jubilee | |
n.周年纪念;欢乐 | |
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27 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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28 contradictory | |
adj.反驳的,反对的,抗辩的;n.正反对,矛盾对立 | |
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29 applied | |
adj.应用的;v.应用,适用 | |
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30 weird | |
adj.古怪的,离奇的;怪诞的,神秘而可怕的 | |
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31 reign | |
n.统治时期,统治,支配,盛行;v.占优势 | |
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32 monarch | |
n.帝王,君主,最高统治者 | |
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33 monarchy | |
n.君主,最高统治者;君主政体,君主国 | |
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34 hearty | |
adj.热情友好的;衷心的;尽情的,纵情的 | |
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35 flickering | |
adj.闪烁的,摇曳的,一闪一闪的 | |
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36 crests | |
v.到达山顶(或浪峰)( crest的第三人称单数 );到达洪峰,达到顶点 | |
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37 rifts | |
n.裂缝( rift的名词复数 );裂隙;分裂;不和 | |
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38 carmine | |
n.深红色,洋红色 | |
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39 underneath | |
adj.在...下面,在...底下;adv.在下面 | |
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40 rosy | |
adj.美好的,乐观的,玫瑰色的 | |
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41 awakening | |
n.觉醒,醒悟 adj.觉醒中的;唤醒的 | |
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42 caress | |
vt./n.爱抚,抚摸 | |
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