Meantime, a fussy1, talkative man was endeavouring to impress the rapidly collecting crowd with the advisability of their entering all together and approaching the judge in a body.
“We can say that we felt it to be our dooty to follow this woman in,” he argued. “We don’t know who she is, or what her errand is. She may mean harm; I’ve heard of such things, and are we goin’ to see the judge in danger and do nothin’?”
“Oh, the woman’s all right,” spoke2 up another voice. “She has a child with her. Didn’t you say she had a child with her, Miss Weeks?”
“Yes, and —”
“Tell us the whole story, Miss Weeks. Some of us haven’t heard it. Then if it seems our duty as his neighbours and well-wishers to go in, we’ll just go in.”
The little woman towards whom this appeal — or shall I say command~-was directed, flushed a fine colour under so many eyes, but immediately began her ingenuous3 tale. She had already related it a half dozen times into as many sympathising ears, but she was not one to shirk publicity4, for all her retiring manners and meekness5 of disposition6.
It was to this effect:
She was sitting in her front window sewing. (Everybody knew that this window faced the end of the lane in which they were then standing7.) The blinds were drawn8 but not quite, being held in just the desired position by a string. Naturally, she could see out without being very plainly seen herself; and quite naturally, too, since she had watched the same proceeding9 for years, she had her eyes on this gate when Bela, prompt to the minute as he always was, issued forth10 on his morning walk to town for the day’s supplies.
Always exact, always in a hurry — knowing as he did that the judge would not leave for court till his return — he had never, in all the eight years she had been sitting in that window making button~holes, shown any hesitation11 in his methodical relocking of the gate and subsequent quick departure.
But this morning he had neither borne himself with his usual spirit nor moved with his usual promptitude. Instead of stepping at once into the lane, he had lingered in the gate-way peering to right and left and pushing the gravel12 aside with his foot in a way so unlike himself that the moment he was out of sight, she could not help running down the lane to see if her suspicions were correct.
And they were. Not only had he left the gate unlocked, but he had done so purposely. The movement he had made with his foot had been done for the purpose of pushing into place a small pebble13, which, as all could see, lay where it would best prevent the gate from closing.
What could such treachery mean, and what was her neighbourly duty under circumstances so unparalleled? Should she go away, or stop and take one peep just to see that there really was another and similar fence inside of this one? She had about decided14 that it was only proper for her to enter and make sure that all was right with the judge, when she experienced that peculiar15 sense of being watched with which all of us are familiar, and turning quickly round, saw a woman looking at her from the road,— a woman all in purple even to the veil which hid her features. A little child was with her, and the two must have stepped into the road from behind some of the bushes, as neither of them were anywhere in sight when she herself came running down from the corner.
It was enough to startle any one, especially as the woman did not speak but just stood silent and watchful16 till Miss Weeks in her embarrassment17 began to edge away towards home in the hope that the other would follow her example and so leave the place free for her to return and take the little peep she had promised herself.
But before she had gone far, she realised that the other was not following her, but was still standing in the same spot, watching her through a veil the like of which is not to be found in Shelby, and which in itself was enough to rouse a decent woman’s suspicions.
She was so amazed at this that she stepped back and attempted to address the stranger. But before she had got much further than a timid and hesitating Madam, the woman, roused into action possibly by her interference, made a quick gesture suggestive of impatience18 if not rebuke19, and moving resolutely20 towards the gate Miss Weeks had so indiscreetly left unguarded, pushed it open and disappeared within, dragging the little child after her.
The audacity21 of this act, perpetrated without apology before Miss Weeks’ very eyes, was too much for that lady’s equanimity22. She stopped stock-still, and, as she did so, beheld23 the gate swing heavily to and stop an inch from the post, hindered as we know by the intervening pebble. She had scarcely got over the shock of this when plainly from the space beyond she heard a second creaking noise, then the swinging to of another gate, followed, after a breathless moment of intense listening, by a series of more distant sounds, which could only be explained by the supposition that the house door had been reached, opened and passed.
“And you didn’t follow?”
“I didn’t dare.”
“And she’s in there still?”
“I haven’t seen her come out.”
“Then what’s the matter with you?” called out a burly, high-strung woman, stepping hastily from the group and laying her hand upon the gate still standing temptingly ajar. “It’s no time for nonsense,” she announced, as she pushed it open and stepped promptly24 in, followed by the motley group of men and women who, if they lacked courage to lead, certainly showed willingness enough to follow.
One glance and they felt their courage rewarded.
Rumour25, which so often deceives, proved itself correct in this case. A second gate confronted them exactly like the first even to the point of being held open by a pebble placed against the post. And a second fence also! built upon the same pattern as the one they had just passed through; the two forming a double barrier as mysterious to contemplate26 in fact as it had ever been in fancy. In gazing at these fences and the canyon-like walk stretching between them, the band of curious invaders27 forgot their prime errand. Many were for entering this path whose terminus they could not see for the sharp turns it took in rounding either corner. Among them was a couple of girls who had but one thought, as was evinced by their hurried whispers. “If it looks like this in the daytime, what must it be at night!” To which came the quick retort: “I’ve heard that the judge walks here. Imagine it under the moon!”
But whatever the mysteries of the place, a greater one awaited them beyond, and presently realising this, they burst with one accord through the second gate into the mass of greenery, which, either from neglect or intention, masked this side of the Ostrander homestead.
Never before had they beheld so lawless a growth or a house so completely lost amid vines and shrubbery. So unchecked had been the spread of verdure from base to chimney, that the impression made by the indistinguishable mass was one of studied secrecy28 and concealment29. Not a window remained in view, and had it not been for some chance glimmers30 here and there where some small, unguarded portion of the enshrouded panes32 caught and reflected the sunbeams, they could not have told where they were located in these once well-known walls.
Two solemn fir trees, which were all that remained of an old-time and famous group, kept guard over the untended lawn, adding their suggestion of age and brooding melancholy33 to the air of desolation infecting the whole place. One might be approaching a tomb for all token that appeared of human presence. Even sound was lacking. It was like a painted scene — a dream of human extinction34.
Instinctively35 the women faltered36 and the men drew back; then the very silence caused a sudden reaction, and with one simultaneous rush, they made for the only entrance they saw and burst without further ceremony into the house.
A common hall and common furnishings confronted them. They had entered at the side and were evidently close upon the kitchen. More they could not gather; for blocked as the doorway37 was by their crowding figures, the little light which sifted38 in over their heads was not enough to show up details.
But it was even darker in the room towards which their determined39 leader now piloted them. Here there was no light at all; or if some stray glimmer31 forced its way through the network of leaves swathing the outer walls, it was of too faint a character to reach the corners or even to make the furniture about them distinguishable.
Halting with one accord in what seemed to be the middle of the uncarpeted floor, they waited for some indication of a clear passageway to the great room where the judge would undoubtedly40 be found in conversation with his strange guest, unless, forewarned by their noisy entrance, he should have risen already to meet them. In that case they might expect at any minute to see his tall form emerging in anger upon them through some door at present unseen.
This possibility, new to some but recognised from the first by others, fluttered the breasts of such as were not quite impervious41 to a sense of their own presumption42, and as they stood in a close group, swaying from side to side in a vain endeavour to see their way through the gloom before them, the whimper of a child and the muttered ejaculations of the men testified that the general feeling was one of discontent which might very easily end in an outburst of vociferous43 expression.
But the demon44 of curiosity holds fast and as soon as their eyes had become sufficiently45 used to the darkness to notice the faint line of light marking the sill of a door directly in front of them, they all plunged46 forward in spite of the fear I have mentioned.
The woman of the harsh voice and self-satisfied demeanour, who had started them upon this adventure, was still ahead; but even she quailed47 when, upon laying her hand upon the panel of the door she was the first to reach, she felt it to be cold and knew it to be made not of wood but of iron. How great must be the treasure or terrible the secret to make necessary such extraordinary precautions! Was it for her to push open this door, and so come upon discoveries which —
But here her doubts were cut short by finding herself face to face with a heavy curtain instead of a yielding door. The pressure of the crowd behind had precipitated48 her past the latter into a small vestibule which acted as an ante-chamber to the very room they were in search of.
The shock restored her self-possession. Bracing49 herself, she held her place for a moment, while she looked back, with a finger laid on her lip. The light was much better here and they could all see both the move she made and the expression which accompanied it.
“Look at this!” she whispered, pushing the curtain inward with a quick movement.
Her hand had encountered no resistance. There was nothing between them and the room beyond but a bit of drapery.
“Now hark, all of you,” fell almost soundlessly from her lips, as she laid her own ear against the curtain.
And they hearkened.
Not a murmur50 came from within, not so much as the faintest rustle51 of clothing or the flutter of a withheld52 breath. All was perfectly53 still — too still. As the full force of this fact impressed itself upon them, a blankness settled over their features. The significance of this undisturbed quiet was making itself felt. If the two were there, or if he were there alone, they would certainly hear some movement, voluntary or involuntary — and they could hear nothing. Was the woman gone? Had she found her way out front while they approached from the rear? And the judge! Was he gone also?— this man of inalterable habits — gone before Bela’s return — a thing he had not been known to do in the last twelve years? No, no, this could not be. Yet even this supposition was not so incredible as that he should still be here and SILENT. Men like him do not hold their peace under a provocation54 so great as the intrusion of a mob of strangers into a spot where he never anticipated seeing anybody, nor had seen anybody but his man Bela for years. Soon they would hear his voice. It was not in nature for him to be as quiet as this in face of such audacity.
Yet who could count upon the actions of an Ostrander, or reckon with the imperious whims55 of a man mysterious beyond all precedent56?— He may be there but silent, or —
A single glance would settle all.
The woman drew the curtain.
Sunshine! A stream of it, dazzling them almost to blindness and sending them, one and all, pellmell back upon each other! However dismal57 the approach, here all was in brilliant light with every evidence before them of busy life.
The room was not only filled, but crammed58, with furniture. This was the first thing they noticed; then, as their blinking eyes became accustomed to the glare and to the unexpected confusion of tables and chairs and screens and standing receptacles for books and pamphlets and boxes labelled and padlocked, they beheld something else; something, which once seen, held the eye from further wandering and made the apprehensions59 from which they had suffered sink into insignificance60 before a real and only too present terror.
The judge was there! but in what a condition.
From the end of the forty foot room, his seated figure confronted them, silent, staring and unmoving. With clenched61 fingers gripping the arms of his great chair, and head held forward, he looked like one frozen at the moment of doom62, such the expression of features usually so noble, and now almost unrecognisable were it not for the snow of his locks and his unmistakable brow.
Frozen! Not an eyelash quivered, nor was there any perceptible movement in his sturdy chest. His eyes were on their eyes, but he saw no one; and down upon his head and over his whole form the sunshine poured from a large window let into the ceiling directly above him, lighting63 up the strained and unnatural64 aspect of his remarkable65 countenance66 and bringing into sharp prominence67 the commonplace objects cluttering68 the table at his elbow; such as his hat and gloves, and the bundle of papers he had doubtless made ready for court.
Was he living? Was he dead?— stricken by the sight of so many faces in a doorway considered sacred from all intrusion? No! the emotion capable of thus transforming the features of so strong a man must have a deeper source than that. The woman was to blame for this — the audacious, the unknown, the mysteriously clad woman. Let her be found. Let her be made to explain herself and the condition into which she had thrown this good man.
Indignation burst into words, and pity was beginning to voice itself in inarticulate murmurs69 which swelled70 and ebbed71, now louder, now more faintly as the crowd surged forward or drew back, appalled72 by that moveless, breathless, awe-compelling figure. Indignation and pity were at their height when the strain which held them all in one common leash73 was loosed by the movement of a little child.
Attracted possibly by what it did not understand, or simply made fearless because of its non-comprehension of the mystery before him, a curly-haired boy suddenly escaped its mother’s clutch, and, toddling74 up by a pathway of his own to the awesome75 form in the great chair, laid his little hand on the judge’s rigid76 arm and, looking up into his face, babbled77 out:
“Why don’t you get up, man? I like oo better up.”
A breathless moment; then the horrified78 murmur rose here, there and everywhere: “He’s dead! He’s dead!” and the mother, with a rush, caught the child back, and confusion began its reign79, when quietly and convincingly a bluff80 and masculine voice spoke from the doorway behind them and they heard:
“You needn’t be frightened. In an hour or a half-hour he will be the same as ever. My aunt has such attacks. They call it catalepsy.”
收听单词发音 |
1
fussy
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| adj.为琐事担忧的，过分装饰的，爱挑剔的 | |
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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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ingenuous
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| adj.纯朴的，单纯的；天真的；坦率的 | |
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publicity
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| n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告 | |
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meekness
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| n.温顺，柔和 | |
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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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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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pebble
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| n.卵石，小圆石 | |
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14
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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watchful
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| adj.注意的，警惕的 | |
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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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impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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rebuke
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| v.指责，非难，斥责 [反]praise | |
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resolutely
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| adj.坚决地，果断地 | |
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audacity
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| n.大胆，卤莽，无礼 | |
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equanimity
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| n.沉着，镇定 | |
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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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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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rumour
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| n.谣言，谣传，传闻 | |
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contemplate
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| vt.盘算，计议；周密考虑；注视，凝视 | |
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invaders
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| 入侵者，侵略者，侵入物( invader的名词复数 ) | |
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28
secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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29
concealment
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| n.隐藏, 掩盖，隐瞒 | |
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30
glimmers
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| n.微光，闪光( glimmer的名词复数 )v.发闪光，发微光( glimmer的第三人称单数 ) | |
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31
glimmer
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| v.发出闪烁的微光；n.微光，微弱的闪光 | |
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panes
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| 窗玻璃( pane的名词复数 ) | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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extinction
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| n.熄灭，消亡，消灭，灭绝，绝种 | |
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instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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36
faltered
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| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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38
sifted
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| v.筛( sift的过去式和过去分词 )；筛滤；细查；详审 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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impervious
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| adj.不能渗透的，不能穿过的，不易伤害的 | |
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presumption
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| n.推测，可能性，冒昧，放肆，[法律]推定 | |
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vociferous
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| adj.喧哗的，大叫大嚷的 | |
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demon
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| n.魔鬼，恶魔 | |
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45
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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46
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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47
quailed
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| 害怕，发抖，畏缩( quail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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48
precipitated
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| v.（突如其来地）使发生( precipitate的过去式和过去分词 )；促成；猛然摔下；使沉淀 | |
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49
bracing
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| adj.令人振奋的 | |
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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51
rustle
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| v.沙沙作响；偷盗(牛、马等)；n.沙沙声声 | |
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52
withheld
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| withhold过去式及过去分词 | |
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53
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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54
provocation
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| n.激怒，刺激，挑拨，挑衅的事物，激怒的原因 | |
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55
WHIMS
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| 虚妄，禅病 | |
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56
precedent
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| n.先例，前例；惯例；adj.在前的，在先的 | |
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57
dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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58
crammed
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| adj.塞满的，挤满的；大口地吃；快速贪婪地吃v.把…塞满；填入；临时抱佛脚( cram的过去式) | |
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59
apprehensions
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| 疑惧 | |
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60
insignificance
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| n.不重要；无价值；无意义 | |
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61
clenched
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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doom
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| n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定 | |
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lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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66
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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67
prominence
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| n.突出；显著；杰出；重要 | |
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68
cluttering
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| v.杂物，零乱的东西零乱vt.( clutter的现在分词 )；乱糟糟地堆满，把…弄得很乱；（以…） 塞满… | |
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69
murmurs
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| n.低沉、连续而不清的声音( murmur的名词复数 )；低语声；怨言；嘀咕 | |
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70
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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71
ebbed
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| （指潮水）退( ebb的过去式和过去分词 )； 落； 减少； 衰落 | |
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72
appalled
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| v.使惊骇，使充满恐惧( appall的过去式和过去分词)adj.惊骇的；丧胆的 | |
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73
leash
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| n.牵狗的皮带，束缚；v.用皮带系住 | |
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74
toddling
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| v.（幼儿等）东倒西歪地走( toddle的现在分词 )；蹒跚行走；溜达；散步 | |
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75
awesome
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| adj.令人惊叹的，难得吓人的，很好的 | |
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76
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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77
babbled
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| v.喋喋不休( babble的过去式和过去分词 )；作潺潺声（如流水）；含糊不清地说话；泄漏秘密 | |
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78
horrified
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| a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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79
reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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80
bluff
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| v.虚张声势，用假象骗人；n.虚张声势，欺骗 | |
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