Old Sally always attended her young mistress while she prepared for bed — not that Lilias required help, for she had the spirit of neatness and a joyous1, gentle alacrity2, and only troubled the good old creature enough to prevent her thinking herself grown old and useless.
Sally, in her quiet way, was garrulous3, and she had all sorts of old-world tales of wonder and adventure, to which Lilias often went pleasantly to sleep; for there was no danger while old Sally sat knitting there by the fire, and the sound of the rector’s mounting upon his chairs, as was his wont4, and taking down and putting up his books in the study beneath, though muffled5 and faint, gave evidence that that good and loving influence was awake and busy.
Old Sally was telling her young mistress, who sometimes listened with a smile, and sometimes lost a good five minutes together of her gentle prattle6, how the young gentleman, Mr. Mervyn, had taken that awful old haunted habitation, the Tiled House ‘beyant at Ballyfermot,’ and was going to stay there, and wondered no one had told him of the mysterious dangers of that desolate8 mansion9.
It stood by a lonely bend of the narrow road. Lilias had often looked upon the short, straight, grass-grown avenue with an awful curiosity at the old house which she had learned in childhood to fear as the abode11 of shadowy tenants12 and unearthly dangers.
‘There are people, Sally, nowadays, who call themselves free-thinkers, and don’t believe in anything — even in ghosts,’ said Lilias.
‘A then the place he’s stopping in now, Miss Lily, ‘ill soon cure him of free-thinking, if the half they say about it’s true,’ answered Sally.
‘But I don’t say, mind, he’s a free-thinker, for I don’t know anything of Mr. Mervyn; but if he be not, he must be very brave, or very good, indeed. I know, Sally, I should be horribly afraid, indeed, to sleep in it myself,’ answered Lilias, with a cosy13 little shudder14, as the a?rial image of the old house for a moment stood before her, with its peculiar15 malign16, sacred, and skulking17 aspect, as if it had drawn18 back in shame and guilt19 under the melancholy20 old elms among the tall hemlock21 and nettles22.
‘And now, Sally, I’m safe in bed. Stir the fire, my old darling.’ For although it was the first week in May, the night was frosty. ‘And tell me all about the Tiled House again, and frighten me out of my wits.’
So good old Sally, whose faith in such matters was a religion, went off over the well-known ground in a gentle little amble23 — sometimes subsiding24 into a walk as she approached some special horror, and pulling up altogether — that is to say, suspending her knitting, and looking with a mysterious nod at her young mistress in the four-poster, or lowering her voice to a sort of whisper when the crisis came.
So she told her how when the neighbours hired the orchard25 that ran up to the windows at the back of the house, the dogs they kept there used to howl so wildly and wolfishly all night among the trees, and prowl under the walls of the house so dejectedly, that they were fain to open the door and let them in at last; and, indeed, small need was there for dogs; for no one, young or old, dared go near the orchard after night-fall. No, the burnished26 golden pippins that peeped through the leaves in the western rays of evening, and made the mouths of the Ballyfermot school-boys water, glowed undisturbed in the morning sunbeams, and secure in the mysterious tutelage of the night smiled coyly on their predatory longings27. And this was no fanciful reserve and avoidance. Mick Daly, when he had the orchard, used to sleep in the loft28 over the kitchen; and he swore that within five or six weeks, while he lodged29 there, he twice saw the same thing, and that was a lady in a hood10 and a loose dress, her head drooping30, and her finger on her lip, walking in silence among the crooked31 stems, with a little child by the hand, who ran smiling and skipping beside her. And the Widow Cresswell once met them at night-fall, on the path through the orchard to the back-door, and she did not know what it was until she saw the men looking at one another as she told it.
‘It’s often she told it to me,’ said old Sally; ‘and how she came on them all of a sudden at the turn of the path, just by the thick clump32 of alder33 trees; and how she stopped, thinking it was some lady that had a right to be there; and how they went by as swift as the shadow of a cloud, though she only seemed to be walking slow enough, and the little child pulling by her arm, this way and that way, and took no notice of her, nor even raised her head, though she stopped and courtesied. And old Dalton, don’t you remember old Dalton, Miss Lily?’
‘I think I do, the old man who limped, and wore the old black wig34?’
‘Yes, indeed, acushla, so he did. See how well she remembers! That was by a kick of one of the earl’s horses — he was groom35 there,’ resumed Sally. ‘He used to be troubled with hearing the very sounds his master used to make to bring him and old Oliver to the door, when he came back late. It was only on very dark nights when there was no moon. They used to hear all on a sudden, the whimpering and scraping of dogs at the hall door, and the sound of the whistle, and the light stroke across the window with the lash36 of the whip, just like as if the earl himself — may his poor soul find rest — was there. First the wind ‘id stop, like you’d be holding your breath, then came these sounds they knew so well, and when they made no sign of stirring or opening the door, the wind ‘id begin again with such a hoo-hoo-o-o-high, you’d think it was laughing, and crying, and hooting37 all at once.’
Here old Sally’s tale and her knitting ceased for a moment, as if she were listening to the wind outside the haunted precincts of the Tiled house; and she took up her parable38 again.
‘The very night he met his death in England, old Oliver, the butler, was listening to Dalton — for Dalton was a scholar — reading the letter that came to him through the post that day, telling him to get things ready, for his troubles wor nearly over and he expected to be with them again in a few days, and maybe almost as soon as the letter; and sure enough, while he was reading, there comes a frightful39 rattle7 at the window, like some one all in a tremble, trying to shake it open, and the earl’s voice, as they both conceited40, cries from outside, “Let me in, let me in, let me in!” “It’s him,” says the butler. “’Tis so, bedad,” says Dalton, and they both looked at the windy, and at one another — and then back again — overjoyed, in a soart of a way, and frightened all at onst. Old Oliver was bad with the rheumatiz. So away goes Dalton to the hall-door, and he calls “who’s there?” and no answer. “Maybe,” says Dalton, to himself, “’tis what he’s rid round to the back-door;” so to the back-door with him, and there he shouts again — and no answer, and not a sound outside — and he began to feel quare, and to the hall door with him back again. “Who’s there? do you hear? who’s there?” he shouts, and receives no answer still. “I’ll open the door at any rate,” says he, “maybe it’s what he’s made his escape,” for they knew all about his troubles, and wants to get in without noise, so praying all the time — for his mind misgave41 him it might not be all right — he shifts the bars and unlocks the door; but neither man, woman, nor child, nor horse, nor any living shape was standing42 there, only something or another slipt into the house close by his leg; it might be a dog, or something that way, he could not tell, for he only seen it for a moment with the corner of his eye, and it went in just like as if it belonged to the place. He could not see which way it went, up or down, but the house was never a happy one, or a quiet house after; and Dalton bangs the hall-door, and he took a sort of a turn and a trembling, and back with him to Oliver, the butler, looking as white as the blank leaf of his master’s letter, that was between his finger and thumb. “What is it? what is it?” says the butler, catching43 his crutch44 like a waypon, fastening his eyes on Dalton’s white face, and growing almost as pale himself. “The master’s dead,” says Dalton — and so he was, signs on it.
‘After the turn she got by what she seen in the orchard, when she came to know the truth of what it was, Jinny Cresswell, you may be sure, did not stay there an hour longer than she could help: and she began to take notice of things she did not mind before — such as when she went into the big bed-room over the hall, that the lord used to sleep in, whenever she went in at one door the other door used to be pulled to very quick, as if some one avoiding her was getting out in haste; but the thing that frightened her most was just this — that sometimes she used to find a long straight mark from the head to the foot of her bed, as if ’twas made by something heavy lying there, and the place where it was used to feel warm — as if — whoever it was — they only left it as she came into the room.
‘But the worst of all was poor Kitty Haplin, the young woman that died of what she seen. Her mother said it was how she was kept awake all the night with the walking about of some one in the next room, tumbling about boxes, and pulling over drawers, and talking and sighing to himself, and she, poor thing, wishing to go asleep, and wondering who it could be, when in he comes, a fine man, in a sort of loose silk morning-dress, an’ no wig, but a velvet45 cap on, and to the windy with him quiet and aisy, and she makes a turn in the bed to let him know there was some one there, thinking he’d go away, but instead of that, over he comes to the side of the bed, looking very bad, and says something to her — but his speech was thick and choakin’ like a dummy’s that id be trying to spake — and she grew very frightened, and says she, ‘I ask your honour’s pardon, Sir, but I can’t hear you right,’ and with that he stretches up his neck nigh out of his cravat46, turning his face up towards the ceiling, and — grace between us and harm!— his throat was cut across, and wide open; she seen no more, but dropped in a dead faint in the bed, and back to her mother with her in the morning, and she never swallied bit or sup more, only she just sat by the fire holding her mother’s hand, crying and trembling, and peepin’ over her shoulder, and starting with every sound, till she took the fever and died, poor thing, not five weeks after.’
And so on, and on, and on flowed the stream of old Sally’s narrative47, while Lilias dropped into dreamless sleep, and then the story-teller stole away to her own tidy bed-room and innocent slumbers48.
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joyous
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| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
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alacrity
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| n.敏捷，轻快，乐意 | |
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garrulous
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| adj.唠叨的，多话的 | |
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wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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prattle
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| n.闲谈；v.（小孩般）天真无邪地说话；发出连续而无意义的声音 | |
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rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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hood
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| n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖 | |
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abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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tenants
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| n.房客( tenant的名词复数 )；佃户；占用者；占有者 | |
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cosy
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| adj.温暖而舒适的，安逸的 | |
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shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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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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malign
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| adj.有害的；恶性的；恶意的；v.诽谤，诬蔑 | |
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skulking
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| v.潜伏，偷偷摸摸地走动，鬼鬼祟祟地活动( skulk的现在分词 ) | |
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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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guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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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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hemlock
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| n.毒胡萝卜，铁杉 | |
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nettles
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| n.荨麻( nettle的名词复数 ) | |
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amble
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| vi.缓行，漫步 | |
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subsiding
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| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的现在分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
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orchard
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| n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场 | |
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burnished
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| adj.抛光的，光亮的v.擦亮（金属等），磨光( burnish的过去式和过去分词 )；被擦亮，磨光 | |
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longings
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| 渴望，盼望( longing的名词复数 ) | |
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loft
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| n.阁楼，顶楼 | |
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lodged
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| v.存放( lodge的过去式和过去分词 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属 | |
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drooping
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| adj. 下垂的，无力的 动词droop的现在分词 | |
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crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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clump
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| n.树丛，草丛；vi.用沉重的脚步行走 | |
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alder
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| n.赤杨树 | |
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wig
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| n.假发 | |
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groom
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| vt.给（马、狗等）梳毛，照料，使...整洁 | |
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lash
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| v.系牢；鞭打；猛烈抨击；n.鞭打；眼睫毛 | |
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hooting
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| （使）作汽笛声响，作汽车喇叭声( hoot的现在分词 )； 倒好儿； 倒彩 | |
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parable
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| n.寓言，比喻 | |
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frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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40
conceited
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| adj.自负的，骄傲自满的 | |
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41
misgave
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| v.使（某人的情绪、精神等）疑虑，担忧，害怕( misgive的过去式 ) | |
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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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catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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crutch
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| n.T字形拐杖；支持，依靠，精神支柱 | |
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45
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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46
cravat
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| n.领巾，领结；v.使穿有领结的服装，使结领结 | |
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narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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slumbers
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| 睡眠，安眠( slumber的名词复数 ) | |
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