“Well, your Majesty9,” he said, “you at least ought to be proud to-day. If your children are fighting each other, at least those who win are your children. Other kings have distributed justice, you have distributed life. Other kings have ruled a nation, you have created nations. Others have made kingdoms, you have begotten10 them. Look at your children, father!” and he stretched his hand out towards the enemy.
Auberon did not raise his eyes.
“See how splendidly,” cried Wayne, “the new cities come on — the new cities from across the river. See where Battersea advances over there — under the flag of the Lost Dog; and Putney — don’t you see the Man on the White Boar shining on their standard as the sun catches it? It is the coming of a new age, your Majesty. Notting Hill is not a common empire; it is a thing like Athens, the mother of a mode of life, of a manner of living, which shall renew the youth of the world — a thing like Nazareth. When I was young I remember, in the old dreary11 days, wiseacres used to write books about how trains would get faster, and all the world be one empire, and tram-cars go to the moon. And even as a child I used to say to myself, ‘Far more likely that we shall go on the crusades again, or worship the gods of the city.’ And so it has been. And I am glad, though this is my last battle.”
Even as he spoke there came a crash of steel from the left, and he turned his head.
“Wilson!” he cried, with a kind of joy. “Red Wilson has charged our left. No one can hold him in; he eats swords. He is as keen a soldier as Turnbull, but less patient — less really great. Ha! and Barker is moving. How Barker has improved; how handsome he looks! It is not all having plumes13; it is also having a soul in one’s daily life. Ha!”
And another crash of steel on the right showed that Barker had closed with Notting Hill on the other side.
“Turnbull is there!” cried Wayne. “See him hurl14 them back! Barker is checked! Turnbull charges — wins! But our left is broken. Wilson has smashed Bowles and Mead15, and may turn our flank. Forward, the Provost’s Guard!”
And the whole centre moved forward, Wayne’s face and hair and sword flaming in the van.
The King ran suddenly forward.
The next instant a great jar that went through it told that it had met the enemy. And right over against them through the wood of their own weapons Auberon saw the Purple Eagle of Buck16 of North Kensington.
On the left Red Wilson was storming the broken ranks, his little green figure conspicuous17 even in the tangle18 of men and weapons, with the flaming red moustaches and the crown of laurel. Bowles slashed19 at his head and tore away some of the wreath, leaving the rest bloody20, and, with a roar like a bull’s, Wilson sprang at him, and, after a rattle21 of fencing, plunged22 his point into the chemist, who fell, crying, “Notting Hill!” Then the Notting Hillers wavered, and Bayswater swept them back in confusion. Wilson had carried everything before him.
On the right, however, Turnbull had carried the Red Lion banner with a rush against Barker’s men, and the banner of the Golden Birds bore up with difficulty against it. Barker’s men fell fast. In the centre Wayne and Buck were engaged, stubborn and confused. So far as the fighting went, it was precisely23 equal. But the fighting was a farce24. For behind the three small armies with which Wayne’s small army was engaged lay the great sea of the allied25 armies, which looked on as yet as scornful spectators, but could have broken all four armies by moving a finger.
Suddenly they did move. Some of the front contingents26, the pastoral chiefs from Shepherd’s Bush, with their spears and fleeces, were seen advancing, and the rude clans27 from Paddington Green. They were advancing for a very good reason. Buck, of North Kensington, was signalling wildly; he was surrounded, and totally cut off. His regiments28 were a struggling mass of people, islanded in a red sea of Notting Hill.
The allies had been too careless and confident. They had allowed Barker’s force to be broken to pieces by Turnbull, and the moment that was done, the astute29 old leader of Notting Hill swung his men round and attacked Buck behind and on both sides. At the same moment Wayne cried, “Charge!” and struck him in front like a thunderbolt.
Two-thirds of Buck’s men were cut to pieces before their allies could reach them. Then the sea of cities came on with their banners like breakers, and swallowed Notting Hill for ever. The battle was not over, for not one of Wayne’s men would surrender, and it lasted till sundown, and long after. But it was decided30; the story of Notting Hill was ended.
When Turnbull saw it, he ceased a moment from fighting, and looked round him. The evening sunlight struck his face; it looked like a child’s .
“I have had my youth,” he said. Then, snatching an axe31 from a man, he dashed into the thick of the spears of Shepherd’s Bush, and died somewhere far in the depths of their reeling ranks. Then the battle roared on; every man of Notting Hill was slain32 before night.
Wayne was standing33 by a tree alone after the battle. Several men approached him with axes. One struck at him. His foot seemed partly to slip; but he flung his hand out, and steadied himself against the tree.
Barker sprang after him, sword in hand, and shaking with excitement.
“How large now, my lord,” he cried, “is the Empire of Notting Hill?”
Wayne smiled in the gathering34 dark.
“Always as large as this,” he said, and swept his sword round in a semicircle of silver.
Barker dropped, wounded in the neck; and Wilson sprang over his body like a tiger-cat, rushing at Wayne. At the same moment there came behind the Lord of the Red Lion a cry and a flare35 of yellow, and a mass of the West Kensington halberdiers ploughed up the slope, knee-deep in grass, bearing the yellow banner of the city before them, and shouting aloud.
At the same second Wilson went down under Wayne’s sword, seemingly smashed like a fly. The great sword rose again like a bird, but Wilson seemed to rise with it, and, his sword being broken, sprang at Wayne’s throat like a dog. The foremost of the yellow halberdiers had reached the tree and swung his axe above the struggling Wayne. With a curse the King whirled up his own halberd, and dashed the blade in the man’s face. He reeled and rolled down the slope, just as the furious Wilson was flung on his back again. And again he was on his feet, and again at Wayne’s throat. Then he was flung again, but this time laughing triumphantly36. Grasped in his hand was the red and yellow favour that Wayne wore as Provost of Notting Hill. He had torn it from the place where it had been carried for twenty-five years.
With a shout the West Kensington men closed round Wayne, the great yellow banner flapping over his head.
“Where is your favour now, Provost?” cried the West Kensington leader.
And a laugh went up.
Adam struck at the standard-bearer and brought him reeling forward. As the banner stooped, he grasped the yellow folds and tore off a shred37. A halberdier struck him on the shoulder, wounding bloodily38.
“Here is one colour!” he cried, pushing the yellow into his belt; “and here!” he cried, pointing to his own blood —“here is the other.”
At the same instant the shock of a sudden and heavy halberd laid the King stunned39 or dead. In the wild visions of vanishing consciousness, he saw again something that belonged to an utterly40 forgotten time, something that he had seen somewhere long ago in a restaurant. He saw, with his swimming eyes, red and yellow, the colours of Nicaragua.
Quin did not see the end. Wilson, wild with joy, sprang again at Adam Wayne, and the great sword of Notting Hill was whirled above once more. Then men ducked instinctively41 at the rushing noise of the sword coming down out of the sky, and Wilson of Bayswater was smashed and wiped down upon the floor like a fly. Nothing was left of him but a wreck42; but the blade that had broken him was broken. In dying he had snapped the great sword and the spell of it; the sword of Wayne was broken at the hilt. One rush of the enemy carried Wayne by force against the tree. They were too close to use halberd or even sword; they were breast to breast, even nostrils43 to nostrils. But Buck got his dagger44 free.
“Kill him!” he cried, in a strange stifled45 voice. “Kill him! Good or bad, he is none of us! Do not be blinded by the face! . . . God! have we not been blinded all along!” and he drew his arm back for a stab, and seemed to close his eyes.
Wayne did not drop the hand that hung on to the tree-branch. But a mighty46 heave went over his breast and his whole huge figure, like an earthquake over great hills. And with that convulsion of effort he rent the branch out of the tree, with tongues of torn wood; and, swaying it once only, he let the splintered club fall on Buck, breaking his neck. The planner of the Great Road fell face foremost dead, with his dagger in a grip of steel.
“For you and me, and for all brave men, my brother,” said Wayne, in his strange chant, “there is good wine poured in the inn at the end of the world.”
The packed men made another lurch47 or heave towards him; it was almost too dark to fight clearly. He caught hold of the oak again, this time getting his hand into a wide crevice48 and grasping, as it were, the bowels49 of the tree. The whole crowd, numbering some thirty men, made a rush to tear him away from it; they hung on with all their weight and numbers, and nothing stirred. A solitude50 could not have been stiller than that group of straining men. Then there was a faint sound.
“His hand is slipping,” cried two men in exultation51.
“You don’t know much of him,” said another, grimly (a man of the old war). “More likely his bone cracks.”
“It is neither — by God, it is neither!” said one of the first two.
“What is it, then?” asked the second.
“The tree is falling,” he replied.
“As the tree falleth, so shall it lie,” said Wayne’s voice out of the darkness, and it had the same sweet and yet horrible air that it had had throughout, of coming from a great distance, from before or after the event. Even when he was struggling like an eel12 or battering52 like a madman, he spoke like a spectator. “As the tree falleth, so shall it lie,” he said. “Men have called that a gloomy text. It is the essence of all exultation. I am doing now what I have done all my life, what is the only happiness, what is the only universality. I am clinging to something. Let it fall, and there let it lie. Fools, you go about and see the kingdoms of the earth, and are liberal and wise and cosmopolitan53, which is all that the devil can give you — all that he could offer to Christ, only to be spurned54 away. I am doing what the truly wise do. When a child goes out into the garden and takes hold of a tree, saying, ‘Let this tree be all I have,’ that moment its roots take hold on hell and its branches on the stars. The joy I have is what the lover knows when a woman is everything. It is what a savage55 knows when his idol56 is everything. It is what I know when Notting Hill is everything. I have a city. Let it stand or fall.”
As he spoke, the turf lifted itself like a living thing, and out of it rose slowly, like crested57 serpents, the roots of the oak. Then the great head of the tree, that seemed a green cloud among grey ones, swept the sky suddenly like a broom, and the whole tree heeled over like a ship, smashing every one in its fall.
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收听单词发音
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1
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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placidity
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| n.平静，安静，温和 | |
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onlooker
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| n.旁观者，观众 | |
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wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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embroidery
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| n.绣花，刺绣；绣制品 | |
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6
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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7
languor
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| n.无精力，倦怠 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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10
begotten
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| v.为…之生父( beget的过去分词 )；产生，引起 | |
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dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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eel
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| n.鳗鲡 | |
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plumes
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| 羽毛( plume的名词复数 )； 羽毛饰； 羽毛状物； 升上空中的羽状物 | |
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hurl
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| vt.猛投，力掷，声叫骂 | |
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mead
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| n.蜂蜜酒 | |
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buck
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| n.雄鹿，雄兔；v.马离地跳跃 | |
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conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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18
tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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19
slashed
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| v.挥砍( slash的过去式和过去分词 )；鞭打；割破；削减 | |
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bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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21
rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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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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23
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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farce
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| n.闹剧，笑剧，滑稽戏；胡闹 | |
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allied
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| adj.协约国的；同盟国的 | |
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contingents
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| （志趣相投、尤指来自同一地方的）一组与会者( contingent的名词复数 )； 代表团； （军队的）分遣队； 小分队 | |
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27
clans
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| 宗族( clan的名词复数 )； 氏族； 庞大的家族； 宗派 | |
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28
regiments
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| （军队的）团( regiment的名词复数 )； 大量的人或物 | |
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29
astute
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| adj.机敏的，精明的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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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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gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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flare
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| v.闪耀，闪烁；n.潮红；突发 | |
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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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shred
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| v.撕成碎片，变成碎片；n.碎布条，细片，些少 | |
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38
bloodily
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| adv.出血地；血淋淋地；残忍地；野蛮地 | |
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39
stunned
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| adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
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40
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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42
wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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43
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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44
dagger
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| n.匕首，短剑，剑号 | |
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45
stifled
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| （使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 )； 镇压，遏制； 堵 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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lurch
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| n.突然向前或旁边倒；v.蹒跚而行 | |
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48
crevice
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| n.(岩石、墙等)裂缝；缺口 | |
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49
bowels
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| n.肠，内脏，内部；肠( bowel的名词复数 )；内部，最深处 | |
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50
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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51
exultation
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| n.狂喜，得意 | |
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52
battering
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| n.用坏，损坏v.连续猛击( batter的现在分词 ) | |
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53
cosmopolitan
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| adj.世界性的，全世界的，四海为家的，全球的 | |
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54
spurned
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| v.一脚踢开，拒绝接受( spurn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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55
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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56
idol
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| n.偶像，红人，宠儿 | |
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57
crested
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| adj.有顶饰的，有纹章的，有冠毛的v.到达山顶（或浪峰）( crest的过去式和过去分词 )；到达洪峰，达到顶点 | |
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