章节正文
little that was not so ill either, now and then," she said, smiling.
"She will have told me all there was of Mr. David, only just that he
would sail upon this very same ship. And why it is you go?"
I told her.
"Ah, well," said she, "we will be some days in company and then (I
suppose) good-bye for altogether! I go to meet my father at a place of
the name of Helvoetsluys, and from there to France, to be exiles by the
side of our chieftain."
I could say no more than just "O!" the name of James More always drying
up my very voice.
She was quick to perceive it, and to guess some portion of my thought.
"There is one thing I must be saying first of all, Mr. David," said
she. "I think two of my kinsfolk have not behaved to you altogether
very well. And the one of them two is James More, my father, and the
other is the Laird of Prestongrange. Prestongrange will have spoken by
himself, or his daughter in the place of him. But for James More, my
father, I have this much to say: he lay shackled in a prison; he is a
plain honest soldier and a plain Highland gentleman; what they would be
after he would never be guessing; but if he had understood it was to be
some prejudice to a young gentleman like yourself, he would have died
first. And for the sake of all your friendships, I will be asking you
to pardon my father and family for that same mistake."
"Catriona," said I, "what that mistake was I do not care to know. I
know but the one thing - that you went to Prestongrange and begged my
life upon your knees. O, I ken well enough it was for your father that
you went, but when you were there you pleaded for me also. It is a
thing I cannot speak of. There are two things I cannot think of into
myself: and the one is your good words when you called yourself my
little friend, and the other that you pleaded for my life. Let us
never speak more, we two, of pardon or offence."
We stood after that silent, Catriona looking on the deck and I on her;
and before there was more speech, a little wind having sprung up in the
nor'-west, they began to shake out the sails and heave in upon the
anchor.
There were six passengers besides our two selves, which made of it a
full cabin. Three were solid merchants out of Leith, Kirkcaldy, and
Dundee, all engaged in the same adventure into High Germany. One was a
Hollander returning; the rest worthy merchants' wives, to the charge of
one of whom Catriona was recommended. Mrs. Gebbie (for that was her
name) was by great good fortune heavily incommoded by the sea, and lay
day and night on the broad of her back. We were besides the only
creatures at all young on board the ROSE, except a white-faced boy that
did my old duty to attend upon the table; and it came about that
Catriona and I were left almost entirely to ourselves. We had the next
seats together at the table, where I waited on her with extraordinary
pleasure. On deck, I made her a soft place with my cloak; and the
weather being singularly fine for that season, with bright frosty days
and nights, a steady, gentle wind, and scarce a sheet started all the
way through the North Sea, we sat there (only now and again walking to
and fro for warmth) from the first blink of the sun till eight or nine
at night under the clear stars. The merchants or Captain Sang would
sometimes glance and smile upon us, or pass a merry word or two and
give us the go-by again; but the most part of the time they were deep
in herring and chintzes and linen, or in computations of the slowness
of the passage, and left us to our own concerns, which were very little
important to any but ourselves.
At the first, we had a great deal to say, and thought ourselves pretty
witty; and I was at a little pains to be the BEAU, and she (I believe)
to play the young lady of experience. But soon we grew plainer with
each other. I laid aside my high, clipped English (what little there
was left of it) and forgot to make my Edinburgh bows and scrapes; she,
upon her side, fell into a sort of kind familiarity; and we dwelt
together like those of the same household, only (upon my side) with a
more deep emotion. About the same time the bottom seemed to fall out
of our conversation, and neither one of us the less pleased. Whiles
she would tell me old wives' tales, of which she had a wonderful
variety, many of them from my friend red-headed Niel. She told them
very pretty, and they were pretty enough childish tales; but the
pleasure to myself was in the sound of her voice, and the thought that
she was telling and I listening. Whiles, again, we would sit entirely
silent, not communicating even with a look, and tasting pleasure enough
in the sweetness of that neighbourhood. I speak here only for myself.
Of what was in the maid's mind, I am not very sure that ever I asked
myself; and what was in my own, I was afraid to consider. I need make
no secret of it now, either to myself or to the reader; I was fallen
totally in love. She came between me and the sun. She had grown
suddenly taller, as I say, but with a wholesome growth; she seemed all
health, and lightness, and brave spirits; and I thought she walked like
a young deer, and stood like a birch upon the mountains. It was enough
for me to sit near by her on the deck; and I declare I scarce spent two
thoughts upon the future, and was so well content with what I then
enjoyed that I was never at the pains to imagine any further step;
unless perhaps that I would be sometimes tempted to take her hand in
mine and hold it there. But I was too like a miser of what joys I had,
and would venture nothing on a hazard.
What we spoke was usually of ourselves or of each other, so that if
anyone had been at so much pains as overhear us, he must have supposed
us the most egotistical persons in the world. It befall的过去式">befell one day when
we were at this practice, that we came on a discourse of friends and
friendship, and I think now that we were sailing near the wind. We
said what a fine thing friendship was, and how little we had guessed of
it, and how it made life a new thing, and a thousand covered things of
the same kind that will have been said, since the foundation of the
world, by young folk in the same predicament. Then we remarked upon
the strangeness of that circumstance, that friends came together in the
beginning as if they were there for the first time, and yet each had
been alive a good while, losing time with other people.
"It is not much that I have done," said she, "and I could be telling
you the five-fifths of it in two-three words. It is only a girl I am,
and what can befall a girl, at all events? But I went with the clan in
the year '45. The men marched with swords and fire-locks, and some of
them in brigades in the same set of tartan; they were not backward at
the marching, I can tell you. And there were gentlemen from the Low
Country, with their tenants mounted and trumpets to sound, and there
was a grant skirling of war-pipes. I rode on a little Highland horse
on the right hand of my father, James More, and of Glengyle himself.
And here is one fine thing that I remember, that Glengyle kissed me in
the face, because (says he) 'my kinswoman, you are the only lady of the
clan that has come out,' and me a little maid of maybe twelve years
old! I saw Prince Charlie too, and the blue eyes of him; he was pretty
indeed! I had his hand to kiss in front of the army. O, well, these
were the good days, but it is all like a dream that I have seen and
then awakened. It went what way you very well know; and these were the
worst days of all, when the red-coat soldiers were out, and my father
and uncles lay in the hill, and I was to be carrying them their meat in
the middle night, or at the short sight of day when the cocks crow.
Yes, I have walked in the night, many's the time, and my heart great in
me for terror of the darkness. It is a strange thing I will never have
been meddled with by a bogle; but they say a maid goes safe. Next
there was my uncle's marriage, and that was a dreadful affair beyond
all. Jean Kay was that woman's name; and she had me in the room with
her that night at Inversnaid, the night we took her from her friends in
the old, ancient manner. She would and she wouldn't; she was for
marrying Rob the one minute, and the next she would be for none of him.
I will never have seen such a feckless creature of a woman; surely all
there was of her would tell her ay or no. Well, she was a widow; and I
can never be thinking a widow a good woman."
"Catriona!" says I, "how do you make out that?"
"I do not know," said she; "I am only telling you the seeming in my
heart. And then to marry a new man! Fy! But that was her; and she
was married again upon my Uncle Robin, and went with him awhile to kirk
and market; and then wearied, or else her friends got claught of her
and talked her round, or maybe she turned ashamed; at the least of it,
she ran away, and went back to her own folk, and said we had held her
in the lake, and I will never tell you all what. I have never thought
much of any females since that day. And so in the end my father, James
More, came to be cast in prison, and you know the rest of it an well as
me."
"And through all you had no friends?" said I.
"No," said she; "I have been pretty chief with two-three lasses on the
braes, but not to call it friends."
"Well, mine is a plain tale," said I. "I never had a friend to my name
till I met in with you."
"And that brave Mr. Stewart?" she asked.
"O, yes, I was forgetting him," I said. "But he in a man, and that in
very different."
"I would think so," said she. "O, yes, it is quite different."
"And then there was one other," said I. "I once thought I had a
friend, but it proved a disappointment."
She asked me who she was?
"It was a he, then," said I. "We were the two best lads at my father's
school, and we thought we loved each other dearly. Well, the time came
when he went to Glasgow to a merchant's house, that was his second
cousin once removed; and wrote me two-three times by the carrier; and
then he found new friends, and I might write till I was tired, he took
no notice. Eh, Catriona, it took me a long while to forgive the world.
There is not anything more bitter than to lose a fancied friend."
Then she began to question me close upon his looks and character, for
we were each a great deal concerned in all that touched the other; till
at last, in a very evil hour, I minded of his letters and went and
fetched the bundle from the cabin.
"Here are his letters," said I, "and all the letters that ever I got.
That will be the last I'll can tell of myself; ye know the lave as well
as I do."
"Will you let me read them, then?" says she.
I told her, IF SHE WOULD BE AT THE PAINS; and she bade me go away and
she would read them from the one end to the other. Now, in this bundle
that I gave her, there were packed together not only all the letters of
my false friend, but one or two of Mr. Campbell's when he was in town
at the Assembly, and to make a complete roll of all that ever was
written to me, Catriona's little word, and the two I had received from
Miss Grant, one when I was on the Bass and one on board that ship. But
of these last I had no particular mind at the moment.
I was in that state of subjection to the thought of my friend that it
mattered not what I did, nor scarce whether I was in her presence or
out of it; I had caught her like some kind of a noble fever that lived
continually in my bosom, by night and by day, and whether I was waking
or asleep. So it befall的过去式">befell that after I was come into the fore-part of
the ship where the broad bows splashed into the billows, I was in no
such hurry to return as you might fancy; rather prolonged my absence
like a variety in pleasure. I do not think I am by nature much of an
Epicurean: and there had come till then so small a share of pleasure
in my way that I might be excused perhaps to dwell on it unduly.
When I returned to her again, I had a faint, painfulimpression as of a
buckle slipped, so coldly she returned the packet.
"You have read them?" said I; and I thought my voice sounded not wholly
natural, for I was turning in my mind for what could ail her.
"Did you mean me to read all?" she asked.
I told her "Yes," with a drooping voice.
"The last of them as well?" said she.
I knew where we were now; yet I would not lie to her either. "I gave
them all without afterthought," I said, "as I supposed that you would
read them. I see no harm in any."
"I will be differently made," said she. "I thank God I am differently
made. It was not a fit letter to be shown me. It was not fit to be
written."
"I think you are speaking of your own friend, Barbara Grant?" said I.
"There will not be anything as bitter as to lose a fancied friend,"
said she, quoting my own expression.
"I think it is sometimes the friendship that was fancied!" I cried.
"What kind of justice do you call this, to blame me for some words that
"She will have told me all there was of Mr. David, only just that he
would sail upon this very same ship. And why it is you go?"
I told her.
"Ah, well," said she, "we will be some days in company and then (I
suppose) good-bye for altogether! I go to meet my father at a place of
the name of Helvoetsluys, and from there to France, to be exiles by the
side of our chieftain."
I could say no more than just "O!" the name of James More always drying
up my very voice.
She was quick to perceive it, and to guess some portion of my thought.
"There is one thing I must be saying first of all, Mr. David," said
she. "I think two of my kinsfolk have not behaved to you altogether
very well. And the one of them two is James More, my father, and the
other is the Laird of Prestongrange. Prestongrange will have spoken by
himself, or his daughter in the place of him. But for James More, my
father, I have this much to say: he lay shackled in a prison; he is a
plain honest soldier and a plain Highland gentleman; what they would be
after he would never be guessing; but if he had understood it was to be
some prejudice to a young gentleman like yourself, he would have died
first. And for the sake of all your friendships, I will be asking you
to pardon my father and family for that same mistake."
"Catriona," said I, "what that mistake was I do not care to know. I
know but the one thing - that you went to Prestongrange and begged my
life upon your knees. O, I ken well enough it was for your father that
you went, but when you were there you pleaded for me also. It is a
thing I cannot speak of. There are two things I cannot think of into
myself: and the one is your good words when you called yourself my
little friend, and the other that you pleaded for my life. Let us
never speak more, we two, of pardon or offence."
We stood after that silent, Catriona looking on the deck and I on her;
and before there was more speech, a little wind having sprung up in the
nor'-west, they began to shake out the sails and heave in upon the
anchor.
There were six passengers besides our two selves, which made of it a
full cabin. Three were solid merchants out of Leith, Kirkcaldy, and
Dundee, all engaged in the same adventure into High Germany. One was a
Hollander returning; the rest worthy merchants' wives, to the charge of
one of whom Catriona was recommended. Mrs. Gebbie (for that was her
name) was by great good fortune heavily incommoded by the sea, and lay
day and night on the broad of her back. We were besides the only
creatures at all young on board the ROSE, except a white-faced boy that
did my old duty to attend upon the table; and it came about that
Catriona and I were left almost entirely to ourselves. We had the next
seats together at the table, where I waited on her with extraordinary
pleasure. On deck, I made her a soft place with my cloak; and the
weather being singularly fine for that season, with bright frosty days
and nights, a steady, gentle wind, and scarce a sheet started all the
way through the North Sea, we sat there (only now and again walking to
and fro for warmth) from the first blink of the sun till eight or nine
at night under the clear stars. The merchants or Captain Sang would
sometimes glance and smile upon us, or pass a merry word or two and
give us the go-by again; but the most part of the time they were deep
in herring and chintzes and linen, or in computations of the slowness
of the passage, and left us to our own concerns, which were very little
important to any but ourselves.
At the first, we had a great deal to say, and thought ourselves pretty
witty; and I was at a little pains to be the BEAU, and she (I believe)
to play the young lady of experience. But soon we grew plainer with
each other. I laid aside my high, clipped English (what little there
was left of it) and forgot to make my Edinburgh bows and scrapes; she,
upon her side, fell into a sort of kind familiarity; and we dwelt
together like those of the same household, only (upon my side) with a
more deep emotion. About the same time the bottom seemed to fall out
of our conversation, and neither one of us the less pleased. Whiles
she would tell me old wives' tales, of which she had a wonderful
variety, many of them from my friend red-headed Niel. She told them
very pretty, and they were pretty enough childish tales; but the
pleasure to myself was in the sound of her voice, and the thought that
she was telling and I listening. Whiles, again, we would sit entirely
silent, not communicating even with a look, and tasting pleasure enough
in the sweetness of that neighbourhood. I speak here only for myself.
Of what was in the maid's mind, I am not very sure that ever I asked
myself; and what was in my own, I was afraid to consider. I need make
no secret of it now, either to myself or to the reader; I was fallen
totally in love. She came between me and the sun. She had grown
suddenly taller, as I say, but with a wholesome growth; she seemed all
health, and lightness, and brave spirits; and I thought she walked like
a young deer, and stood like a birch upon the mountains. It was enough
for me to sit near by her on the deck; and I declare I scarce spent two
thoughts upon the future, and was so well content with what I then
enjoyed that I was never at the pains to imagine any further step;
unless perhaps that I would be sometimes tempted to take her hand in
mine and hold it there. But I was too like a miser of what joys I had,
and would venture nothing on a hazard.
What we spoke was usually of ourselves or of each other, so that if
anyone had been at so much pains as overhear us, he must have supposed
us the most egotistical persons in the world. It befall的过去式">befell one day when
we were at this practice, that we came on a discourse of friends and
friendship, and I think now that we were sailing near the wind. We
said what a fine thing friendship was, and how little we had guessed of
it, and how it made life a new thing, and a thousand covered things of
the same kind that will have been said, since the foundation of the
world, by young folk in the same predicament. Then we remarked upon
the strangeness of that circumstance, that friends came together in the
beginning as if they were there for the first time, and yet each had
been alive a good while, losing time with other people.
"It is not much that I have done," said she, "and I could be telling
you the five-fifths of it in two-three words. It is only a girl I am,
and what can befall a girl, at all events? But I went with the clan in
the year '45. The men marched with swords and fire-locks, and some of
them in brigades in the same set of tartan; they were not backward at
the marching, I can tell you. And there were gentlemen from the Low
Country, with their tenants mounted and trumpets to sound, and there
was a grant skirling of war-pipes. I rode on a little Highland horse
on the right hand of my father, James More, and of Glengyle himself.
And here is one fine thing that I remember, that Glengyle kissed me in
the face, because (says he) 'my kinswoman, you are the only lady of the
clan that has come out,' and me a little maid of maybe twelve years
old! I saw Prince Charlie too, and the blue eyes of him; he was pretty
indeed! I had his hand to kiss in front of the army. O, well, these
were the good days, but it is all like a dream that I have seen and
then awakened. It went what way you very well know; and these were the
worst days of all, when the red-coat soldiers were out, and my father
and uncles lay in the hill, and I was to be carrying them their meat in
the middle night, or at the short sight of day when the cocks crow.
Yes, I have walked in the night, many's the time, and my heart great in
me for terror of the darkness. It is a strange thing I will never have
been meddled with by a bogle; but they say a maid goes safe. Next
there was my uncle's marriage, and that was a dreadful affair beyond
all. Jean Kay was that woman's name; and she had me in the room with
her that night at Inversnaid, the night we took her from her friends in
the old, ancient manner. She would and she wouldn't; she was for
marrying Rob the one minute, and the next she would be for none of him.
I will never have seen such a feckless creature of a woman; surely all
there was of her would tell her ay or no. Well, she was a widow; and I
can never be thinking a widow a good woman."
"Catriona!" says I, "how do you make out that?"
"I do not know," said she; "I am only telling you the seeming in my
heart. And then to marry a new man! Fy! But that was her; and she
was married again upon my Uncle Robin, and went with him awhile to kirk
and market; and then wearied, or else her friends got claught of her
and talked her round, or maybe she turned ashamed; at the least of it,
she ran away, and went back to her own folk, and said we had held her
in the lake, and I will never tell you all what. I have never thought
much of any females since that day. And so in the end my father, James
More, came to be cast in prison, and you know the rest of it an well as
me."
"And through all you had no friends?" said I.
"No," said she; "I have been pretty chief with two-three lasses on the
braes, but not to call it friends."
"Well, mine is a plain tale," said I. "I never had a friend to my name
till I met in with you."
"And that brave Mr. Stewart?" she asked.
"O, yes, I was forgetting him," I said. "But he in a man, and that in
very different."
"I would think so," said she. "O, yes, it is quite different."
"And then there was one other," said I. "I once thought I had a
friend, but it proved a disappointment."
She asked me who she was?
"It was a he, then," said I. "We were the two best lads at my father's
school, and we thought we loved each other dearly. Well, the time came
when he went to Glasgow to a merchant's house, that was his second
cousin once removed; and wrote me two-three times by the carrier; and
then he found new friends, and I might write till I was tired, he took
no notice. Eh, Catriona, it took me a long while to forgive the world.
There is not anything more bitter than to lose a fancied friend."
Then she began to question me close upon his looks and character, for
we were each a great deal concerned in all that touched the other; till
at last, in a very evil hour, I minded of his letters and went and
fetched the bundle from the cabin.
"Here are his letters," said I, "and all the letters that ever I got.
That will be the last I'll can tell of myself; ye know the lave as well
as I do."
"Will you let me read them, then?" says she.
I told her, IF SHE WOULD BE AT THE PAINS; and she bade me go away and
she would read them from the one end to the other. Now, in this bundle
that I gave her, there were packed together not only all the letters of
my false friend, but one or two of Mr. Campbell's when he was in town
at the Assembly, and to make a complete roll of all that ever was
written to me, Catriona's little word, and the two I had received from
Miss Grant, one when I was on the Bass and one on board that ship. But
of these last I had no particular mind at the moment.
I was in that state of subjection to the thought of my friend that it
mattered not what I did, nor scarce whether I was in her presence or
out of it; I had caught her like some kind of a noble fever that lived
continually in my bosom, by night and by day, and whether I was waking
or asleep. So it befall的过去式">befell that after I was come into the fore-part of
the ship where the broad bows splashed into the billows, I was in no
such hurry to return as you might fancy; rather prolonged my absence
like a variety in pleasure. I do not think I am by nature much of an
Epicurean: and there had come till then so small a share of pleasure
in my way that I might be excused perhaps to dwell on it unduly.
When I returned to her again, I had a faint, painfulimpression as of a
buckle slipped, so coldly she returned the packet.
"You have read them?" said I; and I thought my voice sounded not wholly
natural, for I was turning in my mind for what could ail her.
"Did you mean me to read all?" she asked.
I told her "Yes," with a drooping voice.
"The last of them as well?" said she.
I knew where we were now; yet I would not lie to her either. "I gave
them all without afterthought," I said, "as I supposed that you would
read them. I see no harm in any."
"I will be differently made," said she. "I thank God I am differently
made. It was not a fit letter to be shown me. It was not fit to be
written."
"I think you are speaking of your own friend, Barbara Grant?" said I.
"There will not be anything as bitter as to lose a fancied friend,"
said she, quoting my own expression.
"I think it is sometimes the friendship that was fancied!" I cried.
"What kind of justice do you call this, to blame me for some words that
- perceive [pə´si:v]
vt.察觉；看出；领悟 (初中英语单词) - portion [´pɔ:ʃən] n.嫁妆；命运 vt.分配 (初中英语单词)
- spoken [´spəukən] speak的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- pardon [´pɑ:dən] n.&vt.原谅；饶恕；赦免 (初中英语单词)
- worthy [´wə:ði] a.有价值的；值得的 (初中英语单词)
- charge [tʃɑ:dʒ] v.收费；冲锋 n.费用 (初中英语单词)
- scarce [skeəs, skers] a.缺乏的；稀有的 (初中英语单词)
- emotion [i´məuʃən] n.感情；情绪；激动 (初中英语单词)
- childish [´tʃaildiʃ] a.孩子的；幼稚的 (初中英语单词)
- venture [´ventʃə] n.投机 v.冒险；敢于 (初中英语单词)
- foundation [faun´deiʃən] n.建立；基金；地基 (初中英语单词)
- backward [´bækwəd] ad.向后 a.向后的 (初中英语单词)
- prince [´prins] n.王子；亲王；君主 (初中英语单词)
- terror [´terə] n.恐怖；惊骇 (初中英语单词)
- dreadful [´dredful] a.可怕的；讨厌的 (初中英语单词)
- awhile [ə´wail] ad.少顷；片刻 (初中英语单词)
- ashamed [ə´ʃeimd] a.惭愧；不好意思 (初中英语单词)
- forgive [fə´giv] vt.原谅，谅解，宽恕 (初中英语单词)
- character [´kæriktə] n.特性；性质；人物；字 (初中英语单词)
- bundle [´bʌndl] n.包，捆；包袱(裹) (初中英语单词)
- assembly [ə´sembli] n.集会；装配；与会者 (初中英语单词)
- variety [və´raiəti] n.变化；多样(性)；种类 (初中英语单词)
- impression [im´preʃən] n.印刷；印象；效果 (初中英语单词)
- coldly [´kəuldli] ad.冷淡地 (初中英语单词)
- supposed [sə´pəuzd] a.想象的；假定的 (初中英语单词)
- saying [´seiŋ, ´sei-iŋ] n.言语；言论；格言 (高中英语单词)
- highland [´hailənd] n.山地，高地 (高中英语单词)
- prejudice [´predʒədis] n.偏见；不利 vt.损害 (高中英语单词)
- sprung [sprʌŋ] spring的过去分词 (高中英语单词)
- sweetness [´swi:tnis] n.甜蜜；芳香；亲切 (高中英语单词)
- wholesome [´həulsəm] a.有益于健康的 (高中英语单词)
- discourse [´diskɔ:s] n.论文；演说；说教 (高中英语单词)
- befall [bi´fɔ:l] v.降临；发表(于) (高中英语单词)
- carrier [´kæriə] n.搬运工人；托架 (高中英语单词)
- concerned [kən´sə:nd] a.有关的；担心的 (高中英语单词)
- painful [´peinfəl] a.痛(苦)的；费力的 (高中英语单词)
- differently [´difrentli] ad.不同地，有差别地 (高中英语单词)
- frosty [´frɔsti] a.霜冻的；冷淡的 (英语四级单词)
- herring [´heriŋ] n.鲱鱼；青鱼 (英语四级单词)
- edinburgh [´edinbərə] n.爱丁堡 (英语四级单词)
- overhear [,əuvə´hiə] vt.偶然听到；偷听 (英语四级单词)
- befell [bi´fel] befall的过去式 (英语四级单词)
- seeming [´si:miŋ] a.表面上的 n.外观 (英语四级单词)
- dearly [´diəli] ad.深深地(爱等)；昂贵 (英语四级单词)
- glasgow [´glɑ:sgəu] n.格拉斯哥 (英语四级单词)
- familiarity [fə,mili´æriti] n.熟悉；新近；随便 (英语六级单词)
- minded [´maindid] a.有...心的 (英语六级单词)
- speaking [´spi:kiŋ] n.说话 a.发言的 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
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