章节正文
body suddenly precipitated down the bank, and landing with a
thump in the road.
"He didn't get the water," said the owner sadly.
"Are you hurt, Fred?" asked the girl.
The chauffeur limped in front of the lamps, appearing
suddenly, like an actor stepping into the limelight.
"No, ma'am," he said. In the rays of the lamp, he unfolded a
road map and scowled at it. He shook his head aggrievedly.
"There OUGHT to be a house just about here," he explained.
"There OUGHT to be a hotel and a garage, and a cold supper,
just about here," said the girl cheerfully.
"That's the way with those houses," complained the owner.
"They never stay where they're put. At night they go around
and visit each other. Where do you think you are, Fred?"
"I think we're in that long woods, between Loon Lake and
Stoughton on the Boston Pike," said the chauffeur, "and," he
reiterated, "there OUGHT to be a house somewhere about
here--where we get water."
"Well, get there, then, and get the water," commanded the
owner.
"But I can't get there, sir, till I get the water," returned
the chauffeur.
He shook out two collapsible buckets, and started down the
shaft of light.
"I won't be more nor five minutes," he called.
"I'm going with him," said the girl, "I'm cold."
She stepped down from the front seat, and the owner with
sudden alacrity vaulted the door and started after her.
"You coming?" he inquired of Ernest Peabody. But Ernest
Peabody being soundly asleep made no reply. Winthrop turned
to Sam. "Are YOU coming?" he repeated.
The tone of the invitation seemed to suggest that a refusal
would not necessarily lead to a quarrel.
"I am NOT!" said the brother. "You've kept Peabody and me
twelve hours in the open air, and it's past two, and we're
going to sleep. You can take it from me that we are going to
spend the rest of this night here in this road."
He moved his cramped joints cautiously, and stretched his legs
the full width of the car.
"If you can't get plain water," he called, "get club soda."
He buried his nose in the collar of his fur coat, and the
odors of camphor and raccoon skins instantly assailed him, but
he only yawned luxuriously and disappeared into the coat as a
turtle draws into its shell. From the woods about him the
smell of the pine needles pressed upon him like a drug, and
before the footsteps of his companions were lost in the
silence he was asleep. But his sleep was only a review of his
waking hours. Still on either hand rose flying dust clouds
and twirling leaves; still on either side raced gray stone
walls, telegraph poles, hills rich in autumn colors; and
before him a long white road, unending, interminable,
stretching out finally into a darkness lit by flashing
shop-windows, like open fireplaces, by street lamps, by
swinging electric globes, by the blinding searchlights of
hundreds of darting trolley cars with terrifying gongs, and
then a cold white mist, and again on every side, darkness,
except where the four great lamps blazed a path through
stretches of ghostly woods.
As the two young men slumbered, the lamps spluttered and
sizzled like bacon in a frying-pan, a stone rolled noisily
down the bank, a white owl, both appalled and fascinated by
the dazzling eyes of the monster blocking the road, hooted,
and flapped itself away. But the men in the car only shivered
slightly, deep in the sleep of utter weariness.
In silence the girl and Winthrop followed the chauffeur. They
had passed out of the light of the lamps, and in the autumn
mist the electric torch of the owner was as ineffective as a
glow-worm. The mystery of the forest fell heavily upon them.
From their feet the dead leaves sent up a clean, damp odor,
and on either side and overhead the giant pine trees whispered
and rustled in the night wind.
"Take my coat, too," said the young man. "You'll catch cold."
He spoke with authority and began to slip the loops from the
big horn buttons. It was not the habit of the girl to
consider her health. Nor did she permit the members of her
family to show solicitude concerning it. But the anxiety of
the young man, did not seem to offend her. She thanked him
generously. "No; these coats are hard to walk in, and I want
to walk," she exclaimed.
"I like to hear the leaves rustle when you kick them, don't
you? When I was so high, I used to pretend it was wading in
the surf."
The young man moved over to the gutter of the road where the
leaves were deepest and kicked violently. "And the more noise
you make," he said, "the more you frighten away the wild
animals."
The girl shuddered in a most helpless and fascinating fashion.
"Don't!" she whispered. "I didn't mention it, but already I
have seen several lions crouching behind the trees."
"Indeed?" said the young man. His tone was preoccupied. He
had just kicked a rock, hidden by the leaves, and was standing
on one leg.
"Do you mean you don't believe me?" asked the girl, "or is it
that you are merely brave?"
"Merely brave!" exclaimed the young man. "Massachusetts is so
far north for lions," he continued, "that I fancy what you saw
was a grizzly bear. But I have my trusty electric torch with
me, and if there is anything a bear cannot abide, it is to be
pointed at by an electric torch."
"Let us pretend," cried the girl, "that we are the babes in the
wood, and that we are lost."
"We don't have to pretend we're lost," said the man, "and as I
remember it, the babes came to a sad end. Didn't they die,
and didn't the birds bury them with leaves?"
"Sam and Mr. Peabody can be the birds," suggested the girl.
"Sam and Peabody hopping around with leaves in their teeth
would look silly," objected the man, "I doubt if I could keep
from laughing."
"Then," said the girl, "they can be the wicked robbers who
came to kill the babes."
"Very well," said the man with suspicious alacrity, "let us be
babes. If I have to die," he went on heartily, "I would
rather die with you than live with any one else."
When he had spoken, although they were entirely alone in the
world and quite near to each other, it was as though the girl
could not hear him, even as though he had not spoken at all.
After a silence, the girl said: "Perhaps it would be better
for us to go back to the car."
"I won't do it again," begged the man.
"We will pretend," cried the girl, "that the car is a van and
that we are gypsies, and we'll build a campfire, and I will
tell your fortune."
"You are the only woman who can," muttered the young man.
The girl still stood in her tracks.
"You said--" she began.
"I know," interrupted the man, "but you won't let me talk
seriously, so I joke. But some day----"
"Oh, look!" cried the girl. "There's Fred."
She ran from him down the road. The young man followed her
slowly, his fists deep in the pockets of the great-coat, and
kicking at the unoffending leaves.
The chauffeur was peering through a double iron gate hung
between square brick posts. The lower hinge of one gate was
broken, and that gate lurched forward leaving an opening. By
the light of the electric torch they could see the beginning
of a driveway, rough and weed-grown, lined with trees of great
age and bulk, and an unkempt lawn, strewn with bushes, and
beyond, in an open place bare of trees and illuminated faintly
by the stars, the shadow of a house, black, silent, and
forbidding.
"That's it," whispered the chauffeur. "I was here before.
The well is over there."
The young man gave a gasp of astonishment.
"Why," he protested, "this is the Carey place! I should say
we WERE lost. We must have left the road an hour ago.
There's not another house within miles." But he made no
movement to enter. Of all places!" he muttered.
"Well, then," urged the girl briskly, "if there's no other house,
let's tap Mr. Carey's well and get on."
"Do you know who he is?" asked the man.
The girl laughed. "You don't need a letter of introduction to
take a bucket of water, do you?" she said.
"It's Philip Carey's house. He lives here." He spoke in a
whisper, and insistently, as though the information must carry
some special significance. But the girl showed no sign of
enlightenment. "You remember the Carey boys?" he urged.
"They left Harvard the year I entered. They HAD to leave.
They were quite mad. All the Careys have been mad. The boys
were queer even then, and awfully rich. Henry ran away with a
girl from a shoe factory in Brockton and lives in Paris, and
Philip was sent here."
"Sent here?" repeated the girl. Unconsciously her voice also
had sunk to a whisper.
"He has a doctor and a nurse and keepers, and they live here
all the year round. When Fred said there were people
hereabouts, I thought we might strike them for something to
eat, or even to put us up for the night, but, Philip Carey! I
shouldn't fancy----"
"I should think not!" exclaimed the girl.
For, a minute the three stood silent, peering through the iron
bars.
"And the worst of it is," went on the young man irritably, "he
could give us such good things to eat."
"It doesn't look it," said the girl.
"I know," continued the man in the same eager whisper.
"But--who was it was telling me? Some doctor I know who came
down to see him. He said Carey does himself awfully well, has
the house full of bully pictures, and the family plate, and
wonderful collections--things he picked up in the East--gold
ornaments, and jewels, and jade."
"I shouldn't think," said the girl in the same hushed voice,
"they would let him live so far from any neighbors with such
things in the house. Suppose burglars----"
"Burglars! Burglars would never hear of this place. How could
they?--Even his friends think it's just a private madhouse."
The girl shivered and drew back from the gate.
Fred coughed apologetically.
"I'VE heard of it," he volunteered. "There was a piece in
the Sunday Post. It said he eats his dinner in a diamond
crown, and all the walls is gold, and two monkeys wait on
table with gold----"
"Nonsense!" said the man sharply. "He eats like any one else
and dresses like any one else. How far is the well from the
house?"
"It's purty near," said the chauffeur.
"Pretty near the house, or pretty near here?"
"Just outside the kitchen; and it makes a creaky noise."
"You mean you don't want to go?"
Fred's answer was unintelligible.
"You wait here with Miss Forbes," said the young man. "And
I'll get the water."
thump in the road.
"He didn't get the water," said the owner sadly.
"Are you hurt, Fred?" asked the girl.
The chauffeur limped in front of the lamps, appearing
suddenly, like an actor stepping into the limelight.
"No, ma'am," he said. In the rays of the lamp, he unfolded a
road map and scowled at it. He shook his head aggrievedly.
"There OUGHT to be a house just about here," he explained.
"There OUGHT to be a hotel and a garage, and a cold supper,
just about here," said the girl cheerfully.
"That's the way with those houses," complained the owner.
"They never stay where they're put. At night they go around
and visit each other. Where do you think you are, Fred?"
"I think we're in that long woods, between Loon Lake and
Stoughton on the Boston Pike," said the chauffeur, "and," he
reiterated, "there OUGHT to be a house somewhere about
here--where we get water."
"Well, get there, then, and get the water," commanded the
owner.
"But I can't get there, sir, till I get the water," returned
the chauffeur.
He shook out two collapsible buckets, and started down the
shaft of light.
"I won't be more nor five minutes," he called.
"I'm going with him," said the girl, "I'm cold."
She stepped down from the front seat, and the owner with
sudden alacrity vaulted the door and started after her.
"You coming?" he inquired of Ernest Peabody. But Ernest
Peabody being soundly asleep made no reply. Winthrop turned
to Sam. "Are YOU coming?" he repeated.
The tone of the invitation seemed to suggest that a refusal
would not necessarily lead to a quarrel.
"I am NOT!" said the brother. "You've kept Peabody and me
twelve hours in the open air, and it's past two, and we're
going to sleep. You can take it from me that we are going to
spend the rest of this night here in this road."
He moved his cramped joints cautiously, and stretched his legs
the full width of the car.
"If you can't get plain water," he called, "get club soda."
He buried his nose in the collar of his fur coat, and the
odors of camphor and raccoon skins instantly assailed him, but
he only yawned luxuriously and disappeared into the coat as a
turtle draws into its shell. From the woods about him the
smell of the pine needles pressed upon him like a drug, and
before the footsteps of his companions were lost in the
silence he was asleep. But his sleep was only a review of his
waking hours. Still on either hand rose flying dust clouds
and twirling leaves; still on either side raced gray stone
walls, telegraph poles, hills rich in autumn colors; and
before him a long white road, unending, interminable,
stretching out finally into a darkness lit by flashing
shop-windows, like open fireplaces, by street lamps, by
swinging electric globes, by the blinding searchlights of
hundreds of darting trolley cars with terrifying gongs, and
then a cold white mist, and again on every side, darkness,
except where the four great lamps blazed a path through
stretches of ghostly woods.
As the two young men slumbered, the lamps spluttered and
sizzled like bacon in a frying-pan, a stone rolled noisily
down the bank, a white owl, both appalled and fascinated by
the dazzling eyes of the monster blocking the road, hooted,
and flapped itself away. But the men in the car only shivered
slightly, deep in the sleep of utter weariness.
In silence the girl and Winthrop followed the chauffeur. They
had passed out of the light of the lamps, and in the autumn
mist the electric torch of the owner was as ineffective as a
glow-worm. The mystery of the forest fell heavily upon them.
From their feet the dead leaves sent up a clean, damp odor,
and on either side and overhead the giant pine trees whispered
and rustled in the night wind.
"Take my coat, too," said the young man. "You'll catch cold."
He spoke with authority and began to slip the loops from the
big horn buttons. It was not the habit of the girl to
consider her health. Nor did she permit the members of her
family to show solicitude concerning it. But the anxiety of
the young man, did not seem to offend her. She thanked him
generously. "No; these coats are hard to walk in, and I want
to walk," she exclaimed.
"I like to hear the leaves rustle when you kick them, don't
you? When I was so high, I used to pretend it was wading in
the surf."
The young man moved over to the gutter of the road where the
leaves were deepest and kicked violently. "And the more noise
you make," he said, "the more you frighten away the wild
animals."
The girl shuddered in a most helpless and fascinating fashion.
"Don't!" she whispered. "I didn't mention it, but already I
have seen several lions crouching behind the trees."
"Indeed?" said the young man. His tone was preoccupied. He
had just kicked a rock, hidden by the leaves, and was standing
on one leg.
"Do you mean you don't believe me?" asked the girl, "or is it
that you are merely brave?"
"Merely brave!" exclaimed the young man. "Massachusetts is so
far north for lions," he continued, "that I fancy what you saw
was a grizzly bear. But I have my trusty electric torch with
me, and if there is anything a bear cannot abide, it is to be
pointed at by an electric torch."
"Let us pretend," cried the girl, "that we are the babes in the
wood, and that we are lost."
"We don't have to pretend we're lost," said the man, "and as I
remember it, the babes came to a sad end. Didn't they die,
and didn't the birds bury them with leaves?"
"Sam and Mr. Peabody can be the birds," suggested the girl.
"Sam and Peabody hopping around with leaves in their teeth
would look silly," objected the man, "I doubt if I could keep
from laughing."
"Then," said the girl, "they can be the wicked robbers who
came to kill the babes."
"Very well," said the man with suspicious alacrity, "let us be
babes. If I have to die," he went on heartily, "I would
rather die with you than live with any one else."
When he had spoken, although they were entirely alone in the
world and quite near to each other, it was as though the girl
could not hear him, even as though he had not spoken at all.
After a silence, the girl said: "Perhaps it would be better
for us to go back to the car."
"I won't do it again," begged the man.
"We will pretend," cried the girl, "that the car is a van and
that we are gypsies, and we'll build a campfire, and I will
tell your fortune."
"You are the only woman who can," muttered the young man.
The girl still stood in her tracks.
"You said--" she began.
"I know," interrupted the man, "but you won't let me talk
seriously, so I joke. But some day----"
"Oh, look!" cried the girl. "There's Fred."
She ran from him down the road. The young man followed her
slowly, his fists deep in the pockets of the great-coat, and
kicking at the unoffending leaves.
The chauffeur was peering through a double iron gate hung
between square brick posts. The lower hinge of one gate was
broken, and that gate lurched forward leaving an opening. By
the light of the electric torch they could see the beginning
of a driveway, rough and weed-grown, lined with trees of great
age and bulk, and an unkempt lawn, strewn with bushes, and
beyond, in an open place bare of trees and illuminated faintly
by the stars, the shadow of a house, black, silent, and
forbidding.
"That's it," whispered the chauffeur. "I was here before.
The well is over there."
The young man gave a gasp of astonishment.
"Why," he protested, "this is the Carey place! I should say
we WERE lost. We must have left the road an hour ago.
There's not another house within miles." But he made no
movement to enter. Of all places!" he muttered.
"Well, then," urged the girl briskly, "if there's no other house,
let's tap Mr. Carey's well and get on."
"Do you know who he is?" asked the man.
The girl laughed. "You don't need a letter of introduction to
take a bucket of water, do you?" she said.
"It's Philip Carey's house. He lives here." He spoke in a
whisper, and insistently, as though the information must carry
some special significance. But the girl showed no sign of
enlightenment. "You remember the Carey boys?" he urged.
"They left Harvard the year I entered. They HAD to leave.
They were quite mad. All the Careys have been mad. The boys
were queer even then, and awfully rich. Henry ran away with a
girl from a shoe factory in Brockton and lives in Paris, and
Philip was sent here."
"Sent here?" repeated the girl. Unconsciously her voice also
had sunk to a whisper.
"He has a doctor and a nurse and keepers, and they live here
all the year round. When Fred said there were people
hereabouts, I thought we might strike them for something to
eat, or even to put us up for the night, but, Philip Carey! I
shouldn't fancy----"
"I should think not!" exclaimed the girl.
For, a minute the three stood silent, peering through the iron
bars.
"And the worst of it is," went on the young man irritably, "he
could give us such good things to eat."
"It doesn't look it," said the girl.
"I know," continued the man in the same eager whisper.
"But--who was it was telling me? Some doctor I know who came
down to see him. He said Carey does himself awfully well, has
the house full of bully pictures, and the family plate, and
wonderful collections--things he picked up in the East--gold
ornaments, and jewels, and jade."
"I shouldn't think," said the girl in the same hushed voice,
"they would let him live so far from any neighbors with such
things in the house. Suppose burglars----"
"Burglars! Burglars would never hear of this place. How could
they?--Even his friends think it's just a private madhouse."
The girl shivered and drew back from the gate.
Fred coughed apologetically.
"I'VE heard of it," he volunteered. "There was a piece in
the Sunday Post. It said he eats his dinner in a diamond
crown, and all the walls is gold, and two monkeys wait on
table with gold----"
"Nonsense!" said the man sharply. "He eats like any one else
and dresses like any one else. How far is the well from the
house?"
"It's purty near," said the chauffeur.
"Pretty near the house, or pretty near here?"
"Just outside the kitchen; and it makes a creaky noise."
"You mean you don't want to go?"
Fred's answer was unintelligible.
"You wait here with Miss Forbes," said the young man. "And
I'll get the water."
- invitation [,invi´teiʃən]
n.邀请；请帖；吸引 (初中英语单词) - collar [´kɔlə] n.衣领；(狗等的)项圈 (初中英语单词)
- instantly [´instəntli] ad.立即，立刻 (初中英语单词)
- review [ri´vju:] v.&n.复习；回顾；检查 (初中英语单词)
- telegraph [´teligrɑ:f] n.&v.(打)电报；电告 (初中英语单词)
- monster [´mɔnstə] n.怪物 a.大得异常的 (初中英语单词)
- mystery [´mistəri] n.神秘；秘密；故弄玄虚 (初中英语单词)
- overhead [´əuvə,hed] ad.当头 a.在头上的 (初中英语单词)
- anxiety [æŋ´zaiəti] n.挂念；渴望；焦虑的事 (初中英语单词)
- offend [ə´fend] v.犯错误；违犯；犯罪 (初中英语单词)
- rustle [´rʌsl] v.&n.(使)沙沙作响 (初中英语单词)
- pretend [pri´tend] v.假装；借口；妄求 (初中英语单词)
- frighten [´fraitn] vt.吓唬，使惊惧 (初中英语单词)
- helpless [´helpləs] a.无助的，无依靠的 (初中英语单词)
- fascinating [´fæsineitiŋ] a.迷人，使神魂颠倒的 (初中英语单词)
- hidden [´hid(ə)n] hide 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- wicked [´wikid] a.邪恶的；不道德的 (初中英语单词)
- spoken [´spəukən] speak的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- opening [´əupəniŋ] n.开放；开端 a.开始的 (初中英语单词)
- introduction [,intrə´dʌkʃən] n.介绍；引言；引导 (初中英语单词)
- sharply [´ʃɑ:pli] ad.锋利地；剧烈地 (初中英语单词)
- garage [´gærɑ:ʒ] n.汽车房；汽车修理厂 (高中英语单词)
- necessarily [´nesisərili] ad.必定，必然地 (高中英语单词)
- cautiously [´kɔ:ʃəsli] ad.小心地；谨慎地 (高中英语单词)
- concerning [kən´sə:niŋ] prep.关于 (高中英语单词)
- violently [´vaiələntli] ad.强暴地；猛烈地 (高中英语单词)
- grizzly [´grizli] a.灰(白)色的，灰白的 (高中英语单词)
- suspicious [sə´spiʃəs] a.可疑的，多疑的 (高中英语单词)
- heartily [´hɑ:tili] ad.衷心地；亲切地 (高中英语单词)
- strewn [stru:n] strew的过去分词 (高中英语单词)
- bucket [´bʌkit] n.水桶 (高中英语单词)
- significance [sig´nifikəns] n.意义；重要性 (高中英语单词)
- harvard [´hɑ:vəd] n.哈佛大学 (高中英语单词)
- awfully [´ɔ:fuli] ad.令人畏惧地 (高中英语单词)
- repeated [ri´pi:tid] a.反复的；重复的 (高中英语单词)
- chauffeur [´ʃəufə,ʃeu´fə:] n.(汽车)司机 (英语四级单词)
- trolley [´trɔli] n.手推车；电车 (英语四级单词)
- gutter [´gʌtə] n.(檐)槽；排水沟 (英语四级单词)
- trusty [´trʌsti] a.可靠的 n.可信任的 (英语四级单词)
- briskly [´briskli] ad.轻快地；活泼地 (英语四级单词)
- unconsciously [ʌn´kɔʃəsli] ad.无意识地；不觉察地 (英语四级单词)
- landing [´lændiŋ] n.登陆；降落；楼梯平台 (英语六级单词)
- ghostly [´gəustli] a.鬼的；朦胧的 (英语六级单词)
- preoccupied [pri´ɔkjupaid] a.被先占的；出神的 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
章节正文
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