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Penelope's Experiences in Scotland-Part28_Kate Douglas Wiggin(1856-1923)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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in black; not a blaze flaming out war and rumours of war, as was the

beacon-fire on the old grey battlements of Edinburgh Castle in the



days of yore, but a message of peace and good-will. Pausing at a

hut on the side of the great green mountain, we looked north toward



Helva, white-crested with a wreath of vapour. (You need not look on

your map of Scotland for Cawda and Helva, for you will not find them



any more than you will find Pettybaw and Inchcaldy.) One by one the

tops of the distant hills began to clear, and with the glass we



could discern the bonfire cairns up-built here and there for

Scotland's evening sacrifice of love and fealty. Cawda was still



veiled, and Cawda was to give the signal for all the smaller fires.

Pettybaw's, I suppose, was counted as a flash in the pan, but not



one of the hundred patriots climbing the mountain-side would have

acknowledged it; to us the good name of the kingdom of Fife and the



glory of the British Empire depended on Pettybaw fire. Some of us

had misgivings, too,--misgivings founded upon Miss Grieve's dismal



prophecies. She had agreed to put nine lighted candles in each of

our cottage windows at ten o'clock, but had declined to go out of



her kitchen to see a procession, hear a band, or look at a bonfire.

She had had a fair sickenin' day, an amount of work too wearifu' for



one person by her lane. She hoped that the bonfire wasna built o'

Mrs. Sinkler's coals nor Mr. Macbrose's kindlings, nor soaked with



Mr. Cameron's paraffin; and she finished with the customary, but

irrelative and exasperating, allusion to the exceedingly nice family



with whom she had live in Glasgy.

And still we toiled upward, keeping our doubts to ourselves. Jean



was limping bravely, supported by Robin Anstruther's arm. Mr.

Macdonald was ardently helping Francesca, who can climb like a



chamois, but would doubtless rather be assisted. Her gypsy face

shone radiant out of her black cloth hood, and Ronald's was no less



luminous. I have never seen two beings more love-daft. They

comport themselves as if they had read the manuscript of the tender



passion, and were moving in exalted superiority through a less

favoured world,--a world waitingimpatiently for the first number of



the story to come out.

Still we climbed, and as we approached the Grey Lady (a curious rock



very near the summit) somebody proposed three cheers for the Queen.

How the children hurrahed,--for the infant heart is easily



inflamed,--and how their shrill Jubilee slogan pierced the mystery

of the night, and went rolling on from glen to glen to the Firth of



Forth itself! Then there was a shout from the rocketmen far out on

the open moor,--'Cawda's clear! Cawda's clear!' Back against a



silver sky stood the signal pile, and signal rockets flashed upward,

to be answered from all the surrounding hills.



Now to light our own fire. One of the village committee solemnly

took off his hat and poured on oil. The great moment had come.



Brenda Macrae approached the sacred pile, and, tremulous from the

effect of much contradictory advice, applied the torch. Silence,



thou Grieve and others, false prophets of disaster! Who now could

say that Pettybaw bonfire had been badly built, or that its fifteen



tons of coal and twenty cords of wood had been unphilosophically

heaped together?



The flames rushed toward the sky with ruddy blaze, shining with

weird effect against the black fir-trees and the blacker night.



Three cheers more! God save the Queen! May she reign over us,

happy and glorious! And we cheered lustily, too, you may be sure!



It was more for the woman than the monarch; it was for the blameless

life, not for the splendid monarchy; but there was everything



hearty, and nothing alien in our tone, when we sang `God save the

Queen' with the rest of the Pettybaw villagers.



The land darkened; the wind blew chill. Willie, Mr. Macdonald, and

Mr. Anstruther brought rugs, and found a sheltered nook for us where



we might still watch the scene. There we sat, looking at the plains

below, with all the village streets sparkling with light, with



rockets shooting into the air and falling to earth in golden rain,

with red lights flickering on the grey lakes, and with one beacon-



fire after another gleaming from the hilltops, till we could count

more than fifty answering one another from the wooded crests along



the shore, some of them piercing the rifts of low-lying clouds till

they seemed to be burning in mid-heaven.



Then one by one the distant fires faded, and as some of us still sat

there silently, far, far away in the grey east there was a faint



flush of carmine where the new dawn was kindling in secret.




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