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Dream Days-Part3_Kenneth Grahame(1859-1932)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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derision, named them the "monks." This last title I supposed to

be intended for satire, and knew to be fatuously wrong. I was



thoroughly acquainted with monks--in books--and well knew the cut

of their long frocks, their shaven polls, and their fascinating



big dogs, with brandy-bottles round their necks, incessantly

hauling happy travellers out of the snow. The only dog at the



settlement was an Irish terrier, and the good fellows who owned

him, and were owned by him, in common, wore clothes of the most



nondescript order, and mostlycultivated side-whiskers. I had

wandered up there one day, searching (as usual) for something I



never found, and had been taken in by them and treated as friend

and comrade. They had made me free of their ideal little rooms,



full of books and pictures, and clean of the antimacassar taint;

they had shown me their chapel, high, hushed; and faintly



scented, beautiful with a strange new beauty born both of what it

had and what it had not--that too familiar dowdiness of common



places of worship. They had also fed me in their dining-hall,

where a long table stood on trestles plain to view, and all the



woodwork was natural, unpainted, healthily scrubbed, and

redolent of the forest it came from. I brought away from that



visit, and kept by me for many days, a sense of cleanness, of the

freshness that pricks the senses--the freshness of cool spring



water; and the large swept spaces of the rooms, the red tiles,

and the oaken settles, suggested a comfort that had no connexion



with padded upholstery.

On this particular morning I was in much too unsociable a mind



for paying friendly calls. Still, something in the aspect of the

place harmonised with my humour, and I worked my way round to the



back, where the ground, after affording level enough for a

kitchen-garden, broke steeply away. Both the word Gothic and the



thing itself were still unknown to me; yet doubtless the

architecture of the place, consistent throughout, accounted for



its sense of comradeship in my hour of disheartenment. As I

mused there, with the low, grey, purposeful-looking building



before me, and thought of my pleasant friends within, and what

good times they always seemed to be having, and how they larked



with the Irish terrier, whose footing was one of a perfect

equality, I thought of a certain look in their faces, as if they



had a common purpose and a business, and were acting under orders

thoroughly recognised and understood. I remembered, too,



something that Martha had told me, about these same fellows doing

"a power o' good," and other hints I had collected vaguely, of



renouncements, rules, self-denials, and the like. Thereupon, out

of the depths of my morbid soul swam up a new and fascinating



idea; and at once the career of arms seemed over-acted and stale,

and piracy, as a profession, flat and unprofitable. This, then,



or something like it, should be my vocation and my revenge.

A severer line of business, perhaps, such as I had read of;



something that included black bread and a hair-shirt. There

should be vows, too--irrevocable, blood curdling vows; and an



iron grating. This iron grating was the most necessary feature

of all, for I intended that on the other side of it my relations



should range themselves--I mentally ran over the catalogue, and

saw that the whole gang was present, all in their proper places--



a sad-eyed row, combined in tristful appeal. "We see our error

now," they would say; "we were always dull dogs, slow to catch--



especially in those akin to us--the finer qualities of soul! We

misunderstood you, misappreciated you, and we own up to it. And



now--" "Alas, my dear friends," I would strike in here, waving

towards them an ascetic hand--one of the emaciated sort, that



lets the light shine through at the finger-tips--"Alas, you

come too late! This conduct is fitting and meritorious on your



part, and indeed I always expected it of you, sooner or later;

but the die is cast, and you may go home again and bewail at your



leisure this too tardy repentance of yours. For me, I am vowed

and dedicated, and my relations henceforth are austerity and holy



works. Once a month, should you wish it, it shall be your

privilege to come and gaze at me through this very solid grating;






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