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Dream Days-Part18_Kenneth Grahame(1859-1932)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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one feeble, strangled cry, one faint appeal to be rescued from

unfamiliar little Annies and retained for an audience certain to



appreciate and never unduly critical.

"Now I've got to the Noah's Ark," panted Harold, still groping



blindly.

"Try and shove the lid back a bit," said Charlotte, "and pull out



a dove or a zebra or a giraffe if there's one handy."

Harold toiled on with grunts and contortions, and presently



produced in triumph a small grey elephant and a large beetle with

a red stomach.



"They're jammed in too tight," he complained. "Can't get any

more out. But as I came up I'm sure I felt Potiphar!" And down



he dived again.

Potiphar was a finely modelled bull with a suede skin, rough



and comfortable and warm in bed. He was my own special joy and

pride, and I thrilled with honest emotion when Potiphar emerged



to light once more, stout-necked and stalwart as ever.

"That'll have to do," said Charlotte, getting up. "We dursn't



take any more, 'cos we'll be found out if we do. Make the box

all right, and bring 'em along."



Harold rammed down the wads of paper and twists of straw he had

disturbed, replaced the lid squarely and innocently, and picked



up his small salvage; and we sneaked off for the window most

generally in use for prison-breakings and nocturnal escapades. A



few seconds later and we were hurrying silently in single file

along the dark edge of the lawn.



Oh, the riot, the clamour, the crowding chorus, of all silent

things that spoke by scent and colour and budding thrust and



foison, that moonlit night of June! Under the laurel-shade all

was still ghostly enough, brigand-haunted, crackling, whispering



of night and all its possibilities of terror. But the open

garden, when once we were in it--how it turned a glad new face to



welcome us, glad as of old when the sunlight raked and searched

it, new with the unfamiliar night-aspect that yet welcomed us as



guests to a hall where the horns blew up to a new, strange

banquet! Was this the same grass, could these be the same



familiar flower-beds, alleys, clumps of verdure, patches of

sward? At least this full white light that was flooding them was



new, and accounted for all. It was Moonlight Land, and Past-Ten-

o'clock Land, and we were in it and of it, and all its other



denizens fully understood, and, tongue-free and awakened at last,

responded and comprehended and knew. The other two, doubtless,



hurrying forward full of their mission, noted little of all

this. I, who was only a super, had leisure to take it all in,



and, though the language and the message of the land were not all

clear to me then, long afterwards I remembered and understood.



Under the farthest hedge, at the loose end of things, where the

outer world began with the paddock, there was darkness once



again--not the blackness that crouched so solidly under the

crowding laurels, but a duskiness hung from far-spread arms of



high-standing elms. There, where the small grave made a darker

spot on the grey, I overtook them, only just in time to see Rosa



laid stiffly out, her cherry cheeks pale in the moonlight, but

her brave smile triumphant and undaunted as ever. It was a tiny



grave and a shallow one, to hold so very much. Rosa once in,

Potiphar, who had hitherto stood erect, stout-necked, through so



many days and such various weather, must needs bow his head

and lie down meekly on his side. The elephant and the beetle,



equal now in a silent land where a vertebra and a red circulation

counted for nothing, had to snuggle down where best they might,



only a little less crowded than in their native Ark.

The earth was shovelled in and stamped down, and I was glad that



no orisons were said and no speechifying took place. The whole

thing was natural and right and self-explanatory, and needed no



justifying or interpreting to our audience of stars and flowers.

The connexion was not entirely broken now--one link remained



between us and them. The Noah's Ark, with its cargo of sad-faced

emigrants, might be hull down on the horizon, but two of its



passengers had missed the boat and would henceforth be always

near us; and, as we played above them, an elephant would



understand, and a beetle would hear, and crawl again in




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