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The Merry Men-Part6_ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON(1850-1894)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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Rorie alone came in to supper; but a little later my uncle

appeared, took a bottle under his arm, put some bread in his



pocket, and set forth again to his outlook, followed this time by

Rorie. I heard that the schooner was losing ground, but the crew



were still fighting every inch with hopelessingenuity and course;

and the news filled my mind with blackness.



A little after sundown the full fury of the gale broke forth, such

a gale as I have never seen in summer, nor, seeing how swiftly it



had come, even in winter. Mary and I sat in silence, the house

quaking overhead, the tempest howling without, the fire between us



sputtering with raindrops. Our thoughts were far away with the

poor fellows on the schooner, or my not less unhappy uncle,



houseless on the promontory; and yet ever and again we were

startled back to ourselves, when the wind would rise and strike the



gable like a solid body, or suddenly fall and draw away, so that

the fire leaped into flame and our hearts bounded in our sides.



Now the storm in its might would seize and shake the four corners

of the roof, roaring like Leviathan in anger. Anon, in a lull,



cold eddies of tempest moved shudderingly in the room, lifting the

hair upon our heads and passing between us as we sat. And again



the wind would break forth in a chorus of melancholy sounds,

hooting low in the chimney, wailing with flutelike softness round



the house.

It was perhaps eight o'clock when Rorie came in and pulled me



mysteriously to the door. My uncle, it appeared, had frightened

even his constant comrade; and Rorie, uneasy at his extravagance,



prayed me to come out and share the watch. I hastened to do as I

was asked; the more readily as, what with fear and horror, and the



electrical tension of the night, I was myself restless and disposed

for action. I told Mary to be under no alarm, for I should be a



safeguard on her father; and wrapping myself warmly in a plaid, I

followed Rorie into the open air.



The night, though we were so little past midsummer, was as dark as

January. Intervals of a groping twilight alternated with spells of



utter blackness; and it was impossible to trace the reason of these

changes in the flying horror of the sky. The wind blew the breath



out of a man's nostrils; all heaven seemed to thunderoverhead like

one huge sail; and when there fell a momentary lull on Aros, we



could hear the gusts dismally sweeping in the distance. Over all

the lowlands of the Ross, the wind must have blown as fierce as on



the open sea; and God only knows the uproar that was raging around

the head of Ben Kyaw. Sheets of mingled spray and rain were driven



in our faces. All round the isle of Aros the surf, with an

incessant, hammering thunder, beat upon the reefs and beaches. Now



louder in one place, now lower in another, like the combinations of

orchestral music, the constant mass of sound was hardly varied for



a moment. And loud above all this hurly-burly I could hear the

changeful voices of the Roost and the intermittent roaring of the



Merry Men. At that hour, there flashed into my mind the reason of

the name that they were called. For the noise of them seemed



almost mirthful, as it out-topped the other noises of the night; or

if not mirthful, yet instinct with a portentous joviality. Nay,



and it seemed even human. As when savage men have drunk away their

reason, and, discarding speech, bawl together in their madness by



the hour; so, to my ears, these deadlybreakers shouted by Aros in

the night.



Arm in arm, and staggering against the wind, Rorie and I won every

yard of ground with conscious effort. We slipped on the wet sod,



we fell together sprawling on the rocks. Bruised, drenched,

beaten, and breathless, it must have taken us near half an hour to



get from the house down to the Head that overlooks the Roost.

There, it seemed, was my uncle's favourite observatory. Right in



the face of it, where the cliff is highest and most sheer, a hump

of earth, like a parapet, makes a place of shelter from the common



winds, where a man may sit in quiet and see the tide and the mad

billows contending at his feet. As he might look down from the



window of a house upon some street disturbance, so, from this post,

he looks down upon the tumbling of the Merry Men. On such a night,



of course, he peers upon a world of blackness, where the waters

wheel and boil, where the waves joust together with the noise of an



explosion, and the foam towers and vanishes in the twinkling of an

eye. Never before had I seen the Merry Men thus violent. The



fury, height, and transiency of their spoutings was a thing to be




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