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Weir of Hermiston-Part1_ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON(1850-1894)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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with the cook; and then the cook would pray with Mrs. Weir; and the next



day's meal would never be a penny the better - and the next cook (when

she came) would be worse, if anything, but just as pious. It was often



wondered that Lord Hermiston bore it as he did; indeed, he was a stoical

old voluptuary, contented with sound wine and plenty of it. But there



were moments when he overflowed. Perhaps half a dozen times in the

history of his married life - "Here! tak' it awa', and bring me a piece



bread and kebbuck!" he had exclaimed, with an appallingexplosion of his

voice and rare gestures. None thought to dispute or to make excuses;



the service was arrested; Mrs. Weir sat at the head of the table

whimpering without disguise; and his lordship opposite munched his bread



and cheese in ostentatious disregard. Once only, Mrs. Weir had ventured

to appeal. He was passing her chair on his way into the study.



"O, Edom!" she wailed, in a voice tragic with tears, and reaching out to

him both hands, in one of which she held a sopping pocket-handkerchief.



He paused and looked upon her with a face of wrath, into which there

stole, as he looked, a twinkle of humour.



"Noansense!" he said. "You and your noansense! What do I want with a

Christian faim'ly? I want Christian broth! Get me a lass that can



plain-boil a potato, if she was a whure off the streets." And with

these words, which echoed in her tender ears like blasphemy, he had



passed on to his study and shut the door behind him.

Such was the housewifery in George Square. It was better at Hermiston,



where Kirstie Elliott, the sister of a neighbouring bonnet-laird, and an

eighteenth cousin of the lady's, bore the charge of all, and kept a trim



house and a good country table. Kirstie was a woman in a thousand,

clean, capable, notable; once a moorland Helen, and still comely as a



blood horse and healthy as the hill wind. High in flesh and voice and

colour, she ran the house with her whole intemperate soul, in a bustle,



not without buffets. Scarce more pious than decency in those days

required, she was the cause of many an anxious thought and many a



tearful prayer to Mrs. Weir. Housekeeper and mistress renewed the parts

of Martha and Mary; and though with a pricking conscience, Mary reposed



on Martha's strength as on a rock. Even Lord Hermiston held Kirstie in

a particular regard. There were few with whom he unbent so gladly, few



whom he favoured with so many pleasantries. "Kirstie and me maun have

our joke," he would declare in high good-humour, as he buttered



Kirstie's scones, and she waited at table. A man who had no need either

of love or of popularity, a keen reader of men and of events, there was



perhaps only one truth for which he was quite unprepared: he would have

been quite unprepared to learn that Kirstie hated him. He thought maid



and master were well matched; hard, bandy, healthy, broad Scots folk,

without a hair of nonsense to the pair of them. And the fact was that



she made a goddess and an only child of the effete and tearful lady; and

even as she waited at table her hands would sometimes itch for my lord's



ears.

Thus, at least, when the family were at Hermiston, not only my lord, but



Mrs. Weir too, enjoyed a holiday. Free from the dreadful looking-for of

the miscarried dinner, she would mind her seam, read her piety books,



and take her walk (which was my lord's orders), sometimes by herself,

sometimes with Archie, the only child of that scarce natural union. The



child was her next bond to life. Her frosted sentiment bloomed again,

she breathed deep of life, she let loose her heart, in that society.



The miracle of her motherhood was ever new to her. The sight of the

little man at her skirt intoxicated her with the sense of power, and



froze her with the consciousness of her responsibility. She looked

forward, and, seeing him in fancy grow up and play his diverse part on



the world's theatre, caught in her breath and lifted up her courage with

a lively effort. It was only with the child that she forgot herself and



was at moments natural; yet it was only with the child that she had

conceived and managed to pursue a scheme of conduct. Archie was to be a






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