酷兔英语
    当前位置:
  1. 首页
  2. 文章
  3. 娱乐英语
  4. 原版小说
  5. 正文

Weir of Hermiston-Part7_ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON(1850-1894)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

0 收藏 0 分享 0 赞

章节正文
文章总共2页
a stream, a favourite with anglers and with midges, full of falls and



pools, and shaded by willows and natural woods of birch. Here and

there, but at great distances, a byway branches off, and a gaunt



farmhouse may be descried above in a fold of the hill; but the more part

of the time, the road would be quite empty of passage and the hills of



habitation. Hermiston parish is one of the least populous in Scotland;

and, by the time you came that length, you would scarce be surprised at



the inimitable smallness of the kirk, a dwarfish, ancient place seated

for fifty, and standing in a green by the burn-side among two-score



gravestones. The manse close by, although no more than a cottage, is

surrounded by the brightness of a flower-garden and the straw roofs of



bees; and the whole colony, kirk and manse, garden and graveyard, finds

harbourage in a grove of rowans, and is all the year round in a great



silence broken only by the drone of the bees, the tinkle of the burn,

and the bell on Sundays. A mile beyond the kirk the road leaves the



valley by a precipitous ascent, and brings you a little after to the

place of Hermiston, where it comes to an end in the back-yard before the



coach-house. All beyond and about is the great field, of the hills; the

plover, the curlew, and the lark cry there; the wind blows as it blows



in a ship's rigging, hard and cold and pure; and the hill-tops huddle

one behind another like a herd of cattle into the sunset.



The house was sixty years old, unsightly, comfortable; a farmyard and a

kitchen-garden on the left, with a fruit wall where little hard green



pears came to their maturity about the end of October.

The policy (as who should say the park) was of some extent, but very ill



reclaimed; heather and moorfowl had crossed the boundary wall and spread

and roosted within; and it would have tasked a landscapegardener to say



where policy ended and unpolicied nature began. My lord had been led by

the influence of Mr. Sheriff Scott into a considerable design of



planting; many acres were accordingly set out with fir, and the little

feathery besoms gave a false scale and lent a strange air of a toy-shop



to the moors. A great, rooty sweetness of bogs was in the air, and at

all seasons an infinitemelancholy piping of hill birds. Standing so



high and with so little shelter, it was a cold, exposed house, splashed

by showers, drenched by continuous rains that made the gutters to spout,



beaten upon and buffeted by all the winds of heaven; and the prospect

would be often black with tempest, and often white with the snows of



winter. But the house was wind and weather proof, the hearths were kept

bright, and the rooms pleasant with live fires of peat; and Archie might



sit of an evening and hear the squalls bugle on the moorland, and watch

the fire prosper in the earthy fuel, and the smoke winding up the



chimney, and drink deep of the pleasures of shelter.

Solitary as the place was, Archie did not want neighbours. Every night,



if he chose, he might go down to the manse and share a "brewst" of toddy

with the minister - a hare-brained ancient gentleman, long and light and



still active, though his knees were loosened with age, and his voice

broke continually in childish trebles - and his lady wife, a heavy,



comely dame, without a word to say for herself beyond good-even and

good-day. Harum-scarum, clodpole young lairds of the neighbourhood paid



him the compliment of a visit. Young Hay of Romanes rode down to call,

on his crop-eared pony; young Pringle of Drumanno came up on his bony



grey. Hay remained on the hospitable field, and must be carried to bed;

Pringle got somehow to his saddle about 3 A.M., and (as Archie stood



with the lamp on the upper doorstep) lurched, uttered a senseless view-

holloa, and vanished out of the small circle of illumination like a



wraith. Yet a minute or two longer the clatter of his break-neck flight

was audible, then it was cut off by the intervening steepness of the



hill; and again, a great while after, the renewed beating of phantom

horse-hoofs, far in the valley of the Hermiston, showed that the horse



at least, if not his rider, was still on the homeward way.

There was a Tuesday club at the "Cross-keys" in Crossmichael, where the



young bloods of the country-side congregated and drank deep on a

percentage of the expense, so that he was left gainer who should have



drunk the most. Archie had no great mind to this diversion, but he took

it like a duty laid upon him, went with a decent regularity, did his



manfullest with the liquor, held up his head in the local jests, and got

home again and was able to put up his horse, to the admiration of



Kirstie and the lass that helped her. He dined at Driffel, supped at

Windielaws. He went to the new year's ball at Huntsfield and was made






文章总共2页
文章标签:名著  

章节正文
Copyright © 2023 Qeto All rights reserved.
商务合作 | 联系我们 | 关于我们 | 版权声明 | 隐私条款 | 如果智培

京ICP备05059198号-1 京公网安备 11011202003401号