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Weir of Hermiston-Part9_ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON(1850-1894)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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father's murderers. The figure he had shown on that eventful night

disappeared as if swallowed by a trap. He who had ecstatically dipped



his hand in the red blood, he who had ridden down Dickieson, became,

from that moment on, a stiff and rather graceless model of the rustic



proprieties; cannily profiting by the high war prices, and yearly

stowing away a little nest-egg in the bank against calamity; approved of



and sometimes consulted by the greater lairds for the massive and placid

sense of what he said, when he could be induced to say anything; and



particularly valued by the minister, Mr. Torrance, as a right-hand man

in the parish, and a model to parents. The transfiguration had been for



the moment only; some Barbarossa, some old Adam of our ancestors, sleeps

in all of us till the fit circumstance shall call it into action; and,



for as sober as he now seemed, Hob had given once for all the measure of

the devil that haunted him. He was married, and, by reason of the



effulgence of that legendary night, was adored by his wife.

He had a mob of little lusty, barefoot children who marched in a caravan



the long miles to school, the stages of whose pilgrimage were marked by

acts of spoliation and mischief, and who were qualified in the country-



side as "fair pests." But in the house, if "faither was in," they were

quiet as mice. In short, Hob moved through life in a great peace - the



reward of any one who shall have killed his man, with any formidable and

figurative circumstance, in the midst of a country gagged and swaddled



with civilisation.

It was a current remark that the Elliotts were "guid and bad, like



sanguishes"; and certainly there was a curious distinction, the men of

business coming alternately with the dreamers. The second brother, Gib,



was a weaver by trade, had gone out early into the world to Edinburgh,

and come home again with his wings singed. There was an exaltation in



his nature which had led him to embrace with enthusiasm the principles

of the French Revolution, and had ended by bringing him under the hawse



of my Lord Hermiston in that furious onslaught of his upon the Liberals,

which sent Muir and Palmer into exile and dashed the party into chaff.



It was whispered that my lord, in his great scorn for the movement, and

prevailed upon a little by a sense of neighbourliness, had given Gib a



hint. Meeting him one day in the Potterrow, my lord had stopped in

front of him: "Gib, ye eediot," he had said, "what's this I hear of you?



Poalitics, poalitics, poalitics, weaver's poalitics, is the way of it, I

hear. If ye arena a'thegither dozened with cediocy, ye'll gang your



ways back to Cauldstaneslap, and ca' your loom, and ca' your loom, man!"

And Gilbert had taken him at the word and returned, with an expedition



almost to be called flight, to the house of his father. The clearest of

his inheritance was that family gift of prayer of which Kirstie had



boasted; and the baffled politician now turned his attention to

religious matters - or, as others said, to heresy and schism. Every



Sunday morning he was in Crossmichael, where he had gathered together,

one by one, a sect of about a dozen persons, who called themselves



"God's Remnant of the True Faithful," or, for short, "God's Remnant."

To the profane, they were known as "Gib's Deils." Bailie Sweedie, a



noted humorist in the town, vowed that the proceedings always opened to

the tune of "The Deil Fly Away with the Exciseman," and that the



sacrament was dispensed in the form of hot whisky-toddy; both wicked

hits at the evangelist, who had been suspected of smuggling in his



youth, and had been overtaken (as the phrase went) on the streets of

Crossmichael one Fair day. It was known that every Sunday they prayed



for a blessing on the arms of Bonaparte. For this "God's Remnant," as

they were "skailing" from the cottage that did duty for a temple, had



been repeatedly stoned by the bairns, and Gib himself hooted by a

squadron of Border volunteers in which his own brother, Dand, rode in a



uniform and with a drawn sword. The "Remnant" were believed, besides,

to be "antinomian in principle," which might otherwise have been a



serious charge, but the way public opinion then blew it was quite

swallowed up and forgotten in the scandal about Bonaparte. For the



rest, Gilbert had set up his loom in an outhouse at Cauldstaneslap,

where he laboured assiduously six days of the week. His brothers,



appalled by his political opinions, and willing to avoid dissension in

the household, spoke but little to him; he less to them, remaining



absorbed in the study of the Bible and almost constant prayer. The

gaunt weaver was dry-nurse at Cauldstaneslap, and the bairns loved him



dearly. Except when he was carrying an infant in his arms, he was

rarely seen to smile - as, indeed, there were few smilers in that



family. When his sister-in-law rallied him, and proposed that he should

get a wife and bairns of his own, since he was so fond of them, "I have



no clearness of mind upon that point," he would reply. If nobody called

him in to dinner, he stayed out. Mrs. Hob, a hard, unsympathetic woman,






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