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第52章

lay morals-第52章

小说: lay morals 字数: 每页4000字

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Marie…Madeleine stood in her old place within the counter;  she disdained the mocking laughter; it fell on her ears; but  it did not reach her spirit。  For her; the world of living  persons was all resumed again into one pair; as in the days  of Eden; there was but the one end in life; the one hope  before her; the one thing needful; the one thing possible …  to be his。



THE YOUNG CHEVALIER CHAPTER I … THE PRINCE



THAT same night there was in the city of Avignon a young man  in distress of mind。  Now he sat; now walked in a high  apartment; full of draughts and shadows。  A single candle  made the darkness visible; and the light scarce sufficed to  show upon the wall; where they had been recently and rudely  nailed; a few miniatures and a copper medal of the young  man's head。  The same was being sold that year in London; to  admiring thousands。  The original was fair; he had beautiful  brown eyes; a beautiful bright open face; a little feminine;  a little hard; a little weak; still full of the light of  youth; but already beginning to be vulgarised; a sordid bloom  come upon it; the lines coarsened with a touch of puffiness。   He was dressed; as for a gala; in peach…colour and silver;  his breast sparkled with stars and was bright with ribbons;  for he had held a levee in the afternoon and received a  distinguished personage incognito。  Now he sat with a bowed  head; now walked precipitately to and fro; now went and gazed  from the uncurtained window; where the wind was still  blowing; and the lights winked in the darkness。

The bells of Avignon rose into song as he was gazing; and the  high notes and the deep tossed and drowned; boomed suddenly  near or were suddenly swallowed up; in the current of the  mistral。  Tears sprang in the pale blue eyes; the expression  of his face was changed to that of a more active misery; it  seemed as if the voices of the bells reached; and touched and  pained him; in a waste of vacancy where even pain was  welcome。  Outside in the night they continued to sound on;  swelling and fainting; and the listener heard in his memory;  as it were their harmonies; joy…bells clashing in a northern  city; and the acclamations of a multitude; the cries of  battle; the gross voices of cannon; the stridor of an  animated life。  And then all died away; and he stood face to  face with himself in the waste of vacancy; and a horror came  upon his mind; and a faintness on his brain; such as seizes  men upon the brink of cliffs。

On the table; by the side of the candle; stood a tray of  glasses; a bottle; and a silver bell。  He went thither  swiftly; then his hand lowered first above the bell; then  settled on the bottle。  Slowly he filled a glass; slowly  drank it out; and; as a tide of animal warmth recomforted the  recesses of his nature; stood there smiling at himself。  He  remembered he was young; the funeral curtains rose; and he  saw his life shine and broaden and flow out majestically;  like a river sunward。  The smile still on his lips; he lit a  second candle and a third; a fire stood ready built in a  chimney; he lit that also; and the fir…cones and the gnarled  olive billets were swift to break in flame and to crackle on  the hearth; and the room brightened and enlarged about him  like his hopes。  To and fro; to and fro; he went; his hands  lightly clasped; his breath deeply and pleasurably taken。   Victory walked with him; he marched to crowns and empires  among shouting followers; glory was his dress。  And presently  again the shadows closed upon the solitary。  Under the gilt  of flame and candle…light; the stone walls of the apartment  showed down bare and cold; behind the depicted triumph loomed  up the actual failure: defeat; the long distress of the  flight; exile; despair; broken followers; mourning faces;  empty pockets; friends estranged。  The memory of his father  rose in his mind: he; too; estranged and defied; despair  sharpened into wrath。  There was one who had led armies in  the field; who had staked his life upon the family  enterprise; a man of action and experience; of the open air;  the camp; the court; the council…room; and he was to accept  direction from an old; pompous gentleman in a home in Italy;  and buzzed about by priests?  A pretty king; if he had not a  martial son to lean upon!  A king at all?

'There was a weaver (of all people) joined me at St。 Ninians;  he was more of a man than my papa!' he thought。  'I saw him  lie doubled in his blood and a grenadier below him … and he  died for my papa!  All died for him; or risked the dying; and  I lay for him all those months in the rain and skulked in  heather like a fox; and now he writes me his advice! calls me  Carluccio … me; the man of the house; the only king in that  king's race。'  He ground his teeth。  'The only king in  Europe!'  Who else?  Who has done and suffered except me? who  has lain and run and hidden with his faithful subjects; like  a second Bruce?  Not my accursed cousin; Louis of France; at  least; the lewd effeminate traitor!'  And filling the glass  to the brim; he drank a king's damnation。  Ah; if he had the  power of Louis; what a king were here!

The minutes followed each other into the past; and still he  persevered in this debilitating cycle of emotions; still fed  the fire of his excitement with driblets of Rhine wine: a boy  at odds with life; a boy with a spark of the heroic; which he  was now burning out and drowning down in futile reverie and  solitary excess。

From two rooms beyond; the sudden sound of a raised voice  attracted him。

'By 。 。 。



HEATHERCAT CHAPTER I … TRAQUAIRS OF MONTROYMONT



THE period of this tale is in the heat of the KILLING…TIME;  the scene laid for the most part in solitary hills and  morasses; haunted only by the so…called Mountain Wanderers;  the dragoons that came in chase of them; the women that wept  on their dead bodies; and the wild birds of the moorland that  have cried there since the beginning。  It is a land of many  rain…clouds; a land of much mute history; written there in  prehistoric symbols。  Strange green raths are to be seen  commonly in the country; above all by the kirkyards; barrows  of the dead; standing stones; beside these; the faint;  durable footprints and handmarks of the Roman; and an  antiquity older perhaps than any; and still living and active  … a complete Celtic nomenclature and a scarce…mingled Celtic  population。  These rugged and grey hills were once included  in the boundaries of the Caledonian Forest。  Merlin sat here  below his apple…tree and lamented Gwendolen; here spoke with  Kentigern; here fell into his enchanted trance。  And the  legend of his slumber seems to body forth the story of that  Celtic race; deprived for so many centuries of their  authentic speech; surviving with their ancestral inheritance  of melancholy perversity and patient; unfortunate courage。

The Traquairs of Montroymont (MONS ROMANUS; as the erudite  expound it) had long held their seat about the head…waters of  the Dule and in the back parts of the moorland parish of  Balweary。  For two hundred years they had enjoyed in these  upland quarters a certain decency (almost to be named  distinction) of repute; and the annals of their house; or  what is remembered of them; were obscure and bloody。  Ninian  Traquair was 'cruallie slochtered' by the Crozers at the  kirk…door of Balweary; anno 1482。  Francis killed Simon  Ruthven of Drumshoreland; anno 1540; bought letters of  slayers at the widow and heir; and; by a barbarous form of  compounding; married (without tocher) Simon's daughter  Grizzel; which is the way the Traquairs and Ruthvens came  first to an intermarriage。  About the last Traquair and  Ruthven marriage; it is the business of this book; among many  other things; to tell。

The Traquairs were always strong for the Covenant; for the  King also; but the Covenant first; and it began to be ill  days for Montroymont when the Bishops came in and the  dragoons at the heels of them。  Ninian (then laird) was an  anxious husband of himself and the property; as the times  required; and it may be said of him; that he lost both。  He  was heavily suspected of the Pentland Hills rebellion。  When  it came the length of Bothwell Brig; 

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