【英文读物】Spanish John.docx

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1、【英文读物】Spanish JohnPREFACESpanish John was the nom de guerre of John, son of John, son of Æneas, son of Ranald McDonell of Scottos, or Scothouse, who was also head of the Glengarry family. He was born at Crowlin, Knoidart, in 1728. He left home to study in the Scots College in Rome in 1740, but

2、 in 1744 we find him serving as Ensign in the Regiment Irlandia for King Carlo of Naples, and in 1746 he was on his way to Scotland carrying money and despatches for Prince Charles. After his release and the pacification of the Highlands he married and remained in Scotland until 1773, when he emigra

3、ted to America and settled in Scoharie County, in the then Province of New York. Three years later he held a commission as Captain in the Kings Royal Regiment of New York, the Royal Greens, under the command of Colonel Sir John Johnson, Bart., and served until the regiment was disbanded about 1784.

4、He then settled in Canada, where he died at Cornwall in 1810, and was buried at St. Andrews, P.Q. His sons, particularly John and Miles, were famous men in the days of the rival factions engaged in the struggle for the Northwest fur trade, and his name is still widely and honorably represented in Ca

5、nada. At the request of his friend Bishop Strachan, then the Reverend Mr. Strachan and school-master at Cornwall, Colonel McDonell wrote a short account of his early life and adventures, which was published in The Canadian Magazine, Montreal, May and June, 1825, and forms the basis of the following

6、story. While I have amplified the old and introduced such new characters, incidents, and situations as were necessary to create a work of fiction out of material which is but a recital of those incidental and generally disconnected happenings that go to make up a mans experience, I have taken every

7、pains to preserve what I conceive to be the character of the narrator and the essential value of his narrative. From le pre Labat and le prsident Debrosses I learned of the conditions of Italy; from OCallaghan, the particulars of the Irish Brigade; from Professor Cavan, of Charlottetown, P.E.I., who

8、 was a student in the Scots College in the early forties, when the conditions were still unchangedwhen the Abb Macpherson, their Rector, could well remember Prince Charlie in his last days: he used to visit us and say we were the only subjects he had leftinformation that brought me into touch with t

9、he life there; from the Rev. Mr. McNish, of Cornwall, the Gaelic toasts; and from Ascanius, much of the detail of the end of The Forty-five. WILLIAM McLENNAN.Montreal.chapter 11740 How Angus McDonald of Clanranald and I set out for the Scots College in Rome; how we fell in with Mr. ORourke and Manue

10、l the Jew, and with the latter saw strange company in Leghorn; how we were presented to Captain Creach, of the Regiment Irlandia, at the Inn of Aquapendente, and what befel thereafter. Hoot! snorted my Uncle Scottos, with much contempt, make a lad like that into a priest! Look at the stuff there is

11、in him for a soldier! Without waiting for a reply, he roared: Here, mogh Radhan dubh! (my little black darling), shew your father how you can say your Pater-noster with a single-stick! At which he caught up a stout rod for himself, and, throwing me a lighter one, we saluted, and at it we went hammer

12、 and tongs. I suppose my Uncle was a bit discomposed with his argument, for he was one ill to bear contradiction, even in thought, and so forgot I was but a lad, for he pushed me hard, making me fairly wince under his shrewd cuts, and ruffling me with his half-angry shouts of Mind your guard! each t

13、ime he got in at me, until before long the punishment was so severe I was out of breath, my wrist half broken, and I was forced to cry Pax! Indeed, I was so ruffled I made but a poor shewing, and my father laughed heartily at my discomfiture. Well, well, Donald, he said, in reply to my Uncles argume

14、nt, Ill at least promise you his schooling will not be any harder than that you would put him at. Perhaps not, answered my Uncle, still in some little heat, but mine is at least the schooling of a gentleman! However, thank God, they cannot take that out of him in Rome, whatever else they may stuff i

15、nto him. Man! man! he broke out again, after a moments pause, but youre wasting the making of a pretty soldier! And he looked so gallant as he stood there before the big fireplace, full of scorn for the ignoble fate he dreaded might be in store for me, that my heart swelled with a great pity for mys

16、elf, and for my father too, who should be so bent on sending me to Rome, so far away from my Uncle, who knew so many pretty turns with the sword I might learn from no other, and so many songs I might never sing now. For I worshipped my Uncle, Donald McDonell of Scottos, but always known as Scottos,

17、as is our custom; he was called The Younger, not to belittle him, but because my Grandfather, old Æneas of Scottos, was still alive. He had been in France and Spain and Italy, first as a cadet and afterwards as ensign in Colonel Walter Burkes regiment of foot, one of the regiments of the Irish

18、 Brigade serving under the Duke of Berwick, and many a night have I been kept awake with his stories of their engagements at Cremona, Alicant, Barcelona, and other placeshow they beat, and sometimes how they were beatentill I knew the different Dillons and Butlers and McDonells and ORourkes, and oth

19、er gentlemen of the regiment, not only by name, but as though I had met with them face to face. He had no great love for the Church, for he hated the sight of a priest, and was continually railing against my being sent to Rome lest they should make a Black Petticoat of me. That a McDonell must be ei

20、ther a soldier or a priest may be a very good saying in its way, he went on to my father, for there was no interruption in their talk, but mark you which comes first! If all our forebears had bred but little shavelings, and no soldiers, where would the McDonell family be now, think you? Tis not in r

21、eason you should give up your one son for the sake of an old saw, like enough made by some priest himself. If one of mine chooses to take to it, he will not be missed out of the flock; but depend upon it, brother, God never gave you this one to waste in this way. Let me train him until he is ready t

22、o go abroad into the service, and Ill answer for it to stand him in better stead than all the tingle-fangle whimseys theyll teach him in Rome! But my father only smiled in his quiet way, and said in his low, soft voice, so different from my Uncles: Donald, Donald, you witch the lad! You have my word

23、 that when the time comes he shall be free in his choice; but, priest or soldier, hell be no worse the gentleman for a little of the book-learning you make so light of. Now, say good-bye to your Uncle, lad, and well be off. As we rode homewards, I on the saddle before him, my father talked all the w

24、ay of what my going to Rome would really mean. He told me of the Scots College there, what it looked like, where his room wasand there, if they have not whitewashed the wall, Shonaidh, which may well be the case, youll find written near the head of my bed: Half ower, half ower to Aberdour, Tis fifty

25、 fathoms deep;And there lies gude Sir Patrick Spens, With the Scots lords at his feet.That I wrote one afternoon at the siesta when my heart was big and I was wearying for home, as you may do, and I thought I heard my mother singing, and wrote down the old words for my comfort. Perhaps youll find th

26、em there still, he added, slowly, as if he were back in the old days rather than talking to me. And, Shonaidh, he went on, after a little, just when your heart fails you is the time to play the soldier as truly as if you had a broadsword in your hand. Homesick youll beId be sorry for you if you were

27、 notbut remember, I went through it all before you, and, though I have done nothing for it, my time in the old Scots College was the best gift my father ever gave me. If God wills it, you will be a priest, but neither I nor yet the Rector will force you. You are going under the care of one of the be

28、st of men, a nobleman and one whose slightest word you should be proud to treasure; and, remember, the first duty of a gentleman who would some day command is to learn to obey. And so on as we rode; he told me much, much more than I had ever known, of all he had done and all he had hoped to do as a

29、boy, but he had given up his own plans that his brother Scottos might go to serve under the Duke of Berwick in Spain; how, though he had borne himself therein as a brave and gallant gentleman, the fighting abroad had brought nothing to those at home, and, after the disappointment of 1715, how he had

30、 no longer heart for foreign service, for he was committed to the Royal Cause beyond everything, and so remained at home in spite of danger, hoping for the day when the King would come again. He warned me that I must not make too much of my Uncles railings against the Church, for he had seen many th

31、ings in Spain that were in a measure hard to see, and, whatever were his words, he was a good son of the Church, and in his heart did not believe his own sayingswhich made me wonder, I remember, why my father should so punish me for lyingand so on until we reached Crowlin, as our house was known. It

32、 was in the month of August when I left home, I being just twelve years of age, and Angus McDonald of Clanranald, who was to be my comrade, fourteen. He was a much bigger lad than I, and at home could handle me readily enough, but from being so much with my Uncle Scottos, who was never done talking

33、of what he had seen in foreign parts, I was in a measure travelled, and no sooner were we out of the country than Angus gave the lead to me, which I kept in all the years we were together. My Grandfather, Æneas of Scottos, gave me his blessing and a bright new guinea and much good advice; my f

34、ather kissed me fondly, and, with many a direction for the road, gave me a letter to Father Urbani, the Rector in Rome; my sister Margaret hung about my neck and refused to be comforted; but at last, with a cousin of Clanranalds and a party of their people, we started for Edinburgh. My Uncle Scottos

35、 rode with us as far as Inchlaggan, and when we said good-bye he commanded me, sternly, Dont let them make a little priest of you, Shonaidh, or Ill baste you with a wooden sword when you come home! Then he swore somewhat in Spanish and kissed me on both cheeks, and rode off with his head down, wavin

36、g his hand at the top of the hill, though he never looked back. Our stay in Edinburgh with Bishop Hay, and our journey to Boulogne and thence to Father Innes, of the Scots College in Paris, with whom we lodged for three weeks, produced nothing of interest; indeed, we did not fall in with much I can

37、now recall until we drove into Marseilles and were there lodged in the house of the Benedictins. Here we saw much to wonder atsoldiers in uniforms, sailors in petticoats, galley-slaves in chains, Jews in gabardines, and others dressed in such outlandish habits we could not help staring at them, thou

38、gh had we worn our own Highland clothes I do not believe any would have remarked on us; and we heard, I doubt not, every language on earth save the Gaelic, which is but little spread beyond the Highlands. A more lively people than the Marseilles would be hard to meet. On the quay one evening we mark

39、ed a fellow carrying something like a long, narrow drum, which he tapped with his fingers as he strolled. Presently he stopped at a clear space, and, drawing a little pipe from under his arm, began to play both instruments at once cleverly enough. Hardly had he begun before the crowd gathered round,

40、 and on some lusty fellow setting up a shout and leaping into the middle of the space and holding forth his hand, it was caught by one, who in turn invited another, and then another, while from the tavern opposite rushed men and women fairly tumbling over one another in their haste, laughing and sho

41、uting as they came, till all were at it, footing it merrily as they swung in and out and twisted and turned in a long tail. Round the posts, jumping over the ropes that held the vessels fast, then across the street and into the tavern by one door and out at another into the street again, with such m

42、ad laughing and singing and holding forth of hands that Angus and I could stand it no longer, and so caught hold; and, though we could speak no word of their language, we could laugh as hard in English and give as wild skreighs in Gaelic and foot it as lightly as any of them. It was a grand ploy, an

43、d only ended when we were all out of breath. Provided with money sufficient to carry us to Rome, we took passage for Leghorn, or Livorno, as they call it, in a fair-sized barque, but the dirt and the evil smells on board disgusted us beyond measure, and we almost longed for the bone-breaking coaches

44、 again. However, we were not long aboard before we fell in with a tall, decent man, a Mr. ORourke by name, who was an Irishman, on his way to finish his studies as a priest at the Propaganda in Rome, but the merriest and best-natured man I had ever seen. He was bigger and broader and had a greater h

45、and and foot than any one else on board. He laughed at our touchiness at what he called a few smells. A few smells, sir? said Iit seems to me they are fairly crowding one another so close theres but little room for any more. Oh, isnt there? It strikes me you have never put your nose inside a Roman o

46、steria on a wet day in July! Until then, my lad, you are not qualified to speak of smells in the plural. And let me tell both of you, he went on, after he had finished laughing, you had best get your noses into training at once, for if they are going to cock up at every stink that comes under them y

47、oull be blowing them over the backs of your heads before long, unless you do like the elephant and carry them in your trunk. Which we took to be an excellent jest, the more so as we found by evening he had two hammocks swung for us on deck near the round-house. The weather was so mild and the cabins

48、 so unbearable that most of the passengers followed our example, and even in the bow was one solitary old man, who now and then had to put up with a douse of salt water when the barque clipped deeper than ordinary. The next day we made a closer acquaintance with our fellow-passengers, most of whom w

49、ere but fearful sailors with but little stomach for anything off an even keel. In the cabin with us and Mr. ORourke were an Italian Count and his lady, some priests, and a Spaniard named Don Diego, with whom we soon made friends, though he was ignorant of both English and French, and had no Gaelic; but we could get in a Latin word or two, and we laughed much and made signs for the r