【英文文学】A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada.docx

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1、【英文文学】A Romance of the Early Days of Upper CanadaChapter 1 The Young Master Of Pine Towers It was a May morning in 1825-spring-time of the year, late spring-time of the century. It had rained the night before, and a warm pallor in the eastern sky was the only indication that the sun was trying to pi

2、erce the gray dome of nearly opaque watery fog, lying low upon that part of the world now known as the city of Toronto, then the town of Little York. This cluster of five or six hundred houses had taken up a determined position at the edge of a forest then gloomily forbidding in its aspect, intermin

3、able in extent, inexorable in its resistance to the shy or to the sturdy approaches of the settler. Man versus nature-the successive assaults of perishing humanity upon the almost impregnable fortresses of the eternal forests-this was the struggle of Canadian civilization, and its hard-won triumphs

4、were bodied forth in the scattered roofs of these cheap habitations. Seen now through soft gradations of vapoury gloom, they took on a poetic significance, as tenderly intangible as the romantic halo which the mist of years loves to weave about the heads of departed pioneers, who, for the most part,

5、 lived out their lives in plain, grim style, without any thought of posing as conquering heroes in the eyes of succeeding generations. From the portico of one of these dwellings, under a wind-swayed sign which advertised it to be a place of rest and refreshment, stepped a man of more than middle age

6、, whose nervous gait and anxious face betokened a mind ill at ease. He had the look and air of a highly respectable old servitor,-one who had followed the family to whom he was bound by ties of life-long service to a country of which he strongly disapproved, not because it offered a poor field for h

7、is own advancement, but because, to his mind, its crude society and narrow opportunities ill became the distinction of the Old World family to whose fortunes he was devoted. Time had softened these prejudices, but had failed to melt them; and if they had a pardonable fashion of congealing under the

8、stress of the Canadian winter, they generally showed signs of a thaw at the approach of spring. At the present moment he had no thought, no eyes, for anything save a mist-enshrouded speck far off across the waters of Lake Ontario. All the impatience and longing of the week just past found vent throu

9、gh his eyes, as he watched that pale, uncertain, scarcely visible mote on the horizon. As he reached the shore the fog lifted a little, and a great sunbeam, leaping from a cloud, illumined for a moment the smooth expanse of water; but the new day was as yet chary of its gifts. It was very still. The

10、 woods and waves alike were tranced in absolute calm. The unlighted heavens brooded upon the silent limpid waters and the breathless woods, while between them, with restless step, and heart as gloomy as the morning, with secret, sore misgiving, paced the old servant, his attention still riveted upon

11、 that distant speck. The sight of land and home to the gaze of a long absent wanderer, wearied with ocean, is not more dear than the first glimpse of the approaching sail to watching eyes on shore. Was it in truth the packet vessel for whose coming he had yearningly waited, or the dark wing of a soa

12、ring bird, or did it exist only in imagination? The tide of his impatience rose anew as the dim object slowly resolved itself into the semblance of a sail, shrouded in the pale, damp light of early morning. Unwilling to admit to his usually grave unimpressible self the fact that he was restless and

13、disturbed, he reduced his pace to a dignified march, extended his chosen beat to a wider margin of the sandy shore, and, parting the blighted branches of a group of trees, that bore evidence of the effect of constant exposure to lake winds, he affected to examine them critically. But the hand that t

14、ouched the withered leaves trembled, and his sight was dimmed with something closely resembling the mornings mist. When he again raised his eyes to that white-sailed vessel it looked to his hopeless gaze absolutely becalmed. The slow moments dragged heavily along. The mantle of fog was wholly lifted

15、 at last, and the lonely watcher was enveloped in the soft beauty of the morning. A light cloud hung motionless, as though spell-bound, above the mute and moveless trees, while before him the dead blue slopes of heaven were unbroken by a single flying bird, the wide waste of water unlighted, save by

16、 that unfluttering sail. And now, like a visible response to his silent but seemingly resistless longing, a boat was rapidly pushed away from the larger craft, and the swift flash and fall of the oars kept time to the pulsing in the old mans breast. Again ensued that inglorious conflict between self

17、-respecting sobriety of demeanour and long suppressed emotion, which ended only when the boat grated on the sand, and a blonde stalwart youth leaped ashore. The old man fell upon his neck with tears and murmured ejaculations of gratitude and welcome; but young impatient hands pushed him not ungently

18、 aside, and a youthful voice, high and intense from anxiety, urgently exclaimed: My mother! How is my mother? She yet breathes, thank God. She has been longing for your coming as a suffering saint longs for heaven. She must see you before she dies! The young man turned a little aside with down-bent

19、head. His positive blue eyes looked almost feverishly bright; and the lip, on which he had unconsciously bitten hard, now released from pressure, quivered perceptibly; but with the unwillingness or inability of youth to admit the inevitableness of a great grief he burst forth with: Is that all you h

20、ave to say to me? And then, as his keen eye noticed the tears still undried upon the cheeks of the old man, he sighed heavily. Can nothing be done? Is there no help? It doesnt seem possible! He ground his heel heavily into the sand. Say something, Tredway, he entreated, anything with a gleam of hope

21、 in it. Tredway shook his head. The only hope that remains is that you will reach home in time to receive her last words. This is the second time that I have come down expecting to meet you. The young fellow with his erect military air and noticeably handsome face betrayed a remote consciousness tha

22、t he was perhaps worth the trouble of coming after twice. As they together hastened up from the beach the younger of the two briefly narrated the cause of his delay-a delay occasioned by stress of weather on the Atlantic, and the state of the roads in the valley of the Mohawk, on the journey from th

23、e seaboard. He had lost not an hour, the young man said, in obeying the summons of his father, the Commodore, to quit England and return to his Canadian home ere his much-loved mother passed from the earth. Eager to reach that home, which was on the shores of Lake Simcoe, the young Cadet bade the ol

24、d servitor hasten to get their horses ready when they would instantly set forth. As they were about to mount, the younger of the two was accosted by an old friend, now an attache of Government House, who, learning of the arrival of the packet, and expecting the young master of Pine Towers, had strol

25、led down to the landing-place to welcome the newcomer and ask him to partake of the Governors hospitality. The young man, however, begged his friend to have him excused, and with dutiful messages of respect for the Governor and his household, and a cordial adieu to his former boon-companion, he rapi

26、dly set off for home, closely followed by his attendant. Coming up the old military road, cut out between York and Holland Landing by His Majestys corps of Queens Rangers, under the regime of Governor Simcoe, both horsemen fell into a brief silence, broken by sorrowful inquiries from the younger man

27、 regarding the subject which lay so close to the heart of each. Dying! he exclaimed in deep sadness, and with the utter incapacity of young and ardent life to conceive the reality of death. And my own mother. It seems natural enough for other mothers to die-but mine! Heaven help us! We never know th

28、e meaning of grief until it comes to our own threshold. The old steward viewed with a desolate stare the May landscape, brightly lit with sunshine and bloom, and said wearily: But what can one expect in this wretched, half-civilized country? Now in England- His voice lingered long upon that fondly l

29、oved word, and his young master concluded the sentence with, There would be little hope, but in this brave new world, where the odour of the woods is a tonic, and the air brings healing and balm, how can death exist? Ah, Tredway, this is a beautiful country! To me there is but one beautiful country-

30、that is England. Again there was that lingering intonation. Edward Macleod gave vent to a short melancholy laugh. The allurements of an old civilization were over-ripe to his taste. Promise appealed to his imagination; fulfilment was a dull fact. Along with the unmistakable evidences of birth and br

31、eeding in his person, there was in his fresh youth and buoyancy something joyously akin to the vigorous young life about him. England, said Tredway, with his disapproving regard fixed upon the wilderness around, is a garden. And I take no delight in gardens, declared Edward. I was never intended for

32、 a garden statue. This long days journey under the giant trees of the wild, unconquered woods seems to gratify some savage instinct of my nature. The old country is well adapted to keep alive old customs, old notions, old traditions; but for me I am a Canadian, my mind is wearied with over-much civi

33、lization. I hate the English love of land for lands sake. That line of hills, swelling in massive curves, and crowned, not with a tottering ruin, serving to hang some legendary romance or faded rag of superstition upon, but with stately trees-that is my idea of the beautiful. He struck into a sharp

34、gallop, his bright head above the dark blue military cloak forming a picturesque feature in the woodland, and the flying heels of his spirited horse seeming to add a rattling chorus of applause to his patriotic sentiments. The old retainer ambled along in his wake, but more slowly. His idea of the b

35、eautiful was not quite so recklessly defiant. Presently, for he was still jaded from the effects of his long journey on the previous day, he relaxed his attempt at speed, and soon lost sight of his companion altogether. The vision of waving cloak and flying steed vanished in the green aisles of the

36、forest. Along the Oak Ridges-situate some thirty miles from York-which the two horsemen now neared, a Huguenot settlement had been formed about the close of the eighteenth century. The settlers were French officers of the noblesse order, who, during the French Revolution, when the royalist cause bec

37、ame desperate, emigrated to England, thence to Canada, where, by the bounty of the Crown, they were given grants of land in this portion of the Province of Upper Canada. Here many of these emigres had made clearings on the Ridges, and reared chateaux for themselves and their households after the man

38、ner of their ancestral homes in Languedoc and Brittany. Into the grounds of one of these mansions had the younger horseman disappeared to pay his hurried respects to the stately dame who was its owner, and who, with her fair daughter, were intimate friends of the Macleod family. Almost before the ol

39、d man had time to wonder what mad freak had kept his young master so long from the beaten road, he was at his side again. I have been trying to get a glimpse of my little friend, Helene, he said, in explanation of his absence, but the DeBerczy mansion is as empty as a church on Monday. They still go

40、 to Lake Simcoe in summer, I suppose. But what does this early flight portend? It was caused solely by the serious nature of your mothers illness. Madame and Mademoiselle have been now five weeks at Bellevue. The young mans face darkened, or rather lost the brightness that habitually played upon it,

41、 like gleams of sunshine on a stream, which, when disappearing, show the depth of the tide beneath. You would scarcely know the young lady now, continued Tredway. The difference between fifteen and eighteen is the difference between childhood and womanhood. I suppose she has grown like a young fores

42、t tree, and holds her graceful head almost as high. She is well grown, and very beautiful, but not bewitching like your sister Rose. Ah! dear little Rose! But she, too, I doubt not, is a bud no longer. Its odd how much easier it is for a girl to be a woman than for a boy to become a man. There was s

43、omething vaguely suggestive of regret in the gesture with which young Macleod lightly brushed his short upper lip, whose hirsute adornment was not, in its owners estimation, all that it ought to have been. I was twenty-one last winter. Do I look very young? he inquired, with the natural anxiety of a

44、 man who has recently escaped the ignominy of being in his teens. You look altogether too young, dryly returned the ancient servitor, to appreciate the worth of a country where old customs, old ideas, and old traditions are respected. Then may youth always be mine! exclaimed Edward, looking round hi

45、m with the glow in his heart, sure to be felt by the devout worshipper of Nature in the large and beautiful presence of her whom he adores. The region about him, esteemed the epitome of dreariness in winter, held now in its depths a vast luxury of vegetation. The wild vines ran knotted and twisted a

46、bout the trunks and branches of multitudinous trees, and the fallen logs were draped with moss, lichens, and delicate ferns. Passing through this boundless wilderness, they seemed to look into a succession of woodland chambers, thickly carpeted with wild flowers, gorgeously festooned with creeping a

47、nd parasitical plants hanging from the branches, and secured in their leafy seclusion by walls of abundant foliage. In one of these natural parlours they paused for their mid-day repast-mid-day in the world without, but here, where only vagrant gleams of the spring sun pierced the forest solitudes,

48、gloomy with spruce and pine, there was a sense of morning in the air. This appearance was heightened by the delicate curtains of cobweb, strung with shining pearls, which still might be seen after the fog at early dawn. There was no sound except sometimes that of an invisible bird, singing in the up

49、per air, or when a partridge, roused by approaching steps, started from the hollow, and rapidly whirring away directly before them was again startled into flight when they overtook it. The road they followed cut straight through the forest, and, disdaining to enclose the hills in graceful curves, attacked and surmounted them in the direct fashion common to our forefathers