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the holly-tree-第3章

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was originally house…breaking; in the pursuit of which art he had

had his right ear chopped off one night; as he was burglariously

getting in at a window; by a brave and lovely servant…maid (whom the

aquiline…nosed woman; though not at all answering the description;

always mysteriously implied to be herself)。  After several years;

this brave and lovely servant…maid was married to the landlord of a

country Inn; which landlord had this remarkable characteristic; that

he always wore a silk nightcap; and never would on any consideration

take it off。  At last; one night; when he was fast asleep; the brave

and lovely woman lifted up his silk nightcap on the right side; and

found that he had no ear there; upon which she sagaciously perceived

that he was the clipped housebreaker; who had married her with the

intention of putting her to death。  She immediately heated the poker

and terminated his career; for which she was taken to King George

upon his throne; and received the compliments of royalty on her

great discretion and valour。  This same narrator; who had a Ghoulish

pleasure; I have long been persuaded; in terrifying me to the utmost

confines of my reason; had another authentic anecdote within her own

experience; founded; I now believe; upon Raymond and Agnes; or the

Bleeding Nun。  She said it happened to her brother…in…law; who was

immensely rich;which my father was not; and immensely tall;which

my father was not。  It was always a point with this Ghoul to present

my clearest relations and friends to my youthful mind under

circumstances of disparaging contrast。  The brother…in…law was

riding once through a forest on a magnificent horse (we had no

magnificent horse at our house); attended by a favourite and

valuable Newfoundland dog (we had no dog); when he found himself

benighted; and came to an Inn。  A dark woman opened the door; and he

asked her if he could have a bed there。  She answered yes; and put

his horse in the stable; and took him into a room where there were

two dark men。  While he was at supper; a parrot in the room began to

talk; saying; 〃Blood; blood!  Wipe up the blood!〃  Upon which one of

the dark men wrung the parrot's neck; and said he was fond of

roasted parrots; and he meant to have this one for breakfast in the

morning。  After eating and drinking heartily; the immensely rich;

tall brother…in…law went up to bed; but he was rather vexed; because

they had shut his dog in the stable; saying that they never allowed

dogs in the house。  He sat very quiet for more than an hour;

thinking and thinking; when; just as his candle was burning out; he

heard a scratch at the door。  He opened the door; and there was the

Newfoundland dog!  The dog came softly in; smelt about him; went

straight to some straw in the corner which the dark men had said

covered apples; tore the straw away; and disclosed two sheets

steeped in blood。  Just at that moment the candle went out; and the

brother…in…law; looking through a chink in the door; saw the two

dark men stealing up…stairs; one armed with a dagger that long

(about five feet); the other carrying a chopper; a sack; and a

spade。  Having no remembrance of the close of this adventure; I

suppose my faculties to have been always so frozen with terror at

this stage of it; that the power of listening stagnated within me

for some quarter of an hour。



These barbarous stories carried me; sitting there on the Holly…Tree

hearth; to the Roadside Inn; renowned in my time in a sixpenny book

with a folding plate; representing in a central compartment of oval

form the portrait of Jonathan Bradford; and in four corner

compartments four incidents of the tragedy with which the name is

associated;coloured with a hand at once so free and economical;

that the bloom of Jonathan's complexion passed without any pause

into the breeches of the ostler; and; smearing itself off into the

next division; became rum in a bottle。  Then I remembered how the

landlord was found at the murdered traveller's bedside; with his own

knife at his feet; and blood upon his hand; how he was hanged for

the murder; notwithstanding his protestation that he had indeed come

there to kill the traveller for his saddle…bags; but had been

stricken motionless on finding him already slain; and how the

ostler; years afterwards; owned the deed。  By this time I had made

myself quite uncomfortable。  I stirred the fire; and stood with my

back to it as long as I could bear the heat; looking up at the

darkness beyond the screen; and at the wormy curtains creeping in

and creeping out; like the worms in the ballad of Alonzo the Brave

and the Fair Imogene。



There was an Inn in the cathedral town where I went to school; which

had pleasanter recollections about it than any of these。  I took it

next。  It was the Inn where friends used to put up; and where we

used to go to see parents; and to have salmon and fowls; and be

tipped。  It had an ecclesiastical sign;the Mitre;and a bar that

seemed to be the next best thing to a bishopric; it was so snug。  I

loved the landlord's youngest daughter to distraction;but let that

pass。  It was in this Inn that I was cried over by my rosy little

sister; because I had acquired a black eye in a fight。  And though

she had been; that Holly…Tree night; for many a long year where all

tears are dried; the Mitre softened me yet。



〃To be continued to…morrow;〃 said I; when I took my candle to go to

bed。  But my bed took it upon itself to continue the train of

thought that night。  It carried me away; like the enchanted carpet;

to a distant place (though still in England); and there; alighting

from a stage…coach at another Inn in the snow; as I had actually

done some years before; I repeated in my sleep a curious experience

I had really had there。  More than a year before I made the journey

in the course of which I put up at that Inn; I had lost a very near

and dear friend by death。  Every night since; at home or away from

home; I had dreamed of that friend; sometimes as still living;

sometimes as returning from the world of shadows to comfort me;

always as being beautiful; placid; and happy; never in association

with any approach to fear or distress。  It was at a lonely Inn in a

wide moorland place; that I halted to pass the night。  When I had

looked from my bedroom window over the waste of snow on which the

moon was shining; I sat down by my fire to write a letter。  I had

always; until that hour; kept it within my own breast that I dreamed

every night of the dear lost one。  But in the letter that I wrote I

recorded the circumstance; and added that I felt much interested in

proving whether the subject of my dream would still be faithful to

me; travel…tired; and in that remote place。  No。  I lost the beloved

figure of my vision in parting with the secret。  My sleep has never

looked upon it since; in sixteen years; but once。  I was in Italy;

and awoke (or seemed to awake); the well…remembered voice distinctly

in my ears; conversing with it。  I entreated it; as it rose above my

bed and soared up to the vaulted roof of the old room; to answer me

a question I had asked touching the Future Life。  My hands were

still outstretched towards it as it vanished; when I heard a bell

ringing by the garden wall; and a voice in the deep stillness of the

night calling on all good Christians to pray for the souls of the

dead; it being All Souls' Eve。



To return to the Holly…Tree。  When I awoke next day; it was freezing

hard; and the lowering sky threatened more snow。  My breakfast

cleared away; I drew my chair into its former place; and; with the

fire getting so much the better of the landscape that I sat in

twilight; resumed my Inn remembrances。



That was a good Inn down in Wiltshire where I put up once; in the

days of the hard Wiltshire ale; and before all beer was bitterness。

It was on the skirts of Salisbury Plain; and the midnight wind that

rattled my lattice window came moaning at me from Stonehenge。  There

was a hanger…on at that establishment (a supernaturally preserved

Druid I believe him to have been; and to be still); with long white

hair; and a flinty blue eye always looking afar off; who claimed to

have been a shepherd; and who seemed to be ever watching for the

reappearance; on the verge of the horizon; of some ghostly flock of

sheep that had been mutton for many ages。  He was a man with a weird

belief in him that no one could count the stones of Stonehenge

twice; and make the same number of them; likewise; that any one who

counted them three times nine times; and then stood in the centre

and said; 〃I dare!〃 would behold a tremendous apparition; and be

stricken dead。  He pretended to have seen a bustard (I suspect him

to have been familiar with the dodo); in manner following:  He was

out upon the plain at the close of a late autumn day; when he dimly

discerned; going on before him at a curious fitfully bounding pace;

what he at firs
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