【英文文学】The Blanket of the Dark.docx

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1、【英文文学】The Blanket of the DarkChapter 1 The Painted FloorPeter Pentecost, from his eyrie among the hazels, looked down on the Kings highway as it dipped from Stowood through the narrow pass to the Wood Eaton meadows. It was a Kings highway beyond question, for it was the main road from London to Worc

2、ester and the west for those who did not wish to make Oxford a halting-place; but it was a mere ribbon of rutted turf, with on each side the statutory bowshot of cleared ground between it and the forest fringes. And, as he looked, he saw the seventh magpie.Peter was country-bred and had country lore

3、 in the back of his mind. Also, being a scholar, he respected auspices. So, having no hat to doff, he pulled his forelock. Seven magpies in one day must portend something great.He had set off that summer morning on an errand for the cellarer of Oseney Abbey to the steward of the Kings manor of Beckl

4、ey, some matter touching supplies for the Abbey kitchen. The sun had risen through lambs-wool mists, the river was a fleckless sheet of silver, and Peter had consecrated the day to holiday. He had done his errand long before noon, and had spent an hour watching the blue lagoons on Otmoor (there was

5、much water out, for July had begun with rains), with the white geese like foam on the edges. The chantry priest at Horton had given him food a crust only and a drink of ale, for the priest was bitter poor and in the afternoon he had wandered in the Stowood glades, where the priory of Studley had rig

6、ht of pannage and the good sisters droves of swine rooted for earth-nuts. Peter was young, and holiday and high summertide could still intoxicate. He had lain on the spicy turf of the open spaces, his nose deep in thyme and rock-rose; he had made verses in the shadow of the great oaks which had been

7、 trees when Domesday Book was written; he had told his dreams aloud to himself at the well under the aspens where the Noke fletchers cut their arrows. The hours had slipped by unnoted, and the twilight was beginning when he reached his favourite haunt, a secret armchair of rock and grass above the h

8、ighway. He had seen four magpies, so something was on the way.The first things he saw in the amethyst evening were two more of the pied birds, flapping down the hollow towards Wood Eaton. After them came various figures, for at that hour the road seemed to have woken into life. Travellers appeared o

9、n it like an evening hatch of gnats.First came a couple of friars Franciscans by their grey habits who had been exploiting the faithful in the Seven Towns of Otmoor. Their wallets swung emptily, for the moor-men had a poor repute among the religious. They would sleep the night, no doubt, in the Isli

10、p tithe-barn. After them appeared one of the Stowood hogwards, with the great cudgel of holly which was the badge of his trade. Peter knew what he was after. In the dusk he would get a rabbit or two for his supper on the edge of the Wood Eaton warren, for the hogwards were noted poachers.From his vi

11、ew-point he could see half a mile down the road, from the foot of the hill to where it turned a corner and was lost in the oakwoods of the flats. It was like the stage of a Christmas mumming play, and Peter settled himself comfortably in his lair, and waited with zest for the entry of the next actor

12、s. This time it was a great wool-convoy, coming towards him from the Cherwell. He watched the laden horses strain up the slope, eleven of them, each like a monstrous slug buried in its wool-pack. There were five attendants, four on foot and one riding a slim shaggy grey pony. They might be London bo

13、und, or more likely for Newbury, where Jack Winchcombe had his great weaving mill and the workmen wrought all day in sheds high and dim as a minster so many workmen that their master twenty years back had led his own battalion of spinners, carders and tuckers to Flodden Field. Peter viewed the convo

14、y with no friendly eye. The wool barons were devouring the countryside, and ousting the peasants. He had seen with his own eyes hamlets obliterated by the rising tide of pasture. Up in Cotswold the Grevels and Celys and Midwinters might spend their wealth in setting up proud churches, but God would

15、not be bribed. Let them remember Naboths vineyard, those oppressors of the poor. Had not the good Sir Thomas More cried out that in England the sheep were eating up the men?The next arrival was a troop of gipsies, a small furtive troop, three donkeys laden with gear, five men on foot, and two women,

16、 each with an infant at breast. In his childhood Peter remembered how these vagabonds had worn gaudy clothes and played openly on fantastic instruments of music; they were shameless priggers and rufflers, but they were welcomed everywhere except by the dwellers in lonely places, for they brought mir

17、th and magic to the countryside. Now they were under the frown of the law, and at the will of any justice could be banished forth of England, for it was believed that among them they harboured Scots and Spaniards, and plotted against the Kings peace. This troop were clad like common peasants, and dr

18、ab and dingy at that, but there was no mistaking their lightfoot gait, and even at that distance Peter could mark their hazel-nut skins and bird-like beaks. They came on the stage stealthily, first reconnoitring the patch of open road, and, when they neared the other corner, sending out a scout to p

19、rospect ahead. Peter saw the scout turn his head and give a signal, and in a second the Egyptians, donkeys and all, had taken cover like weasels, and were deep in the wayside scrub.Presently the cause was apparent. Down the hill trotted an imposing cavalcade, four gentlemen, no less than six servant

20、s armed with curtal-axes, and two led baggage-horses. One of the gentlemen was old, and his white hair mingled with the ermine collar of his purple cloak. The others rode cloakless in the warm evening. Two had the look of lawyers, being all in black and white, except for their tawny horsemens boots,

21、 but the fourth was a gay gallant, with a wine-red doublet, a laced shirt, sleeves monstrously puffed and slashed, and on his head a velvet bonnet with a drooping blue feather. Two of the servants carried at their saddle-bows the flat leather boxes which scriveners used. Peter guessed their errand.

22、They were some of the commissioners whom the King was sending far and wide throughout the land to examine into the condition of the religious houses. Their destination might be the Augustinians at Bicester or the Benedictines at Eynsham the latter he thought, for there were better roads to Bicester

23、from London than this, and these men were doubtless from the capital. They were in a hurry, and passed out of sight at a sharp trot, the led horses shying at the smell of the gipsy donkeys hidden in the covert. In two hours time they would be supping off Thames trout for it was a Friday in the Eynsh

24、am fratry.When the last of the company had jolted round the far corner the stage was empty for a while. The amethyst was going out of the air, and giving place to that lemon afterglow which in a fine summer never leaves the sky till it is ousted by the splendours of dawn. The ribbon of road was begi

25、nning to glimmer white, and the high wooded sides of the glen to lose their detail to the eye and become massed shadows. But the play was not yet ended, for up the road towards him came a solitary rider.Down a gap from the west fell a shaft of lingering sunlight which illumined the traveller. Peter

26、saw a tall man mounted on a weedy roan, which seemed to have come far, for it stumbled at the lift of the hill. His head was covered with an old plumeless bonnet, he had no cloak, his doublet was plain grey, his trunks seemed to be of leather, and between them and his boots were hose of a dingy red.

27、 He wore a narrow belt fastened in front with a jewel, and from that belt hung a silver dagger-sheath, while at his side dangled a long sword. But it did not need the weapons to proclaim that this was no servant. The mans whole poise spoke of confidence and pride. His shaven face was weathered like

28、a tinkers, his eyes searched the covert as if looking for opposition, his mouth was puckered to a whistle, and now and then he flung back his head and sniffed the evening odours.Peter watched and admired with a pain at his heart. Here was one who rode the broad ways of the world and feared nothing;

29、a masterful man who would have his way with life; one who had seen with his own eyes that wonderful earth of which Peter had only read; a fierce soul who would be a deadly enemy, but who might also be a delectable comrade, for there was ease and jollity in his air. Peter sighed at this glimpse of th

30、e unattainable.And then he saw the seventh magpie.The heats of the day, the constant feasting of the eyes upon blue horizons, had had the effect of wine upon Peters brain, and this drunkenness had been increased by the spectacle of the masterful traveller. The scholar, whose days were spent among bo

31、oks, felt himself within hail of the pomp of life. He had almost forgotten the heavy thoughts which had burdened him so many days. The hour was growing late, and he was miles from his bed in the Castle precincts, but he had no intention of going home yet awhile. For he was near to a place which was

32、his own discovery, his special sanctuary, and he was minded to visit it before he slept.And then came the seventh magpie, a chequered zigzag in that dim world. The bird was an invitation to adventure. Peter rose from his eyrie, shook the moss and twigs from his clothes, and scrambled down the slope

33、to the highway. He was clad in a tunic and long summer hose of thin woollen, and his gown, which was the badge of studentship, he carried loose on his arm.He padded in the sweet-smelling dust of the road for a little way, and then turned to his left to climb the farther side of the hollow. He had fo

34、rgotten about the Egyptians in the covert. They were still there, and had settled down for the night, for suddenly he saw in a cleft beside him the glow of a little fire on which a pot was bubbling. He was too late to avoid it, his foot slipped, he slid into the cleft, and found a hand at his throat

35、. The hand was relaxed, and the grip changed to his shoulder, while a small covered lantern was flashed in his face.Shaken and startled, he saw one of the gipsies standing above him, a man with a thin wolfish face and burning eyes. Peters youth and the sight of the gown on his arm apparently convinc

36、ed the man that here was no danger. He grunted, and picked up what seemed to be a book which had fallen to the ground.“You are far from home, clerk,” the voice said. “What do you at this hour prowling in Stowood? You are not of the Children of the Moon.”The Egyptians bore an ill name for secret robb

37、ery and murder, and Peters heart had pounded on his side when he felt the clutch at his throat. But this man whom he could only see dimly, a grey ghost flecked with firelight, seemed no marauder. His voice was not the Egyptian whine, and his words were not the Egyptian jargon. In spite of his rags h

38、e had a certain air of breeding and authority. The other gipsies were busy with their cooking, and the women were suckling their babes, but this man seemed to be engaged with papers and he had the lantern to light him. Peter realised that the gaze fixed on him was devouring and searching, but not ho

39、stile.“A clerk,” said the man. “One of the blind eyes and dumb mouths that have Oxford for their stepmother. I have forgot what Oxford is like. Do you still plough the barren fields of the Trivium and the Quadrivium? Do you yet mumble the leavings of Aristotle? Are your major gods Priscian and Cato

40、and Alexander of Villa Dei? Is the hand that leads you up Parnassus that of old John Leland? Ut rosa flos florum sic Leland grammaticorum it is so long since I heard it I have lost the jingle. Or perhaps you are for the new masters, for I hear that to-day in Oxford the Trojans are few and the Grecia

41、ns many?”“Troy has fallen,” said Peter, amazed to hear such speech from a gipsys tongue.“And her folk are scattered. They have put Duns and Aquinas in Bocardo. They tell me that the great vellum leaves of the Sentences flap in the wind about the college courts, and that country louts gather them to

42、make flappers to keep the deer within the pales.”“What know you of Oxford and her ways?” the stupefied Peter demanded.“This much,” said the man fiercely, “that her ways are not the paths of truth, and that her fruits, old or new, are but husks to be flung to swine. I tell you, clerk, there is only o

43、ne new learning, and that is the ancientest. It is here,” and he held up his book, “and it is old and yet ever young. For it is the wisdom not of man but of God.”“Show it me,” said Peter, but the man put it behind his back.“Not yet, clerk. England is not yet ripe for it, but the hour draws near.”“Wh

44、o are you that speak in riddles?”The man laughed. “Under the blanket of the dark all men are alike and all are nameless. Let me view your countenance that I may know it when I meet it again.”He held up the lantern, and the light also revealed his own face. It was that of a man in early middle life,

45、very lean and haggard, with a long nose broken in the middle, and eyes that seemed to burn in a fever. But the brow was broad and fine, and the mouth was gentle.“An honest face,” he said. “You were no churls get, young clerk. Now get you hence to your prayers, and leave me to mine.”During this short

46、 dialogue the other gipsies had taken no notice of Peter. He felt the thrust of the mans hand, and in a moment he was out of the hollow and the firelight and back in the midnight dusk of the woods.He ran now, for his head was in a whirl. The magpie was a wise bird, for that night he was indeed seein

47、g portents. He had observed one kind of authority mounted and jingling on the highway, and now he had witnessed another kenneling with the gipsies. The world was strange and very wide. It was time for him to find his sanctuary, where he could adjust these new experiences and think his own thoughts.T

48、he place was his very own, for he had unearthed it after it had been lost for centuries. In a charter in Oseney he had read how the King of Wessex had given to the Bishop of Winchester a piece of land by Cherwell side, which ran from a certain brook “along the green valley by the two little hills an

49、d past the Painted Floor,” till it reached a certain thorn patch and a certain spring. The words had fired his fancy. Once the Romans had strode over these hills, the ruins of their massive causewayed highroads ran through marsh and forest, they had set their houses with vines and reaped their harvests where now only wild beasts rustled. To one like Peter, most of whose waking thoughts dwelt on Greece and Italy, the notion of such predecessors among his familiar fields seemed t