春天的阴影.DOC

春天的阴影 The Shades of Spring 一 赛森回来了，他要回威力沃特农庄去。他依然像以前一样要从林场穿过去抄近路。以前走这条路从来没有受过阻拦，但这一次却被一位他意想不到的人拦住了。 这是一个春光明媚的早晨，赛森心情舒畅，几乎是蹦蹦跳跳地走在那条熟悉的林间小道上。忽然，一个守林人站在他面前挡住了去路。这个人名叫阿瑟·皮尔比姆，是原来守林人内勒的侄儿，内勒因患风湿，阿瑟就接替了他的工作。他现在正在向赛森过去追求过的一位姑娘希尔达·米勒希普求爱。阿瑟自然是知道赛森的，一番盘问之后，阿瑟得知眼前这位便是赛森，于是便诘问他为何已经结了婚，却还不断给自己的心上人希尔达·米勒希普写信。一时间各种复杂的情绪涌上心头，赛森恼羞成怒，便快步走开了。 Ⅰ t was a mile nearer through the wood. Mechanically, Syson turned up by the forge and lifted the field-gate. The blacksmith and his mate stood still, watching the trespasser. But Syson looked too much a gentleman to be accosted. They let him go in silence across the small field to the wood. There was not the least difference between this morning and those of the bright springs, six or eight years back. White and sandy-gold fowls still scratched round the gate, littering the earth and the field with feathers and scratched-up rubbish. Between the two thick holly bushes in the wood-hedge was the hidden gap, whose fence one climbed to get into the wood; the bars were scored just the same by the keeper’s boots. He was back in the eternal. Syson was extraordinarily glad. Like an uneasy spirit he had returned to the country of his past, and he found it waiting for him, unaltered. The hazel still spread glad little hands downwards, the bluebells here were still wan and few, among the lush grass and in shade of the bushes. The path through the wood, on the very brow of a slope, ran winding easily for a time. All around were twiggy oaks, just issuing their gold, and floor spaces diapered with woodruff, with patches of dog-mercury and tufts of hyacinth. Two fallen trees still lay across the track. Syson jolted down a steep, rough slope, and came again upon the open land, this time looking north as through a great window in the wood. He stayed to gaze over the level fields of the hill-top, at the village which strewed the bare upland as if it had tumbled off the passing waggons of industry, and been forsaken. There was a stiff, modern, grey little ch