THE MESSENGERS(信使)

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THE MESSENGERS

By Richard Harding Davis

THE MESSENGERS

When Ainsley first moved to Lone Lake Farm all of his friends asked

him the same question. They wanted to know, if the farmer who sold it

to him had abandoned it as worthless, how one of the idle rich, who could

not distinguish a plough from a harrow, hoped to make it pay? His

answer was that he had not purchased the farm as a means of getting richer

by honest toil, but as a retreat from the world and as a test of true

friendship. He argued that the people he knew accepted his hospitality at

Sherry's because, in any event, they themselves would be dining within a

taxicab fare of the same place. But if to see him they travelled all the

way to Lone Lake Farm, he might feel assured that they were friends

indeed.

Lone Lake Farm was spread over many acres of rocky ravine and

forest, at a point where Connecticut approaches New York, and between it

and the nearest railroad station stretched six miles of an execrable wood

road. In this wilderness, directly upon the lonely lake, and at a spot

equally distant from each of his boundary lines, Ainsley built himself a red

brick house. Here, in solitude, he exiled himself; ostensibly to become a

gentleman farmer; in reality to wait until Polly Kirkland had made up her

mind to marry him.

Lone Lake, which gave the farm its name, was a pond hardly larger

than a city block. It was fed by hidden springs, and fringed about with

reeds and cat-tails, stunted willows and shivering birch. From its surface

jutted points of the same rock that had made farming unremunerative, and

to these miniature promontories and islands Ainsley, in keeping with a

fancied resemblance, gave such names as the Needles, St. Helena, the Isle

of Pines. From the edge of the pond that was farther from the house rose

a high hill, heavily wooded. At its base, oak and chestnut trees spread

their branches over the water, and when the air was still were so clearly

reflected in the pond that the leaves seemed to float upon the surface. To

THE MESSENGERS

the smiling expanse of the farm the lake was what the eye is to the human

countenance. The oaks were its eyebrows, the fringe of reeds its lashes,

and, in changing mood, it flashed with happiness or brooded in sombre

melancholy. For Ainsley it held a deep attraction. Through the summer

evenings, as the sun set, he would sit on the brick terrace and watch the

fish leaping, and listen to the venerable bull-frogs croaking false alarms of

rain. Indeed, after he met Polly Kirkland, staring moodily at the lake

became his favorite form of exercise. With a number of other men,

Ainsley was very much in love with Miss Kirkland, and unprejudiced

friends thought that if she were to choose any of her devotees, Ainsley

should be that one. Ainsley heartily agreed in this opinion, but in

persuading Miss Kirkland to share it he had not been successful. This

was partly his own fault; for when he dared to compare what she meant to

him with what he had to offer her he became a mass of sodden humility.

Could he have known how much Polly Kirkland envied and admired his

depth of feeling, entirely apart from the fact that she herself inspired that

feeling, how greatly she wished to care for him in the way he cared for her,

life, even alone in the silences of Lone Lake, would have been a beautiful

and blessed thing. But he was so sure she was the most charming and

most wonderful girl in all the world, and he an unworthy and despicable

being, that when the lady demurred, he faltered, and his pleading, at least

to his own ears, carried no conviction.

"When one thinks of being married," said Polly Kirkland gently, "it

isn't a question of the man you can live with, but the man you can't live

without. And I am sorry, but I've not found that man."

"I suppose," returned Ainsley gloomily, "that my not being able to live

without you doesn't affect the question in the least?"

"You HAVE lived without me," Miss Kirkland pointed out

reproachfully, "for thirty years."

"Lived!" almost shouted Ainsley. "Do you call THAT living? What

was I before I met you? I was an ignorant beast of the field. I knew as

much about living as one of the cows on my farm. I could sleep twelve

hours at a stretch, or, if I was in New York, I NEVER slept. I was a Day

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摘要：

THEMESSENGERS1THEMESSENGERSByRichardHardingDavisTHEMESSENGERS2WhenAinsleyfirstmovedtoLoneLakeFarmallofhisfriendsaskedhimthesamequestion.Theywantedtoknow,ifthefarmerwhosoldittohimhadabandoneditasworthless,howoneoftheidlerich,whocouldnotdistinguishaploughfromaharrow,hopedtomakeitpay?Hisanswerwasthathe...

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