Chapter 35 Chapter Seven The Tragic Meeting of Two Old Friends

At the same time, Climb woke up from his sleep, sat up and looked around.Eustacia was sitting in a chair near him, though she had a book in her hand which she had not read for some time. Oh, really!Climb rubbed his eyes with his hand and said.I was so sleepy!What a dreadful dream I had; I shall never forget it. I knew you had been dreaming.she says. yes.This dream is about my mother.I dreamed that I took you to her house to mend the rift between you, but when we got there we couldn't get in, even though she kept yelling for help.However, dreams are always dreams.What time is it, Eustacia?

It's half past two. Is it this late?I didn't want to sleep for so long.It was three o'clock after I finished eating something. Ann hasn't come back from the village, and I thought I'd have to let you sleep until she came back. Clem went to the window and looked out.Then he said thoughtfully.Week after week passed, but my mother never came.I thought I should have heard about her long ago. Worry, regret, fear, determination, all kinds of expressions intertwined in Eustacia's dark eyes.With great difficulty she faced a monster face to face, and she was determined to shake off it slowly.

I must go to Hualuo Village as soon as possible, he continued, I think I'd better go alone.He picked up the leather leggings and gloves, threw them down again, and added, Since it was late for lunch today, I don't want to cut the brambles anymore, but I will work in the yard until evening, and then wait until the weather is cool. After coming down, I will go to Hualuo Village.I believe that as long as I take the initiative, my mother will be willing to forgive everything in the past.It must have been late by the time I got home, because in any case it would have taken me more than an hour and a half to walk that long way.But, dear, you won't mind just for one night, will you?What are you thinking so engrossed in?

I can't tell you, she said heavily, I hope we don't live here any longer, Clem.Everything seems wrong here. Well, if we get it wrong, it might be wrong.I wondered whether Thomasy would go to Hualuo Village in the near future.I hope she will.Probably not though, as I believe she's due in about a month.I wish I had thought of that earlier.Poor mother must have been very lonely. I don't like your going there tonight. Why not tonight? I am afraid you will speak of something which must hurt me badly. My mother was not a vindictive person.Clem said, flushing slightly on his face.

But I wish you would not, said Eustacia in a low voice.If you agree not to go tonight, I promise that I will go to her place tomorrow and settle the matter with her, and I will wait there for you to pick me up. What's the matter with you?When I proposed this before, you refused every time, but you want to do it at this time? I just want to see her alone before you, and then I can explain it all to you.she replied, moving her head impatiently, and looking at him with that anxious look which should be seen in a cheerful man, not in one like herself. Oh, it's a strange thing to do, when I'm going to do it alone, and you want to do what I've asked you to do.If I wait for you to go to-morrow, I shall waste another day; I know that if I don't, I shall not be able to wait a day.I'm going to get this sorted out, I have to.You'll have to see her after this; it's all the same anyway.

So can I go with you? You can't walk there and come back like I did, just take a little break in the middle.No, not tonight.Eustacia. Do as you say, then, she replied in a calm tone, as if it takes a lot of effort to reverse the bad results of a person who hopes to get rid of them with little effort. But he would rather let it happen immediately. So Clem went out into the yard; and for the rest of the afternoon a suspenseful, listless look dominated Eustacia, which her husband ascribed to the heat of the day. reason. In the evening, he set off.Although the summer days were very hot, the days were significantly shorter at this time, and before he had walked a mile, the purple, brown, and green of the moor had all turned into a color that was neither lifeless nor layered. Only the crisp quartz sand at the mouth of a hare hole adds a touch of white to the color, or the white pebbles of a path run like a white line across the hillside.Here and there, on a single, stunted briar bush, almost every nightjar took a deep breath, uttered that high-pitched cry of a mill-running mill, and then stopped again, flapping its fan. Its wings flew up and down around the thornbush it roosted in, and then it listened for a moment and then began to scream again.With each click of Clem's footsteps, white moths would fly into the air, just high enough for their dusty wings to be illuminated by the soft twilight from the west, which The light can only fall on the flats and depressions of the earth now, but it cannot illuminate these places.

Yeobright walked forward amidst the peaceful landscape, full of hope that things would soon be all right.After walking three miles, he came to a place where the path was filled with a faint fragrance. He stopped for a moment to inhale the familiar smell.Here, four hours before, his mother had sat down and rested, exhausted, on this round mound overgrown with thyme.Just as he was standing like this, he suddenly heard a sound between breathing and moaning from nearby. He looked towards the source of the sound; but could see nothing but the outline of the hillock unbroken against the sky.He took a few steps in that direction, when he saw a figure lying on the ground almost at his feet.

For a moment, Yeobright made all kinds of guesses about the identity of this person, except that she might be his family.It is known that wickers sometimes sleep out in the open at such times, to save themselves a long journey to and from their work; It was a woman; a sense of foreboding spread through him like a chill from the cellar.But it wasn't until he stood still and held her bloodless face with closed eyes in his hands that he realized that this woman was his mother. At some point, he stopped breathing, and the cry of pain that he was about to utter disappeared as soon as it reached his mouth.For a brief interval, he completely lost consciousness of time and space. The time in front of him seemed to be a reversal of time and fate, returning to the time when he was a child and came to this same place with his mother. realized that some kind of action had to be taken.He was able to move again; when he bent down, he found that she was still breathing, weak but regular, interrupted only by a gasp.

Oh, what's the matter!Mom, you are very ill and you are not going to die, are you?He cried out, pressing his lips to her face.I'm your Clem.How did you get here?What is going on here? The love for Eustacia had created a great rift between Yeobright and his mother, but at this moment he forgot all this, and to him the past of harmony between them , the kind of life before their divergence, is still closely connected with the present. Her lips moved as if she knew who he was, but she couldn't tell, while Clem was racking his brains to figure out how best to move her out of here before the dew got too thick. Just move out of here.He is strong and strong, and his mother is so small.He put his arm under her and lifted her a little, said, Does it hurt you?

She shook her head, and he picked her up; then, very slowly, he continued on.The air was completely cool now; but as he walked across a gravel field where not a blade of grass grew, the heat absorbed by the ground during the day was still reflected in his face.From the moment he picked up his mother, he hardly thought about the distance to Hualuo Village; even though he had already slept that afternoon, he still felt the heavy burden in his hands not long after.This way he goes all the way, like Aeneas [Note: Trojan hero. ] walked forward with his father on his back; bats circled above his head, nighthawks flapped their wings very close in front of him, and there was no one nearby who could ask for help.

When he was within a mile or so of his mother's house, the people he held tightly to along the way showed signs of agitation, as if his arms bored her.He put her on his lap and looked around.Where they were now, though far from any main road, was within a mile of the cottages of the Faherways, Sam, Humphreys, and Cantors in Whispering Village.Fortunately, fifty yards away, there was a hut, built of mud and roofed with thin turf, but it was quite abandoned now.The outline of the solitary hut loomed, and he decided to go there.Once in the hut, he laid his mother down carefully against the door, and ran out to cut a handful of the driest fern with his knife.He spread the ferns on the floor of the hut, which was left wide open on one side, and then he placed his mother on the ferns; Almost a quarter of an hour passed before a few running figures appeared between the sky and the wasteland. During this process, only the intermittent breathing of the patient was heard.In a short while, Clem and Fareway, Humphrey, and Susan.Nasaqi came to the cottage together; followed hurriedly by Ollie, who happened to be at the Fareway's house.Dalton, Christine, and Master Cantor.They had brought a lantern and matches, and water, pillows, and a few other things which they thought of in their haste.Sam was sent back again for brandy, and a boy brought Fairway's pony, which he rode to the nearest doctor's, and bade him drop by at Wildoff's, and tell Thomasy's aunt was in trouble. Presently Sam arrived with brandy, and poured it down the patient by the light of a lantern, after which the patient came to himself and gesticulated that there was something wrong with his foot.Ollie.Dalton finally understood what she meant, and went to examine the foot.The feet are red and swollen.As they examined the foot, the red had begun to turn cyan, and in the center of the red was evident a purple spot, smaller than a pea, which was also found to be a drop of blood, on the smooth skin above her ankle. , forming a hemisphere. I know what's the matter, cried Sam, she's been bitten by an adder! Yeah, said Clem right away, I remember seeing a snakebite like that when I was a kid.Oh, poor mother! It was my father's snakebite, Sam said, and there was only one cure.You have to rub the bite very hard with other viper oils, and you can only get them by frying them.That's how people treated him back then.That's an old prescription, Clem said skeptically, and I doubt it will work.But right now we can't do anything but wait for the doctor to come. That's a very effective method, Ollie.Dalton said emphatically that I have used this method in the past when I was out caring for others. Then we have to wait for daylight to catch the Viper.Clem said worriedly. I'll see what I can do.Sam said. He took a branch of green hazel which he used for a walking-stick, split it at one end, and thrust a small pebble into it, and with the lantern in one hand he went out into the moor.By this time Clem had lit a small fire, also called Susan.Nasaqi went to get a frying pan.Before she came back, Sam came in with three adders, one coiled around the cleft of the stick, and the other two were dead and hanging from the stick. I could only catch one live and fresh, which is how it should be.Sam said. These two limp ones were killed by me at work today; but they were not dead before sundown, and the flesh could not have been completely spoiled. The live adder's small black eyes cast an evil look upon the group, and the handsome brown and jet-black stripe on its back seemed to have darkened with anger.Mrs. Yeobright saw the little snake, and the little snake saw her; trembling all over, she looked away quickly. Looking at it, whispered Christine, folks, how do we know that the old snake in God's garden, the one that guarded the apples from naked young girls, doesn't To pass on its vicious nature to these adders and other young snakes?No matter what you look into its eyes, it looks like a vicious tea currant [Note: shrub with needles. 】.I hope it has no ill will against us!Many people in the wilderness have suffered from this vicious eye. As long as I live, I will never kill another adder. Yes, if there is nothing one can do about something, one has to be afraid of it, said Mr. Cantor, and it would have spared me many rash adventures in my life. I think I heard something outside the hut, said Christine, and I hope it won't be trouble until daylight, because that's when a man can show his courage, and if he's a brave man, he sees Even the most sinister old hag wouldn't beg her for mercy at all, and could escape from under her nose! Even a reckless and ignorant guy like me knows better not to do it.Sam said. No matter what, if disasters do come, we cannot avoid them.Folks, if Mrs. Yeobright were dead, do you think we'd be caught and tried as murderers of a woman? No, they couldn't have picked us up with that, Sam said, unless they could prove we were poachers or something at some point in our lives.But she will wake up. Well, if I were bitten by ten adders, I'd hardly lose a day's work for it, said Mr. Canter, and that's the spirit I've got when I've done my best.But maybe a man trained for war has the spirit.Yes, I've had a lot of that; but when I was in the local vigilante four years ago, I never made a mistake.He shook his head and smiled knowingly at the sight of himself in military uniform in his heart.When I was young, wherever the quarrel was the fiercest, I was always the first to show up there! I think that's because people always let the biggest fool go first.said Fayway from the fire, where he was kneeling blowing on it.Do you really think so, Timothy?Uncle Canter said, walking towards Fareway, with a sudden look of despondency on his face.So a person can go on for years thinking he's a great person when in reality he's not at all? Don't think about it, my lord.Move those two legs of yours, go and get some more firewood.It's really stupid for an old man to talk like that when life and death are fighting here. Yeah yeah.Uncle Cantor said he was very melancholy at being convinced.Well, it's a totally bad night for people who have behaved well all their lives; if I had been a good player on the oboe or the saxophone, I wouldn't be in the mood to play tunes in front of them now. Then Susan came with the frying-pan, and the live adder was killed, and the heads of all three snakes were chopped off.The snake's body was chopped into sections, thrown into the frying pan, and began to fry in the pan.Soon some clear oil dripped out of the snake, and Climb soaked the corner of the handkerchief in the oil and rubbed the wound.