英文
Interlopers at the Knap IV
Time passed, and the household on the Knap became again serene under the composing influences of daily routine. A desultory, very desultory correspondence, dragged on between Sally Hall and Darton, who, not quite knowing how to take her petulant words on the night of her brother's death, had continued passive thus long, Helena and her children remained at the dairy-house, almost of necessity, and Darton therefore deemed it advisable to stay away.
One day, seven months later on, when Mr. Darton was as usual at his farm, twenty miles from King's-Hintock, a note reached him from Helena. She thanked him for his kind offer about her children, which her mother-in-law had duly communicated, and stated that she would be glad to accept it as regarded the eldest, the boy. Helena had, in truth, good need to do so, for her uncle had left her penniless, and all application to some relatives in the north had failed. There was, besides, as she said, no good school near Hintock to which she could send the child.
On a fine summer day the boy came. He was accompanied half-way by Sally and his mother—to the “White Horse,” the fine old Elizabethan inn at Chalk Newton, [1] where he was handed over to Darton's bailiff in a shining spring-cart, who met them there.
He was entered as a day-scholar at a popular school at Casterbridge, three or four miles from Darton's, having first been taught by Darton to ride a forest-pony, on which he cantered to and from the aforesaid fount of knowledge, and (as Darton hoped) brought away a promising headful of the same at each diurnal expedition. The thoughtful taciturnity into which Darton had latterly fallen was quite dissipated by the presence of this boy.
When the Christmas holidays came it was arranged that he should spend them with his mother. The journey was, for some reason or other, performed in two stages, as at his coming, except that Darton in person took the place of the bailiff, and that the boy and himself rode on horseback.
Reaching the renowned “White Horse,” Darton inquired if Miss and young Mrs. Hall were there to meet little Philip (as they had agreed to be). He was answered by the appearance of Helena alone at the door.
“At the last moment Sally would not come,” she faltered.
That meeting practically settled the point towards which these longsevered persons were converging. But nothing was broached about it for some time yet. Sally Hall had, in fact, imparted the first decisive motion to events by refusing to accompany Helena. She soon gave them a second move by writing the following note—
[Private.]
DEAR CHARLES,
Living here so long and intimately with Helena, I have naturally learnt her history, especially that of it which refers to you. I am sure she would accept you as a husband at the proper time, and I think you ought to give her the opportunity. You inquire in an old note if I am sorry that I showed temper (which it wasn't) that night when I heard you talking to her. No, Charles, I am not sorry at all for what I said then.
Yours sincerely,
SALLY HALL
Thus set in train, the transfer of Darton's heart back to its original quarters proceeded by mere lapse of time. In the following July, Darton went to his friend Japheth to ask him at last to fulfill the bridal office which had been in abeyance since the previous January twelvemonths.
“With all my heart, man o' constancy!” said Dairyman Johns warmly. “I've lost most of my genteel fair complexion haymaking this hot weather, ’tis true, but I'll do your business as well as them that look better. There be scents and good hair-oil in the world yet, thank God, and they'll take off the roughest o' my edge. I'll compliment her. ‘Better late than never, Sally Hall,’ I'll say.”
“It is not Sally,” said Darton hurriedly. “It is young Mrs. Hall.”
Japheth's face, as soon as he really comprehended, became a picture of reproachful dismay. “Not Sally?” he said. “Why not Sally? I can't believe it! Young Mrs. Hall! Well, well—where's your wisdom?”
Darton shortly explained particulars; but Johns would not be reconciled. “She was a woman worth having if ever woman was,” he cried. “And now to let her go!”
“But I suppose I can marry where I like,” said Darton.
“H'm,” replied the dairyman, lifting his eyebrows expressively. “This don't become you, Charles—it really do not. If I had done such a thing you would have sworn I was a curst no'thern fool to be drawn off the scent by such a red-herring doll-oll-oll.”
Farmer Darton responded in such sharp terms to this laconic opinion that the two friends finally parted in a way they had never parted before. Johns was to be no groomsman to Darton after all. He had flatly declined. Darton went off sorry, and, even unhappy, particularly as Japheth was about to leave that side of the county, so that the words which had divided them were not likely to be explained away or softened down.
A short time after the interview Darton was united to Helena at a simple matter-of-fact wedding; and she and her little girl joined the boy who had already grown to look on Darton's house as home.
For some months the farmer experienced an unprecedented happiness and satisfaction. There had been a flaw in his life, and it was as neatly mended as was humanly possible. But after a season the stream of events followed less clearly, and there were shades in his reveries. Helena was a fragile woman, of little staying power, physically or morally, and since the time that he had originally known her—eight or ten years before she had been severely tried. She had loved herself out, in short, and was now occasionally given to moping. Sometimes she spoke regretfully of the gentilities of her early life, and instead of comparing her present state with her condition as the wife of the unlucky Hall, she mused rather on what it had been before she took the first fatal step of clandestinely marrying him. She did not care to please such people as those with whom she was thrown as a thriving farmer's wife. She allowed the pretty trifles of agricultural domesticity to glide by her as sorry details, and had it not been for the children Darton's house would have seemed but little brighter than it had been before.
This led to occasional unpleasantness, until Darton sometimes declared to himself that such endeavours as his to rectify early deviations of the heart by harking back to the old point mostly failed of success. “Perhaps Johns was right,” he would say. “I should have gone on with Sally. Better go with the tide and make the best of its course than stem it at the risk of a capsize.” But he kept these unmelodious thoughts to himself, and was outwardly considerate and kind.
This somewhat barren tract of his life had extended to less than a year and half when his ponderings were cut short by the loss of the woman they concerned. When she was in her grave he thought better of her than when she had been alive; the farm was a worse place without her than with her, after all. No woman short of divine could have gone through such an experience as hers with her first husband without becoming a little soured. Her stagnant sympathies, her sometimes unreasonable manner, had covered a heart frank and well meaning, and originally hopeful and warm. She left him a tiny red infant in white wrappings. To make life as easy as possible to this touching object became at once his care.
As this child learnt to walk and talk Darton learnt to see feasibility in a scheme which pleased him. Revolving the experiment which he had hither to made upon life, he fancied he had gained wisdom from his mistakes and caution from his miscarriages.
What the scheme was needs no penetration to discover. Once more he had opportunity to recast and rectify his ill-wrought situations by returning to Sally Hall, who still lived quietly on under her mother's roof at Hintock. Helena had been a woman to lend pathos and refinement to a home; Sally was the woman to brighten it. She would not, as Helena did, despise the rural simplicities of a farmer's fireside. Moreover, she had a pre-eminent qualification for Darton's household; no other woman could make so desirable a mother to her brother's two children and Darton's one as Sally—while Darton, now that Helena had gone, was a more promising husband for Sally than he had ever been when liable to reminders from an uncured sentimental wound.
Darton was not a man to act rapidly, and the working out of his reparative designs might have been delayed for some time. But there came a winter evening precisely like the one which had darkened over that former ride to Hintock, and he asked himself why he should postpone longer, when the very landscape called for a repetition of that attempt.
He told his man to saddle the mare, booted and spurred himself with a younger horseman's nicety, kissed the two youngest children, and rode off. To make the journey a complete parallel to the first, he would fain have had his old acquaintance Japheth Johns with him. But Johns, alas! was missing. His removal to the other side of the county had left unrepaired the breach which had arisen between him and Darton; and though Darton had forgiven him a hundred times, as Johns had probably forgiven Darton, the effort of reunion in present circumstances was one not likely to be made.
He screwed himself up to as cheerful a pitch as he could without his former crony, and became content with his own thoughts as he rode, instead of the words of a companion. The sun went down; the boughs appeared scratched in like an etching against the sky; old crooked men with faggots at their backs said “Good-night, sir,” and Darton replied “Good-night” right heartily.
By the time he reached the forking roads it was getting as dark as it had been on the occasion when Johns climbed the directing-post. Darton made no mistake this time. “Nor shall I be able to mistake, thank Heaven, when I arrive,” he murmured. It gave him peculiar satisfaction to think that the proposed marriage, like his first, was of the nature of setting in order things long awry, and not a momentary freak of fancy.
Nothing hindered the smoothness of his journey, which seemed not half its former length. Though dark, it was only between five and six o'clock when the bulky chimneys of Mrs. Hall's residence appeared in view behind the sycamore-tree. On second thoughts he retreated and put up at the ale-house as in former time; and when he had plumed himself before the inn mirror, called for something to drink, and smoothed out the incipient wrinkles of care, he walked on to the Knap with a quick step.
中文
高岗故人来 四
时光飞逝，高岗人家的生活又重归平静，毕竟每天都有日常家事要做，起到了稳定情绪的效果。莎莉·霍尔和达顿保持着断断续续的——非常断断续续的——通信。达顿一直不知道如何理解莎莉在她兄长死去当晚情急之下说出的那些话，便也一直被动地等待着。海伦娜和她的两个孩子还住在高岗，因为她也没有别处可去了，所以达顿觉得自己最好还是回避。
七个月后的一天，达顿同往常一样待在农场里，农场距离国王的欣托克村有二十英里。他收到了海伦娜寄来的一封短信，感谢他之前提出的收养她孩子的好意，她的婆婆当时就已经转告她了，并说她很乐意接受这帮助，让达顿收养她的长子。海伦娜的确需要这么做，因为她的叔叔没给她留下一分钱，而她向住在北部的亲戚们求援也都无果。而且，正如她所说，在欣托克附近也没有什么好学校能送孩子去念书。
在一个明媚的夏日男孩被送来了。莎莉和男孩的母亲把他送到中途的“白马客栈”，这是位于乔克纽顿村的一个很有情调的伊丽莎白时期的古老旅馆[5]；在那里他被交给了达顿的管家，坐上一辆光亮耀眼的轻便弹簧减震马车走了。
他被安排在卡斯特桥镇一所有名的学校走读，学校离达顿的农庄大约三四英里。达顿先教会他骑马，他于是每天骑着他的森林矮种马往返上下学，达顿希望他每天到那知识的源泉探险时都能在里头汲取养分，装满一脑袋带回家。达顿近来常常思绪万千沉默寡言，这孩子的到来让他明显好了不少。
圣诞节学校放寒假了，双方商定安排男孩去母亲那儿度假。出于某种原因，这次旅途跟他来时一样还是分成两个阶段，不过这次没让管家来，而是由达顿亲自带着男孩一起骑马前去。
到了著名的“白马客栈”后，达顿询问霍尔小姐和少霍尔太太是否已如约到达来接小菲利普了。话音刚落，就看到海伦娜独自一人出现在门口。
“要出门时莎莉突然又不肯来了。”她有些支支吾吾地说。
这一次相会差不多明确了这对分离许久的人终于要重修旧好，但是此事并没有立刻开始讨论，而是又拖了一段时间。事实上，莎莉·霍尔通过拒绝与海伦娜同去这一行为已经启动了决定性的第一步。很快，她又推着他们进入了第二步——她给达顿写了这样一封短信：
【亲启】
亲爱的查尔斯，
我同海伦娜同住了这许多时日，朝夕相伴，自然也已知悉了她的过去，尤其是同你相关的部分。我确信在时机恰当时她会很乐意接受你做她的丈夫，而你也应当给予她此机会。你之前信中问我在听到你同她交谈时发脾气（其实并不是）事后是否感到后悔。不，查尔斯，我并不后悔当时说过那些话。
你诚挚的
莎莉·霍尔
既然已经开了头，达顿的心重回到曾留恋过的地方也就只是时间问题了。到了第二年七月，达顿去找他的朋友杰夫斯，告诉他终于可以履行自头一年一月一直推迟至今的婚礼伴郎的职责了。
“绝对没问题，忠贞不渝的好男人！”奶牛场主约翰斯热情地满口答应，“虽然我最近在大热天里头晒干草，皮肤没以前那么白净，显得不够文雅了，但是我一定不会比那些小白脸干得差。感谢上帝，幸好这个世界上还有香水和发油，打扮下看起来就没那么粗糙了。我要好好地恭维她一通。我会跟她说：‘莎莉·霍尔，迟到总比不到好。’”
“不是莎莉，”达顿匆忙说，“是少霍尔太太。”
杰夫斯搞清楚状况之后，脸色马上变了，满是震惊与谴责。“不是莎莉？”他说，“为啥不是莎莉？我简直不敢相信！少霍尔太太！天哪，天哪——你的脑子到哪儿去了？”
达顿简短地解释了一下，但是约翰斯不愿接受。“要是有哪个女人还值得娶的话，那就只有莎莉！”他喊，“你反而还要放手！”
“我觉得我应该可以想娶谁就娶谁吧。”达顿说。
“嗯，”奶牛场主意味深长地扬了扬眉，“这桩婚事太不合适了，查尔斯——真的不合适。要是我这样子干，你肯定会骂我是个该死的北方来的傻瓜，居然被一个花——花——花瓶勾得冲昏了头误入歧途。”
农场主达顿对这言简意赅的评论报以激烈的言辞回应，两个朋友最后不欢而散。约翰斯最终还是没给达顿当伴郎，他断然拒绝了。达顿离开的时候很是遗憾和伤感，而且杰夫斯就快离开此地了，因此两人说的那些反目的话也许永远也没有机会缓和或和解了。
这次会面后不久，达顿就同海伦娜举办了一个简单务实的婚礼，她带着小女儿同儿子团聚了。男孩这时已经把达顿家当成了自己的家。
接下来的几个月，这位农场主度过了一段前所未有的快乐满足的时光。他的生命中曾有所缺憾，如今在人力能及的范围内已得到了完美的弥补。然而很快日子便有些暗流涌动，他的美梦也打上了阴影。海伦娜生性脆弱，不管体力也好道德也好，都缺乏忍耐力。从他最早认识她那会儿——八到十年前——到现在，其间她遭受了重重磨难。简言之，她的爱已燃烧殆尽，现在时不时会自怨自艾一番。她有时候会哀怨地追忆早年过的养尊处优的生活。她不去想现在的生活比起她跟不幸的霍尔在一起时好了多少，却偏要去跟她踏出致命的第一步——与霍尔秘密结婚——之前的生活相比较。她不屑与富有农场主的妻子们通常会打交道的那些人为伍。农家生活的各种琐事在她看来都是令人苦恼的烦琐细节，不愿打理。要不是因为还有两个孩子，达顿的屋子几乎还是跟从前一样黯淡无光。
这些间或的种种不快终于让达顿开始抱怨，觉得他企图重拾旧情以纠正当初爱的偏差的努力最终还是白费了。“也许约翰斯是对的，”他会对自己说，“我应该继续跟莎莉过的。随浪而动见机而行，总好过逆水行舟。”但这些不和谐的想法他只是自己私底下想一想，表面上他依然是个体贴而仁爱的丈夫。
他人生中这一段灰暗的时光过了不到一年半，这些想法便戛然而止了，因为它们所牵涉的那位女子去世了。等她入了土，达顿对她的看法便改观了许多。无论如何，农场有她在还是比没她在强。她不过是一介普通女子，嫁给第一任丈夫后吃了那么多苦，性情变得尖酸一些实属正常。她有时缺乏同理心，时而行为又不可理喻，但底下藏着的是一颗坦诚善良的心，原本她也是个充满了希望与热情的人啊。她人走了，却留下了一个裹在白色襁褓里的红通通的小婴儿。他的全部心思立刻都用在照顾这个可爱的小家伙身上去了。
等到孩子开始蹒跚学步、牙牙学语了，达顿想到了一个可行的计划，很是欢喜。回顾迄今为止他对自己的人生所做的种种试验，他认为自己已经从失败中学会了谨慎、从错误中获得了智慧。
至于他的计划是什么无须深究就能猜到。莎莉·霍尔还同母亲住在欣托克，过着平静的生活，他还有机会纠正错误、改写人生，与她重归于好。海伦娜给一个家庭带来的是哀伤与优雅；而莎莉却会给一个家庭带来欢乐与希望。她不会像海伦娜一般鄙夷农家的质朴生活。而且，她嫁到达顿家还有一个明显的优势，没有谁比她更适合做她兄长的两个孩子以及达顿自己的孩子的继母了——而对莎莉来说，达顿现在也比从前更有可能成为一个好丈夫，因为海伦娜已死，他不会再时不时缅怀一下自己未愈的爱情的伤了。
达顿不是一个想到就做、雷厉风行的人。他的这一补救计划原本很可能会拖上一段时间才执行，但突然一个冬夜到来了，就跟他上一次骑马去欣托克时一模一样，他于是问自己，连周遭的景致都在呼唤他再尝试一次，自己为何还要拖延。
他叫帮工给马备上鞍，穿上讲究的马靴和马刺，打扮得像个小伙子一般，亲了亲最小的两个孩子，然后上路了。他多希望老朋友杰夫斯·约翰斯也在场，这样就可以完美重现上一次的旅程了。唉！可惜约翰斯却不在。他搬到了这个郡的另一头，两人之间的裂痕到现在还没有机会修补。虽然达顿心里已经原谅了他一百次，大概约翰斯也早已原谅了达顿，但现在相隔太远，想要握手言欢的可能性很小了。
虽然没有好友相伴，他还是尽量让自己保持高昂的情绪；他边走边想事情，尽管没有同伴聊天，但也逐渐自得其乐。太阳渐渐西沉，树枝在天幕上逐渐勾勒出其形状，就像是一副蚀刻版画；驼背的老人背着柴火问候“先生，晚上好”，达顿也兴致勃勃地回答“晚上好”。
等他来到那个岔路口的时候，天色就跟当年约翰斯爬上路标那会儿一样暗了。这次达顿没有再走错路。“感谢上天，这次我到了以后也不会再认错人了。”他自言自语地说。一想到这次的求婚跟上一次一样，都是要纠正之前犯下的错误，而不是一时的意乱情迷，他心里就有一种特别的满足感。
这次旅途没有受阻非常顺利，路程似乎还不到上次的一半远。虽然天色很暗，但当大槭树后面霍尔太太家房子的大烟囱出现在他眼帘中时，时间不过傍晚五六点而已。达顿转念一想，又退回来，像上次一样先去了前面路边的客栈歇脚；他对着客栈的镜子仔细修饰了一番，要了点喝的，抚平一下因操劳而开始出现的皱纹，然后快步走向了高岗。
