The Hill of Dreams E-Book

ARTHUR MACHEN

• Herausgeber: Bauer Books
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

The Hill of Dreams is a semi-autobiographical novel by Arthur Machen.

It describes  Lucian Taylor's attempts to make a living as an author in London, enduring poverty and suffering in the pursuit of art.

Leseprobe

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Table of contents

THE HILL OF DREAMS ARTHUR MACHEN I There was a glow in the sky as if great furnace doors were opened.

But all the afternoon his eyes had looked on glamour; he had strayed in fairyland. The holidays were nearly done, and Lucian Taylor had gone out resolved to lose himself, to discover strange hills and prospects that he had never seen before. The air was still, breathless, exhausted after heavy rain, and the clouds looked as if they had been molded of lead. No breeze blew upon the hill, and down in the well of the valley not a dry leaf stirred, not a bough shook in all the dark January woods.

About a mile from the rectory he had diverged from the main road by an opening that promised mystery and adventure. It was an old neglected lane, little more than a ditch, worn ten feet deep by its winter waters, and shadowed by great untrimmed hedges, densely woven together. On each side were turbid streams, and here and there a torrent of water gushed down the banks, flooding the lane. It was so deep and dark that he could not get a glimpse of the country through which he was passing, but the way went down and down to some unconjectured hollow.

Perhaps he walked two miles between the high walls of the lane before its descent ceased, but he thrilled with the sense of having journeyed very far, all the long way from the know to the unknown. He had come as it were into the bottom of a bowl amongst the hills, and black woods shut out the world. From the road behind him, from the road before him, from the unseen wells beneath the trees, rivulets of waters swelled and streamed down towards the center to the brook that crossed the lane. Amid the dead and wearied silence of the air, beneath leaden and motionless clouds, it was strange to hear such a tumult of gurgling and rushing water, and he stood for a while on the quivering footbridge and watched the rush of dead wood and torn branches and wisps of straw, all hurrying madly past him, to plunge into the heaped spume, the barmy froth that had gathered against a fallen tree.

"Where did you manage to come across that, Lucian?" he said. "You haven't been to Caermaen, have you?" "No. I got it in the Roman fort by the common." "Oh, the twyn. You must have been trespassing then. Do you know what it is?" "No. I thought it looked different from the common nettles." "Hullo, Lucian, how much for the tie?" "Fine tie," another, a stranger, observed. "You bagged it from the kitten, didn't you?" "Had a pleasant evening, Lucian?" said his father when he came in. The parson grinned grimly and lit his old pipe. "Sit down, Master Lucian, sit down, sir," said Morgan. "Good-day, Master Lucian, and how is Mr. Taylor, sir?" "Pretty well, thank you. I hope you are well." "Nicely, sir, thank you. How nice your voice do sound in church, Master Lucian, to be sure. I was telling father about it last Sunday." "I am doing pretty well, thank you," said the boy. "I was first in my form last term." "Fancy! To think of that! D'you hear, father, what a scholar Master Lucian be getting?" "Aren't Mr. Taylor's views very _extreme?_" she said to her husband the same evening. Mrs. Dixon of course was grieved; it was "sad" to think of a clergyman behaving so shamefully. "They are very nicely done," said the parson; "but I'm afraid you won't find anybody to print them, my boy." II "Good evening, Master Lucian," said the girl, "it's very dark, sir, indeed." "I am afraid you are very tired, Master Lucian. Would you like me to give you my hand over this rough bit?" "You are sorely tired, Master Lucian, let us sit down here by the gate." "Annie, dear, dear Annie, what are you saying to me? I have never heard such beautiful words. Tell me, Annie, what do they mean?" She laughed, and said it was only nonsense that the nurses sang to the children. He closed the book without interest, and indeed he felt astonished at his father's excitement. The incident seemed to him unimportant. "And you say that eighty or ninety pages of this book are yours, and these scoundrels have stolen your work?" "Well, I suppose they have. I'll fetch the manuscript, if you would like to look at it." The manuscript was duly produced, wrapped in brown paper, with Messrs Beit's address label on it, and the post-office dated stamps. III "And you really don't mean to do anything about those rascals?" said his father. "Rascals? Which rascals? Oh, you mean Beit. I had forgotten all about it. No; I don't think I shall trouble. They're not worth powder and shot." "It's dreadful, isn't it," said Mrs. Dixon, "when one thinks of how many poor people there are who would be thankful for a crust of bread?" "Yes, it's very sweet," she said at last. "When did you say you were going to London, Mr. Taylor?" "I sent them these," said Lucian, "but they don't like them much." "But the design is appropriate; look at the words." "It's a Latin hymn." Miss Deacon laid down the illuminated _Urbs Beata_ in despair; she felt convinced that her cousin was "next door to an idiot." "How very said," said Mr. Dixon. "A little port, my dear?" "Oh, Merivale, what a beautiful sermon! How earnest you were. I hope it will do good." "Been drinking again today?" "No," said Lucian in a puzzled voice. "What do you mean?" "Oh, well, if you haven't, that's all right, as you'll be able to take a drop with me. Come along in?" Over the whisky and pipes Lucian heard of the evil rumors affecting his character. "You come down to Caermaen pretty often, don't you?" said the doctor. "I've seen you two or three times in the last fortnight." "Yes, I enjoy the walk." The leader saw the moment for his master-stroke. He slowly drew a piece of rope from his pocket. "What do you say to that, mun? Now, Thomas Trevor! We'll hang him over that there bough. Will that suit you, Bobby Williams?" "Jack, Jack, Jack! Little Jackie! Jack!" Then she burst into tears afresh, and peered into the hedge, and tried to peep through a gate into a field. "Jackie, Jackie, Jackie!" She came up to Lucian, sobbing as if her heart would break, and dropped him an old-fashioned curtsy. "Oh, please sir, have you seen my little Jackie?" "What do you mean?" said Lucian. "What is it you've lost?" She began to call again, without waiting for an answer. "Jack, Jack, Jack!" "I'm afraid some boys have got your little dog," said Lucian. "They've killed him. You'd better go back home." "I can scarce credit it," said Mr. Dixon. "Quite right: the bishop is perfectly right. Processions are unscriptural." "It's the thin end of the wedge, you know, Dixon." "Exactly. I have always resisted anything of the kind here." "Right. _Principiis obsta_, you know. Martin is so _imprudent_. There's a _way_ of doing things." "He is by no means wanting in intelligence," he said to his family. "A little curious in manner, perhaps, but not stupid." "Only in the garden of Avallaunius," said Lucian to himself, "is the true and exquisite science to be found."

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