Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Robert Louis Stevenson

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СКАЧАТЬ it, a bare garden, hedged with thorn, occupied that land between the river and the road. The house was two stories high, with two large rooms on each. It opened not directly on the garden, but on a causewayed path, or passage, giving on the road on the one hand, and closed on the other by the tall willows and elders that bordered on the stream. And it was this strip of causeway that enjoyed among the young parishioners of Balweary so infamous a reputation. The minister walked there often after dark, sometimes groaning aloud in the instancy of his unspoken prayers; and when he was from home, and the manse door was locked, the more daring schoolboys ventured, with beating hearts, to ‘follow my leader’ across that legendary spot.

      This atmosphere of terror, surrounding as it did, a man of God of spotless character and orthodoxy, was a common cause of wonder and subject of inquiry among the few strangers who were led by chance or business to that unknown, outlying country. But many even of the people of the parish were ignorant of the strange events which had marked the first year of Mr Soulis’s ministrations; and among those who were better informed, some were naturally reticent, and others shy of that particular topic. Now and again, only, one of the older folk would warm into courage over his third tumbler, and recount the cause of the minister’s strange looks and solitary life.

      Fifty years syne, when Mr Soulis cam ‘first into Ba’weary, he was still a young man – a callant, the folk said – fu’ o’ book-learnin’ an’ grand at the exposition, but, as was natural in sae young a man, wi’ nae leevin’ experience in religion. The younger sort were greatly taken wi’ his gifts and his gab; but auld, concerned, serious men and women were moved even to prayer for the young man, whom they took to be a self-deceiver, and the parish that was like to be sae ill-supplied. It was before the days o’ the moderates – weary fa’ them; but ill things are like guid – they baith come bit by bit, a pickle at a time; and there were folk even then that said the Lord had left the college professors to their ain devices, an’ the lads that went to study wi’ them wad hae done mair an’ better sittin’ in a peat-bog, like their forbears of the persecution, wi ‘a Bible under their oxter an’ a speerit o’ prayer in their heart. There was nae doubt onyway, but that Mr Soulis had been ower lang at the college. He was careful and troubled for mony things besides the ae thing needful. He had a feck o’ books wi’ him – mair than had ever been seen before in a’ that presbytery; and a sair wark the carrier had wi’ them, for they were a’ like to have smoored in the De’il’s Hag between this and Kilmackerlie. They were books o’ divinity, to be sure, or so they ca’d them; but the serious were o’ opinion there was little service for sae mony, when the hail o’ God’s Word would gang in the neuk o’ a plaid. Then he wad sit half the day and half the nicht forbye, which was scant decent – writin’, nae less; an’ first they were feared he wad read his sermons; an’ syne it proved he was writin’ a book himsel’, which was surely no’ fittin’ for ane o’ his years an’ sma’ experience.

      Onyway it behoved him to get an auld, decent wife to keep the manse for him an ‘see to his bit denners; an’ he was recommended to an auld limmer – Janet M’Clour, they ca’d her – an’ sae far left to himsel’ as to be ower persuaded. There was mony advised him to the contrar, for Janet was mair than suspeckit by the best folk in Ba’weary. Lang or that, she had had a wean to a dragoon; she hadna come forrit for maybe thretty year; and bairns had seen her mumblin’ to hersel’ up on Key’s Loan in the gloamin’, whilk was an unco time an’ place for a God-fearin’ woman. Howsoever, it was the laird himsel’ that had first tauld the minister o’ Janet; an’ in thae days he wad hae gane a far gate to pleesure the laird. When folk tauld him that Janet was sib to the de’il, it was a’ superstition by his way o’ it; an’ when they cast up the Bible to him an’ the witch of Endor, he wad threep it doun their thrapples that thir days were a’ gane by, an’ the de’il was mercifully restrained.

      Weel, when it got about the clachan that Janet M’Clour was to be servant at the manse, the folk were fair mad wi ‘her an’ him thegither; an’ some o’ the guidwives had nae better to dae than get round her door-cheeks and chairge her wi’ a’ that was ken’t again’ her, frae the sodger’s bairn to John Tamson’s twa kye. She was nae great speaker; folk usually let her gang her ain gate, an’ she let them gang theirs, wi’ neither Fair-guid-een nor Fair-guid-day; but when she buckled to, she had a tongue to deave the miller. Up she got, an’ there wasna an auld story in Ba’weary but she gart somebody lowp for it that day; they couldna say ae thing but she could say twa to it; till, at the hinder end, the guidwives up an’ claught haud of her, an’ clawed the coats aff her back, and pu’d her doun the clachan to the water o’ Dule, to see if she were a witch or no, soom or droun. The carline skirled till ye could hear her at the Hangin’ Shaw, an’ she focht like ten; there was mony a guidwife bure the mark o’ her neist day an’ mony a lang day after; an’ just in the hettest o’ the collieshangie, wha suld come up (for his sins) but the new minister!

      ‘Women,’ said he (an’ he had a grand voice),‘I charge you in the Lord’s name to let her go.?

      Janet ran to him – she was fair wud wi ‘terror – an’ clang to him, an’ prayed him, for Christ’s sake, save her frae the cummers; an’ they, for their pairt, tauld him a’ that was ken’t, an’ maybe mair.

      ‘Woman,’ says he to Janet, ‘is this true?’

      ‘As the Lord sees me,’ says she, ‘as the Lord made me, no’ a word o’t. Forbye the bairn,’ says she, ‘I’ve been a decent woman a’ my days.’

      ‘Will you,’ says Mr Soulis, ‘in the name of God, and before me, His unworthy minister, renounce the devil and his works?’

      Weel, it wad appear that when he askit that, she gave a girn that fairly frichit them that saw her, an ‘they could hear her teeth play dirl thegither in her chafts; but there was naething for it but the ae way or the ither; an’ Janet lifted up her hand an’ renounced the de’il before them a’.

      ‘And now,’ says Mr Soulis to the guidwives, ‘home with ye, one and all, and pray to God for His forgiveness.’

      An ‘he gied Janet his arm, though she had little on her but a sark, and took her up the clachan to her ain door like a leddy o’ the land; an’ her screighin’ an’ laughin’ as was a scandal to be heard.

      There were mony grave folk lang ower their prayers that nicht; but when the morn cam ‘there was sic a fear fell upon a’ Ba’weary that the bairns hid theirsels, an’ even the men-folk stood an’ keekit frae their doors. For there was Janet comin’ doun the clachan – her or her likeness, nane could tell – wi’ her neck thrawn, an’ her heid on ae side, like a body that has been hangit, an’ a girn on her face like an unstreakit corp. By an’ by they got used wi’ it, an’ even speered at her to ken what was wrang; but frae that day forth she couldna speak like a Christian woman, but slavered an’ played click wi’ her teeth like a pair o’ shears; an’ frae that day forth the name o’ God cam’ never on her lips. Whiles she wad try to say it, but it michtna be. Them that kenned best said least; but they never gied that Thing the name o’ Janet M’Clour; for the auld Janet, by their way o’t, was in muckle hell that day. But the minister was neither to haud nor to bind; he preached about naething but the folk’s cruelty that had gi’en her a stroke of the palsy; he skelpit the bairns that meddled her; an’ he had her up to the manse that same nicht, an’ dwalled there a’ his lane wi’ her under the Hangin’ Shaw.

      Weel, time gaed by: and the idler sort commenced to think mair lichtly o ‘that black business. The minister was weel thocht o’; he was aye late at the writing, folk wad see his can’le doon by the Dule water after twal’ at e’en; and he seemed pleased wi’ himsel’ an’ upsitten as at first, though a’ body could see that he was dwining. As for Janet she cam’ an’ she gaed; if she didna speak muckle afore, it was reason she should speak less then; she meddled naebody; but she was an eldritch thing to see, an’ nane wad СКАЧАТЬ