ThePaleHorseman - (EPUB全文下载)

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Chapter Two
Those were my thoughts as we rode to Oxton. That was the estate Mildrith had brought me in
marriage and it was a beautiful place, but so saddled with debt that it was more of a burden
than a pleasure. The farmland was on the slopes of hills facing east towards the broad
sea-reach of the Uisc and above the house were thick woods of oak and ash from which flowed
small clear streams that cut across the fields where rye, wheat and barley grew. The house, it
was not a hall, was a smoke-filled building made from mud, dung, oak and rye-straw, and so
long and low that it looked like a green, moss-covered mound from which smoke escaped through
the roof's central hole. In the attached yard were pigs, chickens and mounds of manure as big
as the house. Mildrith's father had farmed it, helped by a steward named Oswald who was a
weasel, and he caused me still more trouble on that rainy Sunday as we rode back to the
farm.
I was furious, resentful and vengeful. Alfred had humiliated me which made it
unfortunate for Oswald that he had chosen that Sunday afternoon to drag an oak tree down
from the high woods. I was brooding on the pleasures of revenge as I let my horse pick its way
up the track through the trees and saw eight oxen hauling the great trunk towards the river.
Three men were goading the oxen, while a fourth, Oswald, rode the trunk with a whip. He saw me
and jumped off and, for a heartbeat, it looked as if he wanted to run into the trees, but then
he realised he could not evade me and so he just stood and waited as I rode up to the great oak
log.
'Lord,' Oswald greeted me. He was surprised to see me. He probably thought I had been
killed with the other hostages, and that belief had made him careless.
My horse was nervous because of the stink of blood from the oxen's flanks and he stepped
backwards and forwards in small steps until I calmed him by patting his neck. Then I looked
at the oak trunk that must have been forty feet long and as thick about as a man is tall. 'A fine
tree,' I said to Oswald.
He glanced towards Mildrith who was twenty paces away. 'Good day, lady,' he said, clawing
off the woollen hat he wore over his springy red hair.
'A wet day, Oswald,' she said. Her father had appointed the steward and Mildrith had an
innocent faith in his reliability.
'I said,' I spoke loudly, 'a fine tree. So where was it felled?'
Oswald tucked the hat into his belt. 'On the top ridge, lord,' he said vaguely.
' ............

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