解説　場面 113「遠くの丘」

"Are you? Then your wish is easily granted, for there is your first sight of the moor," said Dr. Mortimer, pointing out of the carriage window.

「そうですか。それなら、願いはすぐかないます。あれが初めての荒れ地ですよ」とモーティマー医師は客車の窓から指さした。

Over the green squares of the fields and the low curve of a wood there rose in the distance a grey, melancholy hill, with a strange jagged summit, dim and vague in the distance, like some fantastic landscape in a dream. Baskerville sat for a long time, his eyes fixed upon it, and I read upon his eager face how much it meant to him, this first sight of that strange spot where the men of his blood had held sway so long and left their mark so deep. There he sat, with his tweed suit and his American accent, in the corner of a prosaic railway-carriage, and yet as I looked at his dark and expressive face I felt more than ever how true a descendant he was of that long line of high-blooded, fiery, and masterful men. There were pride, valour, and strength in his thick brows, his sensitive nostrils, and his large hazel eyes. If on that forbidding moor a difficult and dangerous quest should lie before us, this was at least a comrade for whom one might venture to take a risk with the certainty that he would bravely share it.

四角い緑の畑と、低く曲線を描く林の向こう、遠くに灰色の物悲しい丘がそびえていた。奇妙にぎざぎざした頂が、夢の中の幻想的な風景のように、遠方でぼんやりかすんでいた。ヘンリー卿は長い間、じっと見つめていた。自分と同じ血を引く者が長く支配し、深い跡を残したあの奇妙な土地を初めて見ることが、どれほど大きな意味を持つか、熱心な顔から読み取れた。ありふれた客車の隅で、ツイードの服を着てアメリカなまりで話していたが、その浅黒く表情豊かな顔を見ていると、気位が高く、激しく、強引な長い一族の、いかに真の子孫であるかを、ますます感じた。太い眉、敏感な鼻孔、大きなはしばみ色の目には、誇りと勇気と力があった。あの不気味な荒れ地で困難で危険な探求が待つとしても、この男なら、危険を勇敢に分かち合ってくれると確信して、あえて危険を冒せる仲間ではあった。