解説　場面 115「秋の谷筋」

The wagonette swung round into a side road, and we curved upward through deep lanes worn by centuries of wheels, high banks on either side, heavy with dripping moss and fleshy hart's-tongue ferns. Bronzing bracken and mottled bramble gleamed in the light of the sinking sun. Still steadily rising, we passed over a narrow granite bridge and skirted a noisy stream which gushed swiftly down, foaming and roaring amid the grey boulders. Both road and stream wound up through a valley dense with scrub oak and fir. At every turn Baskerville gave an exclamation of delight, looking eagerly about him and asking countless questions. To his eyes all seemed beautiful, but to me a tinge of melancholy lay upon the countryside, which bore so clearly the mark of the waning year. Yellow leaves carpeted the lanes and fluttered down upon us as we passed. The rattle of our wheels died away as we drove through drifts of rotting vegetation—sad gifts, as it seemed to me, for Nature to throw before the carriage of the returning heir of the Baskervilles.

ワゴネットは脇道へ曲がり、何世紀もの車輪で掘り下げられた深い道を上がった。両側の高い土手には、水の滴る苔と、肉厚のコタニワタリのシダが重く茂っていた。青銅色に変わるワラビと斑模様のイバラが、沈む日の光に輝いた。さらに着実に上り、狭い花崗岩の橋を渡ると、騒がしい流れの縁を進んだ。水は灰色の大岩の間を、泡立ち、轟きながら勢いよく下っていた。道も流れも、低いオークとモミが密に茂る谷を、曲がりながら上っていた。曲がり角のたび、ヘンリー卿は喜びの声を上げ、熱心に周りを見て、数えきれないほど質問した。卿にはすべて美しく見えるのに、私には、年の暮れゆく跡があまりにも明らかな田園に、物悲しさが漂っていた。黄葉が道に敷き詰められ、私たちが通る上へ、ひらひらと落ちてきた。腐りかけた草木の吹きだまりを走ると、車輪のがらがらという音は消えた。帰ってきたバスカヴィル家の相続人の車の前へ、自然が差し出すには悲しい贈り物だ、と私には思えた。