The White Company(怀特公司)
Arthur Conan Doyle
TO
THE HOPE OF THE FUTURE
THE KNITTING TOGETHER OF THE
ENGLISH-SPEAKING RACES
THIS LITTLE CHRONICLE OF THEIR COMMON
ANCESTRY
IS INSCRIBED Chapter1
HOW THE BLACK SHEEP CAME FORTH FROM THE FOLD.
The great bell of Beaulieu was ringing. Far away through the
forest might be heard its musical clangor and swell. Peat-cutters
on Blackdown and fishers upon the Exe heard the distant throbbing
rising and falling upon the sultry summer air. It was a common
sound in those parts—as common as the chatter of the jays and the
booming of the bittern. Yet the fishers and the peasants raised
their heads and looked questions at each other, for the angelus had
already gone and vespers was still far off. Why should the great
bell of Beaulieu toll when the shadows were neither short nor
long?
All round the Abb…