The little crowd straggled over the footpath7 and the road, few of its members speaking, most of them keeping to their places and themselves. As yet there was nothing of the tramp in the aspect of these mechanics. With their washed faces and well-mended clothes they might have been taken for a jury coming from a local inquest. As the streets got broken and detached, with patches of field between, they began to look about them. One young fellow in front (with no family to think of), who looked upon the enterprise as an amusing sort of tour, and had even brought an accordion8, began to rebel against the general depression, and attempted a joke about going to the Alexandra Palace. But in the rear, the little man with the canvas bag, putting his hand abstractedly into his pocket, suddenly stared and stopped. He drew out the hand, and saw in it three shillings.
“S’elp me!” he said, “the missis is done that — shoved it in unbeknown when I come away. An’ she’s on’y got a bob for ‘erself an’ the kids.” He broke into a sweat of uneasiness. “I’ll ‘ave to send it back at the next post-office, that’s all.”
“Send it back? Not you!” Thus with deep scorn the voluble young man at his side. “She’ll be all right, you lay your life. A woman allus knows ‘ow to look after ‘erself. You’ll bleed’n’ soon want it, an’ bad. You do as I tell you, Joey; stick to it. That’s right, Dave, ain’t it?”
“Matter o’ fancy,” replied the stolid man. “My missis cleared my pockets out ‘fore I got away. Shouldn’t wonder at bein’ sent after for leavin’ ‘er chargeable if I don’t soon send some more. Women’s different.”
The march continued, and grew dustier. The cheerful pilgrim in front produced his accordion. At Palmer’s Green four went straight ahead to try for work at the Enfield Arms Factory. The others, knowing the thing hopeless, turned off to the left for Potter’s Bar.
After a long silence: “Which’ll be nearest, Dave,” asked little Joey Clayton, “Newcastle or Middlesborough?”
“Middlesborough,” said Dave; “I done it afore.”
“Trampin’ ain’t so rough on a man, is it, after all?” asked Joey, wistfully. “You done all right, didn’t you?”
“Got through. All depends, though it’s rough enough. Matter o’ luck. I ‘ad the bad weather.”
“If I don’t get a good easy job where we’re goin’,” remarked the voluble young man, “I’ll ‘ave a strike there too.”
“‘Ave a strike there?” exclaimed Joey.
“‘Ow? Who’d call ’em out?”
“Wy, I would. I think I’m equal to doin’ it, ain’t I? An’ when workin’-men stand idle an’ ‘ungry in the midst o’ the wealth an’ the lukshry an’ the igstravagance they’ve produced with the sweat of their brow, why, then, feller-workmen, it’s time to act. It’s time to bring the nigger-drivin’ bloated capitalists to their knees.”
“‘Ear, ‘ear!” applauded Joey Clayton; tamely, perhaps, for the words were not new. “Good on yer, Newman!” Newman had a habit of practicing this sort of thing in snatches whenever he saw the chance. He had learned the trick in a debating society; and Joey Clayton was always an applausive audience. There was a pause, the accordion started another tune9, and Newman tried a different passage of his harangue10.
“In the shop they call me Skulky Newman. Why? ‘Cos I skulk11, o’ course” (”‘Ear, ‘ear!” dreamily — from Dave this time). “I ain’t ashamed of it, my friends. I’m a miker out an’ out, an’ I ‘ope I shall always remain a miker. The less a worker does the more ‘as to be imployed, don’t they? An’ the more the toilers wrings12 out o’ the capitalists, don’t they? Very well then, I mike, an’ I do it as a sacred dooty.”
“You’ll ‘ave all the mikin’ you want for a week or two,” said Dave Burge, placidly13. “Stow it.”
At Potter’s Bar the party halted and sat under a hedge to eat hunks of bread and cheese (or hunks of bread and nothing else) and to drink cold tea out of cans. Skulky Newman, who had brought nothing, stood in with his two friends.
As they started anew and turned into the Great North Road he said, stretching himself and looking slyly at Joey Clayton: “If I’d got a bob or two I’d stand you two blokes a pint14 apiece.”
Joey looked troubled. “Well, as you ain’t, I suppose I ought to,” he said, uneasily, turning toward the little inn hard by. “Dave,” he cried to Burge, who was walking on, “won’t you ‘ave a drink?” And, “Well, if you are goin’ to do the toff, I ain’t proud,” was the slow reply.
Afterward15, Joey was inclined to stop at the post-office to send away at least two shillings. But Newman wouldn’t. He enlarged on the improvidence16 of putting out of reach that which might be required on an emergency; he repeated his axiom as to a woman’s knack17 of keeping alive in spite of all things, and Joey determined18 not to send — for a day or so at any rate.
The road got looser and dustier; the symptoms of the tramp came out stronger and stronger on the gang. The accordion struck up from time to time, but ceased toward the end of the afternoon. The player wearied, and some of the older men, soon tired of walking, were worried by the noise. Joey Clayton, whose cough was aggravated19 by the dust, was especially tortured, after every fit, to hear the thing drawling and whooping20 the tune it had drawled and whooped21 a dozen times before; but he said nothing, scarce knowing what annoyed him.
At Hatfield Station two of the foremost picked up a few coppers22 by helping23 with a heavy trap-load of luggage. Up Digswell Hill the party tailed out lengthily24, and Newman, who had been letting off a set speech, was fain to save his wind. The night came, clear to see and sweet to smell. Between Welwyn and Codicote the company broke up to roost in such barns as they might possess; all but the master of the accordion, who had stayed at a little public-house at Welwyn, with the notion of earning a pot of beer and a stable-corner (or better) by a tune in the tap-room. Dave Burge lighted on a lone25 shed of thatched hurdles26 with loose hay in it, and Newman straightway curled in the snuggest27 corner on most of the hay. Dave Burge pulled some from under him, and, having helped Joey Clayton to build a nest in the best place left, was soon snoring. But Joey lay awake all night, and sat up and coughed and turned restlessly, being unused to the circumstances and apprehensive28 of those months in jail, which (it is well known) are rancorously dealt forth29 among all them that sleep in barns.
Luck provided a breakfast next morning at Codicote; for three bicyclists, going north, stood cold beef and bread round at The Anchor. The man with the accordion caught up. He had made his lodging30 and breakfast and eightpence. This had determined him to stay at Hitchin, and work it for at least a day, and then to diverge31 into the towns and let the rest go their way. So beyond Hitchin there was no music.
Joey Clayton soon fell slow. Newman had his idea; and the three were left behind, and Joey staggered after his mates with difficulty. He lacked sleep, and he lacked stamina32. Dave Burge took the canvas bag, and there were many rests, when Newman, expressing a resolve to stick by his fellow-man through thick and thin, hinted at drinks. Dave Burge made twopence at Henlow level crossing by holding an unsteady horse while a train passed. Joey saw little of the rest of the day; the road was yellow and dazzling, his cough tore him, and things were red sometimes and sometimes blue. He walked without knowing it, now helped, now lurching on alone. The others of the party were far ahead and forgotten. There was talk of a windmill ahead, where there would be rest; and the three men camped in an old boat-house by the river just outside Biggleswade. Joey, sleeping as he tottered33, fell in a heap and lay without moving from sunset to broad morning.
When he woke Dave Burge was sitting at the door, but Newman was gone. Also there was no sign of the canvas bag.
“No use lookin’,” said Dave; “‘e’s done it.”
“Eh?”
“Skulky’s ‘opped the twig34 an’ sneaked35 your tools. Gawd knows where ‘e is by now.”
“No!” the little man gasped36, sitting up in a pale, sweat . . . “Not sneaked ’em . . . is ‘e? . . . S’elp me! there’s a set o’ callipers worth fifteen bob in that bag . . . ‘E ain’t gawn . . .?”
Dave Burge nodded inexorably.
“Best feel in your pockets,” he said, “p’r’aps ‘e’s bin3 there.”
He had. The little man broke down. “I was a-goin’ to send ‘ome that two bob — s’elp me, I was! . . . An’ what can I do without my tools? If I’d got no job I could ‘a pawned37 ’em — an’ then I’d ‘a sent ‘ome the money — s’elp me, I would . . .! Oh, it’s crool!”
The walking, with the long sleep after it, had left him sore and stiff, and Dave had work to put him on the road again. He had forgotten yesterday afternoon, and asked, at first, for the others. They tramped in silence for a few miles, when Joey suddenly flung himself upon a tussock by the wayside.
“Why won’t nobody let me live?” he sniveled. “I’m a ‘armless bloke enough. I worked at Ritterson’s, man and boy, very nigh twenty year. When they come an’ ordered us out, I come out with the others, peaceful enough; I didn’t want to chuck it up, Gawd knows, but I come out promp’ when they told me. And when I found another job on the Island, four big blokes set about me an’ ‘arf killed me. I didn’t know the place was blocked. And when two o’ the blokes was took up, they said I’d get strike-pay again if I didn’t identify ’em; so I didn’t. But they never give me no strike-pay — they laughed an’ chucked me out. An’ now I’m a-starvin’ on the ‘igh road. An’ Skulky . . . blimy . . . ‘e’s done me too!”
There were days wherein Joey learned to cat a swede pulled from behind a wagon38, and to feel thankful for an early turnip39; might have learned, too, just what tramping means in many ways to a man unskilled both in begging and in theft, but was never equal to it. He coughed, and worse, holding to posts and gates, and often spitting blood. He had little to say, but trudged40 mechanically, taking note of nothing.
Once, as though aroused from a reverie, he asked: “Wasn’t there some others?”
“Others?” said Dave, for a moment taken aback. “Oh, yes, there was some others. They’re gone on ahead, y’know.”
Joey tramped for half a mile in silence. Then he said: “Expect they’re ‘avin’ a rough time too.”
“Ah, very like,” said Dave.
For a space Joey was silent, save for the cough. Then he went on: “Comes o’ not bringing ‘cordions with ’em. Every one ought to take a ‘cordion what goes trampin.’ I knew a man once that went trampin’, an’ ‘e took a ‘cordion. He done all right. It ain’t so rough for them as plays on the ‘cordion.” And Dave Burge rubbed his cap about his head and stared, but answered nothing.
It was a bad day. Crusts were begged at cottages. Every rise and every turn, the eternal yellow road lay stretch on stretch before them, flouting41 their unrest. Joey, now unimpressionable, endured more placidly than even Dave Burge. Late in the afternoon, “No,” he said, “it ain’t so rough for them as plays the ‘cordion. They ‘as the best of it . . . S’elp me,” he added, suddenly, “we’re all ‘cordions!” He sniggered thoughtfully, and then burst into a cough that left him panting. “We’re nothin’ but a bloomin’ lot o’ ‘cordions ourselves,” he went on, having got his breath, “an’ they play any toon they like on us; and that’s ‘ow they make their livin’. S’elp me, Dave, we’re all ‘cordions.” And he laughed.
“Um — yus,” the other man grunted42. And he looked curiously43 at his mate; for he had never heard that sort of laugh before.
But Joey fondled the conceit44, and returned to it from time to time; now aloud, now to himself. “All ‘cordions; playin’ any toon as it’s ordered, blimy . . . Are we ‘cordions? I don’t b’lieve we’re as much as that — no, s’elp me! We’re on’y the footlin’ little keys; shoved about to soot45 the toon. Little tin keys, blimy — footlin’ little keys. I’ve bin played on plenty, I ‘ave.”
Dave Burge listened with alarm, and tried to talk of other things. But Joey rarely heard him. “I’ve bin played on plenty, I ‘ave,” he persisted. “I was played on once by a pal6, and my spring broke.”
At nightfall there was mote46 bad luck. They were driven from a likely barn by a leather-gaitered man with a dog, and for some distance no dormitory could be found. Then it was a cut haystack, with a nest near the top and steps to reach it.
In the night Burge was wakened by a clammy hand upon his face. There was a thick mist.
“It’s you, Dave, ain’t it?” Clayton was saying. “Good Gawd! I thought I’d lawst you. What’s all this ’ere — not the water, is it? — not the dock? I’m soppin’ wet.”
Burge himself was wet to the skin. He made Joey lie down, and told him to sleep; but a coughing fit prevented that. “It was them ‘cordions woke me,” he explained when it was over.
So the night put on the shuddering47 gray of the fore-dawn. And the two tramps left their perch48, and betook them, shivering and stamping, to the road.
That morning Joey had short fits of dizziness and faintness.
“It’s my spring broke,” he would say after such an attack. “Bloomin’ little tin key put out o’ toon.” And once he added, “I’m up to one toon, though, now: this ’ere bloomin’ Dead March.”
Just at the outskirts49 of a town, where he stopped to cough over a gate, a stout50 old lady, walking out with a shaggy little dog, gave him a shilling. Dave Burge picked it up as it dropped from his incapable51 hand, and “Joey, ’ere’s a bob,” he said, “a lady give it you. You come an’ git a drop o’ beer.”
They carried a twopenny loaf into the tap-room of a small tavern52, and Dave had mild ale himself, but saw that Joey was served with stout with a penn’orth of gin in it. Soon the gin and stout reached Joey’s head, and drew it to the table. And he slept, leaving the rest of the shilling where it lay.
Dave arose, and stuffed the last of the twopenny loaf into his pocket. He took a piece of chalk from the bagatelle53 board in the corner, and wrote this on the table: “dr. sir, for god sake take him to the work House.”
Then he gathered up the coppers where they lay, and stepped quietly into the street.
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收听单词发音
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1
waylaid
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| v.拦截，拦路( waylay的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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2
regiments
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| （军队的）团( regiment的名词复数 )； 大量的人或物 | |
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bin
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| n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件 | |
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4
nourishment
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| n.食物，营养品；营养情况 | |
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stolid
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| adj.无动于衷的，感情麻木的 | |
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pal
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| n.朋友，伙伴，同志；vi.结为友 | |
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7
footpath
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| n.小路，人行道 | |
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8
accordion
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| n.手风琴；adj.可折叠的 | |
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9
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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10
harangue
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| n.慷慨冗长的训话，言辞激烈的讲话 | |
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11
skulk
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| v.藏匿；潜行 | |
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12
wrings
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| 绞( wring的第三人称单数 )； 握紧（尤指别人的手）； 把（湿衣服）拧干； 绞掉（水） | |
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13
placidly
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| adv.平稳地，平静地 | |
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14
pint
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| n.品脱 | |
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15
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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improvidence
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| n.目光短浅 | |
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knack
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| n.诀窍，做事情的灵巧的，便利的方法 | |
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18
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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19
aggravated
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| 使恶化( aggravate的过去式和过去分词 )； 使更严重； 激怒； 使恼火 | |
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20
whooping
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| 发嗬嗬声的，发咳声的 | |
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21
whooped
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| 叫喊( whoop的过去式和过去分词 )； 高声说； 唤起 | |
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22
coppers
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| 铜( copper的名词复数 )； 铜币 | |
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helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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24
lengthily
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| adv.长，冗长地 | |
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lone
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| adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的 | |
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26
hurdles
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| n.障碍( hurdle的名词复数 )；跳栏；（供人或马跳跃的）栏架；跨栏赛 | |
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27
snuggest
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| adj.整洁的( snug的最高级 )；温暖而舒适的；非常舒适的；紧身的 | |
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28
apprehensive
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| adj.担心的，恐惧的，善于领会的 | |
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29
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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30
lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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31
diverge
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| v.分叉，分歧，离题，使...岔开，使转向 | |
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32
stamina
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| n.体力；精力；耐力 | |
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33
tottered
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| v.走得或动得不稳( totter的过去式和过去分词 )；踉跄；蹒跚；摇摇欲坠 | |
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34
twig
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| n.小树枝，嫩枝；v.理解 | |
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35
sneaked
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| v.潜行( sneak的过去式和过去分词 )；偷偷溜走；（儿童向成人）打小报告；告状 | |
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36
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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37
pawned
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| v.典当，抵押( pawn的过去式和过去分词 )；以（某事物）担保 | |
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38
wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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39
turnip
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| n.萝卜，芜菁 | |
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40
trudged
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| vt.& vi.跋涉，吃力地走（trudge的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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41
flouting
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| v.藐视，轻视( flout的现在分词 ) | |
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42
grunted
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| （猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的过去式和过去分词 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说 | |
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43
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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44
conceit
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| n.自负，自高自大 | |
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45
soot
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| n.煤烟，烟尘；vt.熏以煤烟 | |
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46
mote
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| n.微粒；斑点 | |
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47
shuddering
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| v.战栗( shudder的现在分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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48
perch
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| n.栖木，高位，杆；v.栖息，就位，位于 | |
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49
outskirts
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| n.郊外，郊区 | |
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51
incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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52
tavern
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| n.小旅馆，客栈；小酒店 | |
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53
bagatelle
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| n.琐事；小曲儿 | |
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