"Mr. Hulings, sir," he stammered4, "Wishon has been shot—killed."
"Impossible!" he ejaculated.
But instantly Alexander Hulings was convinced that it was true. His momentary6 confidence, vigor7, receded8 before the piling adversities, bent9 apparently10 upon his destruction.
"Yes, his body is coming up now. All we know is, a watchman saw him standing11 at a window of the Wooddrop Mills after hours, and shot him for trespassing—spying on their process." Alexander's first thought was not of the man just killed, but of old Conrad, longer dead. He had been a faithful, an invaluable12, assistant; without him Hulings would never have risen. And now he had been the cause of his son's death! A sharp regret seized him, but he grew rapidly calm before the excitement of the inferior before him.
"Keep this quiet for the moment," he commanded.
"Quiet!" the other cried. "It's already known all over the mountains. Wishon's workmen have quit coaling. They swear they will get Wood-drop's superintendent13 and hang him."
"Where are they?" Hulings demanded.
The other became sullen14, uncommunicative. "We want to pay them for this," he muttered. "No better man lived than Wishon."
Alexander at once told his wife of the accident. She was still surprisingly contained, though pale. "Our men must be controlled," she asserted. "No further horrors!"
Her attitude, he thought, was exactly right; it was neither callous15 nor hysterical16. He was willing to assume the burden of his responsibilities. It was an ugly, a regrettable, occurrence; but men had been killed in his employ before—not a week passed without an accident, and if he lost his head in a welter of sentimentality he might as well shut down at once. Some men lived, struggled upward. It was a primary part of the business of success to keep alive.
Gisela had correctly found the real danger of their position—the thing must go no further. The sky had clouded and a cold rain commenced to fall. He could, however, pay no attention to the weather; he rose from a partial dinner and departed on a score of complicated and difficult errands. But his main concern, to locate and dominate the mobbing charcoal17 burners, evaded18 his straining efforts. He caught rumors19, echoed threats; once he almost overtook them; yet, with scouts20 placed, they avoided him.
He sent an urgent message to John Wooddrop, and, uncertain of its delivery, himself drove in search of the other; but Wooddrop was out somewhere in his wide holdings; the superintendent could not be located. A sense of an implacable fatality21 hung over him; every chance turned against him, mocked the insecurity of his boasted position, deepened the abyss waiting for his suspended fall.
He returned finally, baffled and weary, to his house; yet still tense with the spirit of angry combat. A species of fatalism now enveloped22 him in the conviction that he had reached the zenith of his misfortunes; if he could survive the present day.... A stableman met him at the veranda23.
"Mrs. Hulings has gone," the servant told him. "A man came looking for you. It seems they had Wooddrop's manager back in the Mills tract24 and were going to string him up. But you couldn't be found. Mrs. Hulings, she went to stop it."
An inky cloud floated nauseously before his eyes—not himself alone, but Gisela, dragged into the dark whirlpool gathered about his destiny! He was momentarily stunned25, with twitching26 hands and a riven, haggard face, remembering the sodden27 brutality28 of the men he had seen in the smoke of charring, isolated29 stacks; and then a sharp energy seized him.
"How long back?" Hulings demanded.
"An hour or more, perhaps a couple."
Alexander raged at the mischance that had sent Gisela on such an errand. Nothing, he felt, with Wooddrop's manager secured, would halt the charcoal burners' revenge of Wishon's death. The rain now beat down in a heavy diagonal pour, and twilight30 was gathering31.
"We must go at once for Mrs. Hulings," he said. Then he saw Gisela approaching, accompanied by a small knot of men. She walked directly up to him, her crinoline soggy with rain, her hair plastered on her brow; but her deathly pallor drove everything else from his observation. She shuddered32 slowly, her skirt dripping ceaselessly about her on the sod.
"I was too late!" she said in a dull voice. "They had done it!" She covered her eyes, moved back from the men beside her, from him. "Swinging a little... all alone! So sudden—there, before me!" A violent shivering seized her.
"Come," Alexander Hulings said hoarsely33; "you must get out of the wet. Warm things. Immediately!"
He called imperatively34 for Gisela's maid, and together they assisted her up to her room. Above, Gisela had a long, violent chill; and he sent a wagon35 for the doctor at Harmony.
The doctor arrived, and mounted the stairs; but, half an hour later, he would say little. Alexander Hulings commanded him to remain in the house. The lines deepened momentarily on the former's countenance36; he saw himself unexpectedly in a shadowy pier37 glass, and stood for a long while subconsciously38 surveying the lean, grizzled countenance that followed his gaze out of the immaterial depths. "Alexander Hulings," he said aloud, in a tormented39 mockery; "the master of—of life!" He was busy with the local marshal when the doctor summoned him from the office.
"Your wife," the other curtly40 informed him, "has developed pneumonia41."
Hulings steadied himself with a hand against a wall.
"Pneumonia!" he repeated, to no one in particular. "Send again for John Wooddrop."
He was seated, a narrow, rigid42 figure, waiting for the older man, in the midst of gorgeous upholstery. Two facts hammered with equal persistence43 on his numbed44 brain: one that all his projects, his dream of power, of iron, now approached ruin, and the other that Gisela had pneumonia. It was a dreadful thing that she had come on in the Mills tract! The Columbus System must triumphantly45 absorb all that he had, that he was to be. Gisela had been chilled to the bone; pneumonia! It became difficult and then impossible to distinguish one from the other—Gisela and the iron were inexplicably46 welded in the poised47 catastrophe48 of his ambition.
Alexander Hulings rose, his thin lips pinched, his eyes mere5 sparks, his body tense, as if he were confronting the embodied49 force that had checked him. He stood upright, so still that he might have been cast in the metal that had formed his vision of power, holding an unquailing mien50. His inextinguishable pride cloaked him in a final contempt for all that life, that fate, might do. Then his rigidity51 was assaulted by John Wooddrop's heavy and hurried entrance into the room.
Hulings briefly52 repeated the doctor's pronouncement Wooddrop's face was darkly pouched53, his unremoved hat a mere wet film, and he left muddy exact footprints wherever he stepped on the velvet54 carpet.
"By heaven!" he quavered, his arms upraised.
"If between us we have killed her——" His voice abruptly55 expired.
As Alexander Hulings watched him the old man's countenance grew livid, his jaw56 dropped; he was at the point of falling. He gasped57, his hands beating the air; then the unnatural58 color receded, words became distinguishable: "Gisela!... Never be forgiven! Hellish!" It was as if Death had touched John Wooddrop on the shoulder, dragging a scarifying hand across his face, and then briefly, capriciously, withdrawn59.
"Hulings! Hulings," he articulated, sinking weakly on a chair, "we must save her. And, anyhow, God knows we were blind!" He peered out of suffused60 rheumy eyes at Alexander, appalling61 in his sudden disintegration62 under shock and the weight of his years. "I'm done!" he said tremulously. "And there's a good bit to see to—patent lawyer tomorrow, and English shipments. Swore I'd keep you from it." He held out a hand, "But there's Gisela, brought down between us now, and—and iron's colder than a daughter, a wife. We'd best cover up the past quick as we can!"
At the instant of grasping John Wooddrop's hand Alexander Hulings' inchoate63 emotion shifted to a vast realization64, blotting65 out all else from his mind. In the control of the immense Wooddrop resources he was beyond, above, all competition, all danger. What he had fought for, persistently66 dreamed, had at last come about—he was the greatest Ironmaster of the state!
The End
点击收听单词发音
1 determined | |
adj.坚定的;有决心的 | |
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2 labor | |
n.劳动,努力,工作,劳工;分娩;vi.劳动,努力,苦干;vt.详细分析;麻烦 | |
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3 advantageous | |
adj.有利的;有帮助的 | |
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4 stammered | |
v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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5 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
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6 momentary | |
adj.片刻的,瞬息的;短暂的 | |
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7 vigor | |
n.活力,精力,元气 | |
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8 receded | |
v.逐渐远离( recede的过去式和过去分词 );向后倾斜;自原处后退或避开别人的注视;尤指问题 | |
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9 bent | |
n.爱好,癖好;adj.弯的;决心的,一心的 | |
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10 apparently | |
adv.显然地;表面上,似乎 | |
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11 standing | |
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的 | |
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12 invaluable | |
adj.无价的,非常宝贵的,极为贵重的 | |
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13 superintendent | |
n.监督人,主管,总监;(英国)警务长 | |
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14 sullen | |
adj.愠怒的,闷闷不乐的,(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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15 callous | |
adj.无情的,冷淡的,硬结的,起老茧的 | |
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16 hysterical | |
adj.情绪异常激动的,歇斯底里般的 | |
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17 charcoal | |
n.炭,木炭,生物炭 | |
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18 evaded | |
逃避( evade的过去式和过去分词 ); 避开; 回避; 想不出 | |
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19 rumors | |
n.传闻( rumor的名词复数 );[古]名誉;咕哝;[古]喧嚷v.传闻( rumor的第三人称单数 );[古]名誉;咕哝;[古]喧嚷 | |
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20 scouts | |
侦察员[机,舰]( scout的名词复数 ); 童子军; 搜索; 童子军成员 | |
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21 fatality | |
n.不幸,灾祸,天命 | |
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22 enveloped | |
v.包围,笼罩,包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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23 veranda | |
n.走廊;阳台 | |
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24 tract | |
n.传单,小册子,大片(土地或森林) | |
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25 stunned | |
adj. 震惊的,惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
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26 twitching | |
n.颤搐 | |
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27 sodden | |
adj.浑身湿透的;v.使浸透;使呆头呆脑 | |
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28 brutality | |
n.野蛮的行为,残忍,野蛮 | |
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29 isolated | |
adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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30 twilight | |
n.暮光,黄昏;暮年,晚期,衰落时期 | |
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31 gathering | |
n.集会,聚会,聚集 | |
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32 shuddered | |
v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 );发抖;(机器、车辆等)突然震动;颤动 | |
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33 hoarsely | |
adv.嘶哑地 | |
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34 imperatively | |
adv.命令式地 | |
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35 wagon | |
n.四轮马车,手推车,面包车;无盖运货列车 | |
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36 countenance | |
n.脸色,面容;面部表情;vt.支持,赞同 | |
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37 pier | |
n.码头;桥墩,桥柱;[建]窗间壁,支柱 | |
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38 subconsciously | |
ad.下意识地,潜意识地 | |
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39 tormented | |
饱受折磨的 | |
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40 curtly | |
adv.简短地 | |
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41 pneumonia | |
n.肺炎 | |
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42 rigid | |
adj.严格的,死板的;刚硬的,僵硬的 | |
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43 persistence | |
n.坚持,持续,存留 | |
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44 numbed | |
v.使麻木,使麻痹( numb的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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45 triumphantly | |
ad.得意洋洋地;得胜地;成功地 | |
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46 inexplicably | |
adv.无法说明地,难以理解地,令人难以理解的是 | |
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47 poised | |
a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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48 catastrophe | |
n.大灾难,大祸 | |
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49 embodied | |
v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 );象征;包括;包含 | |
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50 mien | |
n.风采;态度 | |
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51 rigidity | |
adj.钢性,坚硬 | |
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52 briefly | |
adv.简单地,简短地 | |
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53 pouched | |
adj.袋形的,有袋的 | |
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54 velvet | |
n.丝绒,天鹅绒;adj.丝绒制的,柔软的 | |
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55 abruptly | |
adv.突然地,出其不意地 | |
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56 jaw | |
n.颚,颌,说教,流言蜚语;v.喋喋不休,教训 | |
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57 gasped | |
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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58 unnatural | |
adj.不自然的;反常的 | |
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59 withdrawn | |
vt.收回;使退出;vi.撤退,退出 | |
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60 suffused | |
v.(指颜色、水气等)弥漫于,布满( suffuse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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61 appalling | |
adj.骇人听闻的,令人震惊的,可怕的 | |
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62 disintegration | |
n.分散,解体 | |
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63 inchoate | |
adj.才开始的,初期的 | |
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64 realization | |
n.实现;认识到,深刻了解 | |
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65 blotting | |
吸墨水纸 | |
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66 persistently | |
ad.坚持地;固执地 | |
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