“Caught sight of any Rebs yet since you been here, Irish?” he asked, as the two stood halted before his tent.
“I saw some prisoners at what they call City Point, th’ day before yesterday—the most starved and miserable5 divils ever I laid eyes on. That’s what I thought thin, but I know betther now. Sure they were princes compared wid me this noight.”
“Well, it’s dollars to doughnuts them are their lights over yonder on the ridge6,” said Zeke.
“You’ll see enough of ’em to-morrow to last a lifetime.”
Linksy looked with interest upon the row of dim sparks which now crowned the whole long crest7. He had brought his blanket, knapsack and rifle from the stacks outside company headquarters, and stood holding them as he gazed.
“Faith,” he said at last, “if they’re no more desirous of seeing me than I am thim, there’s been a dale of throuble wasted in coming so far for both of us.”
Zeke, for answer, chuckled8 audibly, and the sound of this was succeeded by a low, soft gurgling noise, as he lifted the flask9 to his mouth and threw back his head. Then, after a satisfied “A-h!” he said:
“Well, we’d better be turning in now,” and kicked aside the door-flap of his tent.
“And is it here we’re to sleep?” asked Linsky, making out with difficulty the outlines of the little hut-like tent.
“I guess there won’t be much sleep about it, but this is our shebang. Wait a minute.” He disappeared momentarily within the tent, entering it on all-fours, and emerged with an armful of sticks and paper. “Now you can dump your things inside there. I’ll have a fire out here in the jerk of a lamb’s tail.”
The Irishman crawled in in turn, and presently, by the light of the blaze his companion had started outside, was able to spread out his blanket in some sort, and even to roll himself up in it, without tumbling the whole edifice10 down. There was a scant11 scattering12 of straw upon which to lie, but underneath13 this he could feel the chill of the damp earth. He managed to drag his knapsack under his head to serve as a pillow, and then, shivering, resigned himself to fate.
The fire at his feet burned so briskly that soon he began to be pleasantly conscious of its warmth stealing through the soles of his thick, wet soles.
“I’m thinkin’ I’ll take off me boots,” he called out. “Me feet are just perished wid the cold.”
“No. You couldn’t get ’em on again, p’r’aps, when we’re called, and I don’t want any such foolishness as that. When we get out, it’ll have to be at the drop of the hat—double quick. How many rounds of cartridges15 you got?”
“This bag of mine they gave me is that filled wid ’em the weight of it would tip an outside car.”
“Can you shoot?”
“I don’t know if I can. I haven’t tried that same yet.”
A long silence ensued, Zeke squatting16 on a cracker-box beside the fire, flask in hand, Linsky concentrating his attention upon the warmth at the soles of his feet, and drowsily17 mixing up the Galtee Mountains with the fire-crowned hills of a strange, new world, upon one of which he lay. Then all at once he was conscious that Zeke had crept into the tent, and was lying curled close beside him, and that the fire outside had sunk to a mass of sparkless embers. He half rose from his recumbent posture18 before these things displaced his dreams; then, as he sank back again, and closed his eyes to settle once more into sleep, Zeke spoke19:
“Don’t do that again! You got to lie still here, or you’ll bust20 the hull21 combination. If you want to turn over, tell me, and we’ll flop22 together—otherwise you’ll have the thing down on our heads.” There came another pause, and Linsky almost believed himself to be asleep again. But Zeke was wakeful.
“Say, Irish,” he began, “that country of yourn must be a pretty tough place, if this kind of thing strikes you fellows as an improvement on it.”
“Sur,” said Linsky, with sleepy dignity, “ther’s no other counthry on earth fit to buckle23 Ireland’s shoe’s—no offence to you.”
“Yes, you always give us that; but if it’s so fine a place, why in ——— don’t you stay there? What do you all pile over here for?”
“I came to America on business,” replied Linsky, stiffly.
“Business of luggin’ bricks up a ladder!”
“Sur, I’m a solicitor’s clark.”
“How do you mean—‘Clark?’ Thought your name was Linsky?”
“It’s what you call ‘clurk’—a lawyer’s clurk—and I’ll be a lawyer mesilf, in toime.”
“That’s worse still. There’s seven hundred times as many lawyers here already as anybody wants.”
“I had no intintion of stoppin’. My business was to foind a certain man, the heir to a great estate in Ireland, and thin to returrun; but I didn’t foind my man—and—sure, it’s plain enough I didn’t returrun, ayether; and I’ll go to sleep now, I’m thinkin’.” Zeke paid no attention to the hint.
“Go on,” he said. “Why didn’t you go back, Irish?”
“It’s aisy enough,” Linsky replied, with a sigh. “Tin long weeks was I scurryin’ from wan14 ind of the land to the other, lukkin’ for this invisible divil of a Hugh O’Mahony”—Zeke stretched out his feet here with a sudden movement, unnoted by the other—“makin’ inquiries24 here, foindin’ traces there, gettin’ laughed at somewhere else, till me heart was broke entoirely. ‘He’s in the army,’ says they. ‘Whereabouts?’ says I. Here, there, everwhere they sint me on a fool’s errand. Plintv of places I came upon where he had been, but divil a wan where he was; and thin I gave it up and wint to New York to sail, and there I made some fri’nds, and wint out wid ’em and they spoke fair, and I drank wid ’em, and, faith, whin I woke I was a soldier, wid brass25 buttons on me and a gun; and that’s the truth of it—worse luck! And now I’ll sleep!”
“And this Hugh What-d’ye-call-him—the fellow you was huntin’ after—where did he live before the war?”
“’Twas up in New York State—a place they call Tecumsy—he’d been a shoemaker there for years. I have here among me papers all they know about him and his family there. It wan’t much, but it makes his identity plain, and that’s the great thing.”
“And what d’ye reckon has become of him?”
“If ye ask me in me capacity as solicitor’s clark, I’d say that, for purposes of law, he’d be aloive till midsummer day next, and thin doy be process of statutory neglict, and niver know it as long as he lives; but if you ask me proivate opinion, he’s as dead as a mackerel; and, if he isn’t, he will be in good toime, and divil a ha’porth of shoe-leather will I waste more on him. And now good-noight to ye, sur!”
Linsky fell to snoring before any reply came. Zeke had meant to tell him that they were to rise at three and set out upon a venturesome vidette-post expedition together. He wondered now what it was that had prompted him to select this raw and undrilled Irishman as his comrade in the enterprise which lay before him. Without finding an answer, his mind wandered drowsily to another question—Ought O’Mahony to be told of the search for him or not? That vindictive26 and sullen27 Hughie should be heir to anything seemed an injustice28 to all good fellows; but heir to what Linsky called a great estate!—that was ridiculous! What would an ignorant cobbler like him do with an estate?
Zeke was not quite clear in his mind as to what an “estate” was, but obviously it must be something much too good for O’Mahony. And why, sure enough! Only a fortnight before, while they were still at Fort Davis, this O’Mahony had refused to mend his boot for him, even though his frost-bitten toes had pushed their way to the daylight between the sole and upper. Zeke could feel the toes ache perceptibly as he thought on this affront29. Sleepy as he was, it grew apparent to him that O’Mahony would probably never hear of that inheritance; and then he went off bodily into dream-land, and was the heir himself, and violently resisted O’Mahony’s attempts to dispossess him, and—and then it was three o’clock, and the sentry was rolling him to and fro on the ground with his foot to wake him.
“Sh-h! Keep as still as you can,” Zeke admonished30 the bewildered Linsky, when he, too, had been roused to consciousness. “We mustn’t stir up the camp.”
“Is it desertin’ ye are?” asked the Irishman, rubbing his eyes and sitting upright.
“Sh-h! you fool—no! Feel around for your gun and knapsack and cap, and bring ’em out,” whispered Zeke from the door of the tent.
Linsky obeyed mechanically, groping in the utter darkness for what seemed to him an age, and then crawling awkwardly forth31. As he rose to his feet, he could hardly distinguish his companion standing32 beside him. Only faint, dusky pillars of smoke, reddish at the base, gray above, rising like slenderest palms to fade in the obscurity overhead, showed where the fires in camp had been. The clouded sky was black as ink.
“Fill your pockets with cartridges,” he heard Zeke whisper. “We’ll prob’ly have to scoot for our lives. We don’t want no extra load of knapsacks.”
It strained Linsky’s other perceptions even more than it did his sight to follow his comrade in the tramp which now began. He stumbled over roots and bushes, sank knee-deep in swampy33 holes, ran full tilt34 into trees and fences, until it seemed to him they must have traveled miles, and he could hardly drag one foot after the other. The first shadowy glimmer35 of dawn fell upon them after they had accomplished36 a short but difficult descent from the ridge and stood at its foot, on the edge of a tiny, alder-fringed brook37. The Irishman sat down on a fallen log for a minute to rest; the while Zeke, as fresh and cool as the morning itself, glanced critically about him.
“Yes, here we are,” he said as last. “We can strike through here, get up the side hill, and sneak38 across by the hedge into the house afore it’s square daylight. Come on, and no noise now!”
Linsky took up his gun and followed once more in the other’s footsteps as well as might be. The growing light from the dull-gray east made it a simpler matter now to get along, but he still stumbled so often that Zeke cast warning looks backward upon him more than once. At last they reached the top of the low hill which had confronted them.
It was near enough to daylight for Linsky to see, at the distance of an eighth of a mile, a small, red farm-house, flanked by a larger barn. A tolerably straight line of thick hedge ran from close by where they stood, to within a stone’s throw of the house. All else was open pasture and meadow land.
“Now bend your back,” said Zeke. “We’ve got to crawl along up this side of the fence till we git opposite that house, and then, somehow or other, work across to it without bein’ seen.”
“Who is it that would see us?”
“Why, you blamed fool, them woods there”—pointing to a long strip of undergrowth woodland beyond the house—“are as thick with Johnnies as a dog is with fleas39.”
“Thin that house is no place for any dacent man to be in,” said Linsky; but despite this conviction he crouched40 down close behind Zeke and followed him in the stealthy advance along the hedge. It was back-breaking work, but Linsky had stalked partridges behind the ditch-walls of his native land, and was able to keep up with his guide without losing breath.
“Faith, it’s loike walking down burrds,” he whispered ahead; “only that it’s two-legged partridges we’re after this toime.”
“How many legs have they got in Ireland?” Zeke muttered back over his shoulder.
“Arrah, it’s milking-stools I had in moind,” returned Linsky, readily, with a smile.
“Sh-h! Don’t talk. We’re close now.”
Sure enough, the low roof and the top of the big square chimney of stone built outside the red clapboard end of the farmhouse41 were visible near at hand, across the hedge. Zeke bade Linsky sit down, and opening the big blade of a huge jackknife, began to cut a hole through the thorns. Before this aperture42 had grown large enough to permit the passage of a man’s body, full daylight came. It was not a very brilliant affair, this full daylight, for the morning was overcast43 and gloomy, and the woods beyond the house, distant some two hundred yards, were half lost in mist. But there was light enough for Linsky, idly peering through the bushes, to discern a grey-coated sentry pacing slowly along the edge of the woodland. He nudged Zeke, and indicated the discovery by a gesture.
Zeke nodded, after barely lifting his eyes, and then pursued his whittling44.
“I saw him when we first come,” he said, calmly.
“And is it through this hole we’re goin’ out to be kilt?”
“You ask too many questions, Irish,” responded Zeke. He had finished his work and put away the knife. He rolled over now to a half-recumbent posture, folded his hands under his head, and asked:
“How much bounty45 did you git?”
“Is it me? Faith, I was merely a disbursing46 agent in the thransaction. They gave me a roll of paper notes, they said, but divil a wan could I foind when I come to mesilf and found mesilf a soldier. It’s thim new fri’nds o’ moine that got the bounty.”
“So you didn’t enlist47 to git the money?”
“Sorra a word did I know about enlistin’, or bounty, or anything else, for four-and-twenty hours afther the mischief48 was done. Is it money that ’ud recompinse a man for sittin’ here in the mud, waitin’ to be blown to bits by a whole plantation49 full of soldiers, as I am here, God help me? Is it money you say? Faith, I’ve enough to take me back to Cork50 twice over. What more do I want? And I offered the half of it to the captain, or gineral, or whatever he was, to lave me go, when I found what I’d done; but he wouldn’t hearken to me.”
Zeke rolled over to take a glance through the hedge.
“Tell me some more about that fellow you were tryin’ to find,” he said, with his gaze fixed51 on the distant sentry. “What’ll happen now that you haven’t found him?”
“If he remains52 unknown until midsummer-day next, the estate goes to some distant cousins who live convanient to it.”
“And he can’t touch it after that, s’posin’ he should turn up?”
“The law of adverse53 possession is twinty years, and only five of ’em have passed. No; he’d have a claim these fifteen years yet. But rest aisy. He’ll never be heard of.”
“And you wrote and told ’em in Ireland that he couldn’t be found?”
“That I did—or—Wait now! What I wrote was that he was in the army, and I was afther searching for him there. Sure, whin I got to New York, what with the fri’nds and the drink and—and this foine soldiering of moine, I niver wrote at all. It’s God’s mercy I didn’t lose me papers on top of it all, or it would be if I was likely ever to git out of this aloive.”
Zeke lay silent and motionless for a time, watching the prospect54 through this hole in the hedge.
“Hungry, Irish?” he asked at last, with laconic55 abruptness56.
“I’ve a twist on me like the County Kerry in a famine year.”
“Well, then, double yourself up and follow me when I give the word. I’ll bet there’s something to eat in that house. Give me your gun. We’ll put them through first. That’s it. Now, then, when that fellow’s on t’other side of the house. Now!”
With lizard-like swiftness, Zeke made his way through the aperture, and, bending almost double, darted57 across the wet sward toward the house.
Linsky followed him, doubting not that the adventure led to certain death, but hoping that there would be breakfast first.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
patchwork
|
|
| n.混杂物；拼缝物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
sentry
|
|
| n.哨兵，警卫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
descended
|
|
| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
miserable
|
|
| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
ridge
|
|
| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
crest
|
|
| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
chuckled
|
|
| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
flask
|
|
| n.瓶，火药筒，砂箱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
edifice
|
|
| n.宏伟的建筑物(如宫殿，教室) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
scant
|
|
| adj.不充分的，不足的；v.减缩，限制，忽略 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
scattering
|
|
| n.[物]散射；散乱，分散；在媒介质中的散播adj.散乱的；分散在不同范围的；广泛扩散的；（选票）数量分散的v.散射(scatter的ing形式)；散布；驱散 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
underneath
|
|
| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
wan
|
|
| (wide area network)广域网 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
cartridges
|
|
| 子弹( cartridge的名词复数 )； （打印机的）墨盒； 录音带盒； （唱机的）唱头 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
squatting
|
|
| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的现在分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
drowsily
|
|
| adv.睡地，懒洋洋地，昏昏欲睡地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
posture
|
|
| n.姿势，姿态，心态，态度；v.作出某种姿势 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
spoke
|
|
| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
bust
|
|
| vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
hull
|
|
| n.船身；(果、实等的)外壳；vt.去(谷物等)壳 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
flop
|
|
| n.失败(者)，扑通一声；vi.笨重地行动，沉重地落下 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
buckle
|
|
| n.扣子，带扣；v.把...扣住，由于压力而弯曲 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
inquiries
|
|
| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
brass
|
|
| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
vindictive
|
|
| adj.有报仇心的，怀恨的，惩罚的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
sullen
|
|
| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
injustice
|
|
| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
affront
|
|
| n./v.侮辱，触怒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
admonished
|
|
| v.劝告( admonish的过去式和过去分词 )；训诫；（温和地）责备；轻责 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
forth
|
|
| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
swampy
|
|
| adj.沼泽的，湿地的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
tilt
|
|
| v.(使)倾侧；(使)倾斜；n.倾侧；倾斜 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
glimmer
|
|
| v.发出闪烁的微光；n.微光，微弱的闪光 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
accomplished
|
|
| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
brook
|
|
| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
sneak
|
|
| vt.潜行(隐藏,填石缝)；偷偷摸摸做；n.潜行；adj.暗中进行 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
fleas
|
|
| n.跳蚤( flea的名词复数 )；爱财如命；没好气地（拒绝某人的要求） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
crouched
|
|
| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
farmhouse
|
|
| n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
aperture
|
|
| n.孔，隙，窄的缺口 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
overcast
|
|
| adj.阴天的，阴暗的，愁闷的；v.遮盖，（使）变暗，包边缝；n.覆盖，阴天 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
whittling
|
|
| v.切，削（木头），使逐渐变小( whittle的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
bounty
|
|
| n.慷慨的赠予物，奖金；慷慨，大方；施与 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
disbursing
|
|
| v.支出，付出( disburse的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
enlist
|
|
| vt.谋取(支持等)，赢得；征募；vi.入伍 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
mischief
|
|
| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
plantation
|
|
| n.种植园，大农场 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
cork
|
|
| n.软木，软木塞 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
fixed
|
|
| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
remains
|
|
| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
adverse
|
|
| adj.不利的；有害的；敌对的，不友好的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
prospect
|
|
| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
laconic
|
|
| adj.简洁的；精练的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
abruptness
|
|
| n. 突然，唐突 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
darted
|
|
| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |