III A CHARACTER OF HONOR

"Sad was I, even to pain deprest,
Importunate¹ and heavy load!
The comforter hath found me here
Upon this lonely road!"

"Your friend General Sullivan has had his defamers but he goes to prove himself one of our ablest men," said Paul Jones to Hamilton. "I grieve to see that his old father, that lofty spirit and fine wit, is not with us to-night. Sullivan is a soldier born."

"There is something in descent," said Hamilton eagerly. "They come of a line of fighting men famous in the Irish struggles. John Sullivan's grandfather was with Patrick Sarsfield, the great Earl of Lucan, at Limerick, and the master himself, if all tales are true, was much involved in the early plots of the old Pretender. No, sir, he was not out in the '15; he was a student at that time in France, but I dare say ready to lend himself to anything that brought revenge upon England."

"Commend me to your ancient sage² the master," said the captain. "I wish we might have had him here to-night. When we last dined here together he talked not only of our unfortunate King James, but of the great Prince of Conti and Louis Quatorze as if he had seen them yesterday. He was close to many great events in France."

"You speak of our old Master Sullivan," said Major Haggens eagerly, edging his chair a little nearer. "Yes, he knew all those great Frenchmen as he knows his Virgil and Tally³; we are all his pupils here, old men and young; he is master of a little school on Pine Hill; there is no better scholar and gentleman in New England."

"Or Old England either," added Judge Chadbourne.

"They say that he had four countesses to his grandmothers, and that his grandfathers were lords of Beare and Bantry, and princes of Ireland," said the major. "His father was banished⁴ to France by the Stuarts, and died from a duel⁵ there, and the master was brought up in one of their great colleges in Paris where his house held a scholarship. He was reared among the best Frenchmen of his time. As for his coming here, there are many old stories; some say 't was being found in some treasonable plot, and some that 't was for the sake of a lady whom his mother would not let him stoop to marry. He vowed⁶ that she should never see his face again; all his fortunes depended on his mother, so he fled the country.

"With the lady?" asked the captain, with interest, and pushing along the decanter of Madeira.

"No," said the major, stopping to fill his own glass as if it were a pledge of remembrance. "No, he came to old York a bachelor, to the farm of the McIntires, Royalist exiles in the old Cromwell times, and worked there with his hands until some one asked him if he could write a letter, and he wrote it in seven languages. Then the minister, old Mr. Moody⁷, planted him in our grammar school. There had been great lack of classical teaching in all this region for those who would be college bred, and since that early year he has kept his school for lads and now and then for a bright girl or two like Miss Mary Hamilton, and her mother before her."

"One such man who knows the world and holds that rarest jewel, the teacher's gift, can uplift a whole community," said the captain, with enthusiasm. "I see now the cause of such difference between your own and other early planted towns. Master Sullivan has proved himself a nobler prince and leader than any of his ancestry⁸. But what of the lady? I heard many tales of him before I possessed⁹ the pleasure of his acquaintance, and so heard them with indifference¹⁰."

"He had to wife a pretty child of the ship's company, an orphan¹¹ whom he befriended, and later married. She was sprightly¹² and of great beauty in her youth, and was dowered with all the energy in practical things that he had been denied," said the judge. "She came of plain peasant stock, but the poor soul has a noble heart. She flouts¹³ his idleness at one moment, and bewails their poverty, and then falls on her knees to worship him the next, and is as proud as if she had married the lord of the manor¹⁴ at home. The master lacked any true companionship until he bred it for himself. It has been a solitary¹⁵ life and hermitage for either an Irish adventurer or a French scholar and courtier."

"The master can rarely be tempted¹⁶ now from the little south window where he sits with his few books," said Hamilton. "I lived neighbor to him all my young days. Not long ago he went to visit his son James, and walked out with him to see the village at the falls of the Saco. There was an old woman lately come over from Ireland with her grandchildren; they said she remembered things in Charles the Second's time, and was above a hundred years of age. James Sullivan, the judge, thinking to amuse his father, stopped before the house, and out came the old creature, and fell upon her knees. 'My God! 't is the young Prince of Ardea!' says she. 'Oh, I mind me well of your lady mother, sir; 't was in Derry I was born, but I lived a year in Ardea, and yourself was a pretty boy busy with your courting!' The old man burst into tears. 'Let us go, James,' says he, 'or this will break my heart!' but he stopped and said a few words to her in a whisper, and gave the old body his blessing¹⁷ and all that was in his poor purse. He would listen to her no more. 'We need not speak of youth,' he told her; 'we remember it only too well!' A man told me this who stood by and heard the whole."

"'Twas most affecting; it spurs the imagination," said the captain. "If I had but an hour to spare I should ride to see him once more, even by night. You will carry the master my best respects, some of you.

"One last glass, gentlemen, to our noble cause! We may never sit in pleasant company again," he added, and they all rose in their places and stood about the table.

"Haud heigh, my old auntie used to say to me at home. Aim high's the English of it. She was of the bold clan¹⁸ of the MacDuffs, and 't is my own motto in these anxious days. Good-by, gentlemen all!" said the little captain. "I ask for your kind wishes and your prayers."

They all looked at Hamilton, and then at one another, but nobody took it upon himself to speak, so they shook hands warmly and drank their last toast in silence and with deep feeling. It was time to join the ladies; already there was a sound of music across the hall in a great room which had been cleared for the dancing.

1 importunate   

adj.强求的；纠缠不休的

参考例句：

• I would not have our gratitude become indiscreet or importunate.我不愿意让我们的感激变成失礼或勉强。
• The importunate memory was kept before her by its ironic contrast to her present situation.萦绕在心头的这个回忆对当前的情景来说，是个具有讽刺性的对照。

2 sage   

n.圣人，哲人；adj.贤明的，明智的

参考例句：

• I was grateful for the old man's sage advice.我很感激那位老人贤明的忠告。
• The sage is the instructor of a hundred ages.这位哲人是百代之师。

3 tally   

n.计数器，记分，一致，测量；vt.计算，记录，使一致；vi.计算，记分，一致

参考例句：

• Don't forget to keep a careful tally of what you spend.别忘了仔细记下你的开支账目。
• The facts mentioned in the report tally to every detail.报告中所提到的事实都丝毫不差。

4 banished   

v.放逐，驱逐( banish的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He was banished to Australia, where he died five years later. 他被流放到澳大利亚，五年后在那里去世。
• He was banished to an uninhabited island for a year. 他被放逐到一个无人居住的荒岛一年。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 duel   

n./v.决斗；(双方的)斗争

参考例句：

• The two teams are locked in a duel for first place.两个队为争夺第一名打得难解难分。
• Duroy was forced to challenge his disparager to duel.杜洛瓦不得不向诋毁他的人提出决斗。

6 vowed   

起誓，发誓（vow的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• He vowed quite solemnly that he would carry out his promise. 他非常庄严地发誓要实现他的诺言。
• I vowed to do more of the cooking myself. 我发誓自己要多动手做饭。

7 moody   

adj.心情不稳的，易怒的，喜怒无常的

参考例句：

• He relapsed into a moody silence.他又重新陷于忧郁的沉默中。
• I'd never marry that girl.She's so moody.我决不会和那女孩结婚的。她太易怒了。

8 ancestry   

n.祖先，家世

参考例句：

• Their ancestry settled the land in 1856.他们的祖辈1856年在这块土地上定居下来。
• He is an American of French ancestry.他是法国血统的美国人。

9 possessed   

adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的

参考例句：

• He flew out of the room like a man possessed.他像着了魔似地猛然冲出房门。
• He behaved like someone possessed.他行为举止像是魔怔了。

10 indifference   

n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎

参考例句：

• I was disappointed by his indifference more than somewhat.他的漠不关心使我很失望。
• He feigned indifference to criticism of his work.他假装毫不在意别人批评他的作品。

11 orphan   

n.孤儿；adj.无父母的

参考例句：

• He brought up the orphan and passed onto him his knowledge of medicine.他把一个孤儿养大，并且把自己的医术传给了他。
• The orphan had been reared in a convent by some good sisters.这个孤儿在一所修道院里被几个好心的修女带大。

12 sprightly   

adj.愉快的，活泼的

参考例句：

• She is as sprightly as a woman half her age.她跟比她年轻一半的妇女一样活泼。
• He's surprisingly sprightly for an old man.他这把年纪了，还这么精神，真了不起。

13 flouts   

v.藐视，轻视( flout的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

14 manor   

n.庄园，领地

参考例句：

• The builder of the manor house is a direct ancestor of the present owner.建造这幢庄园的人就是它现在主人的一个直系祖先。
• I am not lord of the manor,but its lady.我并非此地的领主，而是这儿的女主人。

15 solitary   

adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士

参考例句：

• I am rather fond of a solitary stroll in the country.我颇喜欢在乡间独自徜徉。
• The castle rises in solitary splendour on the fringe of the desert.这座城堡巍然耸立在沙漠的边际，显得十分壮美。

16 tempted   

v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词）

参考例句：

• I was sorely tempted to complain, but I didn't. 我极想发牢骚，但还是没开口。
• I was tempted by the dessert menu. 甜食菜单馋得我垂涎欲滴。

17 blessing   

n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿

参考例句：

• The blessing was said in Hebrew.祷告用了希伯来语。
• A double blessing has descended upon the house.双喜临门。

18 clan   

n.氏族，部落，宗族，家族，宗派

参考例句：

• She ranks as my junior in the clan.她的辈分比我小。
• The Chinese Christians,therefore,practically excommunicate themselves from their own clan.所以，中国的基督徒简直是被逐出了自己的家族了。