??And the sea-tides tossing free,
And Spanish sailors with bearded lips
And the beauty and mystery of the ships
??And the magic of the sea.
Longfellow, “My Lost Youth.”
I
Blackwater Hall, the home of Daniel Quarles and his granddaughter, was none of your old manor-houses with mullioned windows and carven music-galleries, fallen in grandeur3 and rent. It had barely done yeoman’s service, being just a low whitewashed4 and thatched cottage, whose upper windows under the overhanging eaves seemed deep-set eyes under jutting6 brows. Nor was it near the Blackwater, though from its comparatively high ground the broadening river first began to glimmer8 on the view when you came to the edge of Bradmarsh Common and looked across its brown expanse towards the bluish haze9 of the background.
It was in reality nearer the Brad, which as seen foreshortened from it seemed to lave the roof of Frog Farm and sentinel it with its willows10. Blackwater Hall should in fact—Jinny would jest—have been called Common Cottage. For it was just a way of living on the Common, protected from the elements, yet sucked up into them: a sort of transparent11, transpirable shell amid this universal flying, fluttering, hopping12, creeping, crawling, soaring, swooping13, scampering14, twisting, droning, humming, buzzing, barking, chirping15, croaking16, cawing, and singing: a human nest niched on the edge of a chaos17 of twigs18, roots, old amorphous19 trunks, tangled20 faded fern-branches, mossy patches, gorse, ferruginous-leaved oaks, shrubs21, ant-heaps innumerable, rabbit-warrens, wild apple, wild plum, black heather, and endless stubs to catch the feet, or branches to whip the face, or thorns to prick22 the fingers. A garden path to the Hall lay between homely23 flowers, periwinkle and marigold and the like.
Behind the Hall lay the Quarles estate of an acre and a lug26 or two, with its poultry-run, its tethered goats, its vegetables, its clothes-lines, its thatched stables, its odd sheds and little barn, and its well. If Daniel Quarles was not nid-nodding over his big Bible or on the bench in the front porch, or pruning27 the vine over the kitchen door, or exercising his lopping and topping rights on the Common, it was here the nonagenarian was to be found pottering: planting, hoeing, watering, or weeding. He would usually groom28 Methusalem of a morning—it was his way of asserting his hold over the business—and on Tuesday and Friday evenings, when the wayworn Jinny drove up along the grassy29 path ’twixt cottage and Common, rutted only from her own wheels, he would generally rub down Methusalem after high tea. Otherwise the multiform labour of house and land, of cooking and bread-baking and goat-milking and scrubbing and washing, all fell upon the little Carrier. And even the work the Gaffer did was far outbalanced by the work he made.
And yet it was Daniel’s personality, not Jinny’s, that was impressed on the house, even as his name remained on the cart. Her own exiguous30 claim upon life combined with piety31 and affection to leave everything as she had found it when he brought her here; not only in the big attic32 where eight had once huddled33 and which he now occupied in solitary34 state, sadly conscious of the great, snoreless silences, but in both the ground-floor rooms over which it stretched. The one with the window was the living-room, and the other—on which the front door opened and where a Dutch clock with hanging weights greeted the visitor with a cheery tick that relieved its deadness—was piled pell-mell with old cypress35 chests and other-litter of the progeny36 he had outlived, as well as with a few boxes or parcels left by neighbouring clients or as yet undelivered to them. These two rooms communicating, the box-room served both as a business office and a passage to the living-room, from the rear of which you ascended37 by a door the wriggling38 staircase to the patriarch’s big bedroom, or tumbled down two steps from another doorway39 to a combination of kitchen, larder40, wood-cellar, and scullery, lit up and aired by one small swinging pane41, a den7 which even Jinny could not keep free of cobwebs and smells. Here was the Gaffer’s beer-barrel, and the thumb-hole tray, painted with tigers, on which she brought in his morning draught42 from it. Here also were the jug43 and basin of her toilette, for bedroom Jinny had none; the need of disturbing the ancient chests or the office—which would have been a sad blow to her grandfather—being avoided through the fortunate talent of the chest of drawers in the living-room for turning into a bed. Its drawers, in which the bedding was concealed44, would come out and hook on to one another, while legs would swivel out from beneath them.
It was not gay—this room-of-all-work—despite its over-population of china shepherdesses with their swains and hounds and its rank growth of dried grass in vases—all doubled and distorted by the cracked, fustily gilt45 mirror on the mantelpiece—for the oaken beams of the ceiling, from which hung a gigantic rusty46 key, had been plastered over, and the walls—in a similar quest of gentility—dulled with a grey paper, sedulously47 rematched when it fell to pieces; far livelier was the staircase paper—all hearts and roses—if only you could have seen it in the dusky windings48 and under the menacing bulge49 of the plaster ceiling.
Apart from the shepherdesses and vases, among which Jinny was not sorry to see a growing mortality, as the Gaffer fumbled50 for his spectacles, the room was not over-furnished, a small carved wooden settle by the cavernous hearth51, a small square, central table without flaps, two squat52 and cushioned arm-chairs, with one prim53 wooden chair, and a little lamp with a monstrous54 fat globe, constituting almost the minimum of necessaries; even their united libraries, the Gaffer’s Family Bible and Jinny’s “Peculiar55 Hymn-Book” and “Universal Spelling-Book,” being constrained56 to repose57, like the shepherdesses, on top of the chest of drawers—that shifty piece of furniture whose mysterious recesses58 secreted59 also the hymn-book recovered from the bushes. That article of bigotry60 and virtue61, hurled62 from him by the angry boy, lay—long-forgotten—in the top drawer behind the rolled-up wire mattress63 that uncoiled by a spring.
Yet this shabby room with its drab paper and squat furniture—vivified most of the year only by that tireless tick of the Dutch clock from the office, or the purring of the kettle from the kitchen—made for Jinny the holy conception of home. The very cracks in the mirror had become second nature; a glass that looked one squarely in the face would have put her eye out, and if in an utterly64 impossible moment the Gaffer had considerately replaced the old one, the tresses she tamed into seemliness by it would have been a sorry sight. Here, without books or friends, mere65 living was a happiness, especially at night after Gran’fer, whose big Bible invariably turned from a table-book into a pillow, had woke up and remarked he was getting sleepy, and been steered66 up the corkscrew staircase to his bed. Then, in a silence broken by no human sound—save the snoring of the Gaffer from above—and in a security symbolized67 by the unlocked gates and doors, Jinny would sit in delicious relaxation68 with her sewing or knitting or bonnet-trimming, finding compensation for the long laborious69 day: listening in summer to the late singing birds or gazing in winter at the glowing logs with their delicate flicker70 of blue, while Nip in his virtuous72 basket snored in harmony with the Gaffer or uttered joyous73 yells in his dream-hunting.
In those hours Jinny demanded nothing of man or God, though when she had produced her bed like a conjurer out of its mahogany recesses, prayers came automatically to the sleepy little figure kneeling beside it, with the dark hair flowing over the white shoulders.
That was a pretty sight, but only the cracked mirror saw it.
II
Yet back, deep back in Jinny’s baby consciousness, lay another home altogether, a home richer in comfort and love; giving not on a tumbling common, but on a strange, flat waterside—with stately dream-ships in swelling74 white, and black barges75, and little boats with ochre or orange sails, and a pervading77 savour of salt and mud; the real Blackwater Hall she felt dimly, though its name escaped her.
In this overlaid life there was a filmy female figure that fed and bathed and rocked one, and kissed the place one had banged, and sometimes held one as passionately78 as if against some monster that was trying to tear one’s face from that flower-soft cheek; it could scarcely be that burly figure, spasmodically appearing and disappearing, for that too was kind in its different way, and had a knee less cumbered by clothes across which one could ride astride, and pullable hair on its face and curling smoke issuing from its mouth more profusely79 than from the kettle’s. Out of this general background, like mountains from a plain, stood out a few episodes of peculiar vividness, but of no apparent significance—in one she sat on a rough sea-wall playing with innumerable tiny white shells while a bird hovered80 over her crying, as if trying to induce her to follow it seaward, but before she could do so the female figure had appeared, frantically81 scolding and caressing83, and had carried her, struggling and kicking, back to a cot. In another she was carried by the burly being to a little room with a strange little bulbous window and a queer smell, where she was kissed by an elderly figure with a cocked hat and a fixed84 eye that had a strange affinity85 to the window. Later she seemed to be living in the strange building that held this room: it had a canvas roof, a flag at one end and a mast with ropes at the other, yet puzzlingly was not a ship, for she saw herself running down the stairs to pat Methusalem in the road.
But these shadowy and usually submerged images all leapt into renewed vitality86 one delectable87 Wednesday when, clad in a new black dress, hurriedly stitched together by Miss Gentry88, she divided the driving-board with her grandfather (looking odd in his white funeral smock beside her blackness), while Methusalem, equally refreshed and exhilarated by the novel roads, almost hurried them by square-towered hamlets and dear little bridges spanning crawling streams to the quaint89 cemetery90 where the old man’s sister was to lie. How Nip would have loved the expedition she thought in after days! But he had not yet adopted her.
It was on this trip that she began to hear things that solidified91 the filmy figures—but it was only from the Gaffer’s spasms92 of imprecation tailing off into anecdote93 that she was able in the course of years to piece together her parental94 history. Boldero, she learnt incidentally, was her real name, not Quarles: a correction that mattered less, since nobody had ever called her anything but Jinny. She gathered that the Gaffer had purposely neglected to perpetuate95 her father’s name: he was cancelled and annulled96.
Roger Boldero, she came gradually to understand, was one of those superior souls of uncertain status who, having got command of a little sailing vessel97, were wafted98 joyously99 to and fro, exchanging the silks and spirits of France and the tobacco of Holland for the coins of England without any regard for the benighted100 principles handicapping human intercourse101 by taxation102. Although her father finally came to own the cargoes104 he ran, he was at first the mere carrier for speculative105 capitalists; under cover, moreover, of an honest freight of non-dutiable articles. Carrying was thus in Jinny’s blood, both by land and sea, and it is no marvel106 she made a success of it. But the conjuncture of the two bloods came by the queerest of accidents. The Tommy Devil—the fearsome name of Roger Boldero’s boat was only the Essex name for the swift that flew gigantically in gay wood over its cutwater—being caught one night in a sudden gale107 at a season of high tides, found herself driven towards a lee shore of her native county. It was a perilous108 situation, and rather than be dashed on the beach broadside on, Skipper Boldero put his helm up and daringly essayed to land nose first on the mud. But the lugger, whose lightness was so admirable against the King’s cutters, and which had been still further lightened of her ankers of brandy and stone bottles of Schiedam—these, through an interruption by the blockade men, “waiting to be called for” in certain “fleets” and ditches farther along the coast—could not keep her head against the veering109 welter. With desperate resourcefulness Boldero improvised110 a drogue by lashing111 spars and a spare sail to a rope and trailing it at the stern, and, thus steadied before the wind, the Tommy Devil escaped broaching112 to, and despite the following sea that tilted113 her figurehead into the depths, she was finally dumped high and wet on the beach, on the very verge114 of the sea-wall—both uninjured.
It was a fine piece of seamanship (though aided by the rare steepness of this bit of beach and the high water), and the storm beginning to abate115 and the water to recede116, the sails were lowered and the skipper and crew turned thankfully in. They were not wanting in men—carrying of this kind needed large and able-minded crews—yet all hands being worn out by hours of battling with wind and wave—“dilvered,” as old Daniel put it—a watch was deemed superfluous117 for a vessel no longer at sea, and the Tommy Devil reposed118 from stem to stern with all the soundness of conscious virtue watched over by Providence119.
Now it happened that Lieutenant120 Dap, commander of His Majesty121’s Revenue Cutter, then prowling in the offing in quest of gin-tubs—he had been pressed as a youth, served under Nelson, and had exchanged to the Preventive Service when he married that rustic123 beauty Susannah Quarles, sister of Daniel—was returning with a lantern at the first peep of dawn to the “Leather Bottel,” to knock up his boat’s crew. His anxious day in Brandy Hole Creek124—as everybody called the little place—had ended happily: Susannah’s seventh baby had been safely and punctually launched—and the proud and prolific125 father was anxious to be back sweeping126 up the prizes that led to preferment. It being a high occasion, and to impress Mrs. Dap’s neighbours, he had come ashore127 in a cocked hat, and he felt almost knocked into one when he beheld128, towering over the sea-wall, the great masts of a vessel that loomed129 gigantic in that place and light. He rubbed his one eye—the other he had lost in his original struggle against the pressgang—but the mysterious jetsam remained, and a closer inspection130 showed it the kind of longish craft whose huge lugsails his clumsier man-o’-war could rarely overtake, despite his square sail yards. But boldly, as befitted a man with a Nelsonic eye, and without waiting even to summon his men, he hailed the stranded131 stranger. No reply. Nor did even a shower of such small stones as the muddy beach afforded have any effect on the uncanny bark. There was nothing left but to board her—which the hero achieved single-handed, clambering over the sagging132 bulwark133 and standing134 alone on the slanting135 deck.
Roger Boldero, aroused to find himself challenged by the cocked hat and stony136 eye of the Law, displayed, though blinking at the lantern, as great a sang-froid as in the presence of the elements. There was, in fact, far less danger. Of the forbidden articles only lace was left on board, and lace has been designed by the said watchful137 Providence to occupy small space and be easily invisible. A wink24 to his second in command, and two of the crew who were in excess of the legal number for that small tonnage, smuggled138 themselves overboard—here being one of the advantages of terra firma. The few odd kegs, flagons, and cigar-boxes were the ship’s own stores Boldero maintained, and he would be very glad if the “Commodore” would join him in sampling them now. Softened139 by the title, the bold Dap nevertheless declined: the vessel was his prize, he declared.
“And what is to prevent us taking you as our prize?” asked Roger blandly140, having by now discovered that Dap was alone.
“You can’t move an inch,” said Dap.
“But we shall float off as soon as the tide rises.”
“Precisely. But it won’t come as high again, not till the next spring tide. Meanwhiles I’ve a gig’s crew ashore and a cutter within gunshot.”
Boldero was taken aback. He realized that he was—in nautical141 parlance—“neaped.” What a miserable142 misadventure! What a reward for his seamanship! But, masking his consternation143, he rejoined with a smile, “Then you can’t take your prize in tow either.” He proceeded to point out laughingly that there was no question of capture on either side, that there was not a tittle of evidence against him, that he was an honest trader, as his manifest and cargo103 would show—and that even if His Majesty, through his admirable if over-zealous representative, insisted on taxing his own little modicum144 of alcohol and tobacco, it had not been technically145 landed. The nice point whether a cargo which lands inside its ship instead of outside can be said to have landed, side-tracked the question of the status of the ship herself, and entailed146 so great a consumption of the cheroots and liquor—despite the unearthly hour—that their fiscal147 value must have been considerably148 reduced. But the obdurate149 Dap still insisting they were dutiable, Roger Boldero invited him to seal them up till he sailed, as he had certainly no intention of landing them here. He pointed150 out, however, that though the tide, like Time, waited for no man, he would have to wait for the tide; and that during this disagreeable interval151 the hope of again offering the “Commodore” the cordial, if lop-sided, hospitality of his cabin must disappear if the fomenters of friendship were put in bond. Even this argument might have shattered itself against Dap’s fuddled sense of duty had not the twice aforesaid Providence now sent on board a rival cocked hat with a feather salient. With the growing light the local exciseman—of the shoregoing branch of the service—had likewise discovered the strange quarry152. But the gleam in the hunter’s eye died when Lieutenant Dap introduced him to his friend Boldero, who was celebrating with him the birth of his seventh baby, and whose society for the next month would, he was sure, add to the amenities154 of life in Brandy Hole Creek.
And “my friend Boldero” did not fail to become it, for Lieutenant Dap’s cruising was confined to the waters on whose border he had built his nest: and he was frequently hove to. And during those tedious four weeks, made still more tedious by rain, Boldero had himself rowed out more than once to the “Channel groper” whose black hull155, copious156 white boats, formidable guns and flaming-flannelled red-capped crew were plainly visible from the beached lugger; and he moved genially158 among the blue-trousered tars159 and did full justice to the Lieutenant’s gin-toddy and had his fingers often in the Lieutenant’s snuff-box and lent a sympathetic ear to his methods and devices against those rascally160 smugglers with their man?uvre of rowing dead to windward.
Their spirit-casks were slung163 with ropes, the Lieutenant explained, so that their confederates on shore could load them easily on their horses, but only the other night the blockade-men had discomfited164 a formidable shore-gang of fifty who, despite their stout165 ashpoles, had been unable to carry off anything except their wounded. He would have caught the lugger, too, had she not kept doubling.
The commander of the amphibious Tommy Devil even shared in an exciting, if unsuccessful, chase after a suspicious landing-party, going out with a galley-crew in a rain-storm in a borrowed tarpaulin166 petticoat. And once the one-eyed hero—who felt himself none the less a Nelson because his eye had been lost in resisting entry into the navy—returned Roger Boldero’s visit, and after broaching sundry167 of the happily unsealed kegs, the two skippers repaired arm in arm—the attitude was necessary—to see the seventh baby and present the fond mother with material for a lace cap.
Now while Daniel Quarles’s sister had been lying as helpless as the lugger, his last unmarried daughter, Emma, a beauty still more engaging, was housekeeping for Aunt Susannah and minding the other four children (two were dead). She had come in Daniel Quarles’s cart, and her father was to fetch her again as soon as Susannah was up (or down). He should already have come for her, but the rains had made such glue of the roads that a queerly spelt letter came instead, saying he would wait till they hardened. This delay, brief as it was, sufficed to bring the neaped mariner168 under the spell of the landlocked village maid, so sweet to look on, so serviceable about a house, and so motherly with a baby that the novel thought of matrimony was popped into a rover’s head. She, for her part, was still more swiftly subjugated169 by the jolly Roger and the Tommy Devil, and the mutual170 confession171 was precipitated172 by the opposite menaces of tide and cart, each threatening to bear them apart. It was a race between these and the course of true love, which must flow rapid to flow at all. But it did not flow smooth, for when Daniel Quarles arrived to convey his daughter home and found a rival vehicle waiting uncouthly173 on the beach to bear her off, he roundly damned the “furriner” who aspired174 to be his son-in-law, and he included in his maledictions the Preventive Service and all its works, especially the new baby, not to mention the times and the tides. For though he had long ago found grace and become a Wesleyan, he had embraced the new doctrine175 with the old robustiousness. The natural man was no more to be mitigated177 than a hedgehog. Had he become a Quaker, he would have turned the other cheek in a violent collision with the striker’s jaw178. He enjoyed being angry, and that his wrath179 was “righteous” only added to its zest180. And “righteous” it now was.
The trouble was not that Captain Boldero was a Churchman: the fellow was flippantly ready to embrace anything on earth that included Emma. It was not even that Daniel “suspicioned” him a smuggler162. Smuggling181—even if you had a brother-in-law in the Government—was quite as respectable as poaching, and in days when the rural labourer could not have lived had he not eked182 out his obolus by occasional rabbits (with the necessary vegetables), only an obtuse183 squirearchy could hold that sinful.
But even the squire184 had no opprobrium185 for the smuggler: gentry and peasantry were at one in backing up the manly186 patriot187 who thwarted188 a wicked Government, supplied Britons with the cup that cheers and their country with a fine naval189 reserve and early information of Froggy’s movements. The shores of Essex as of all Britain were honeycombed—apart from their large natural resources and their ruins and haunted houses—with artificial hiding-places, cellars, vaults190, and secret passages, and every man’s hand was against the Ishmael of the Customs House. Farmers left their gates open at night to facilitate the cavalcades191 and coaches-and-six, and were but little surprised to find tea or tobacco coming up overnight on their fields like mushrooms. Even parsons were disposed to regard such treasures as drifted their way as heaven-sent flotsam, and Government circles themselves—in that era of purchasable votes and votable purchases—had not the ethical192 toploftiness which characterizes all Governments to-day. No, it was not Boldero the Smuggler, but Boldero the Smoker193 that found himself hurled into outer darkness the day poor shrinking Emma was borne off in her father’s cart. “No puffing194 pirate shall cross my threshold,” swore Daniel, but the accent was on the puffing, not the pirate. For tobacco had become tabu in the Wesleyan ranks: the godless practice of smoking was formally forbidden to the ministers. Swiss Protestantism indeed had once included its prohibition195 in the Ten Commandments. If Methodism did not thus re-edit the Decalogue, its horror of the abomination was no less keen, and a change of practice being always easier than a change of heart, Daniel Quarles had poured a deal of spiritual energy into the sacrifice of his pipe. The “rapscallion Boldero,” he declared, not only sinned himself, but was the cause of sin in others, trafficking as he did in the unholy weed. If Emma insisted on a “smoker,” wasn’t there the miller196 at Long Bradmarsh, he inquired with grim facetiousness197, meaning that the grotesque198 Griggs had a vote by living in a house with a chimney.
But Emma for all her gentle airs had proved “obstropolus.” She had discovered that Susannah’s husband smoked as prodigally199 as Roger—though it had been hidden from the old man on his rare visits—and that so far from bedevilling men, tobacco tended to angelicize them. Would indeed that her father haloed himself with these clouds! Besides, she shrewdly suspected that even a Wesleyan archangel, appearing suddenly as a suitor, would have fared similarly, and that the smoke was only a cover for a wish to keep his last girl. And so, though the lover was left lamenting202, and the Tommy Devil duly floated off without the lass, it was not long that Emma was left stranded in Blackwater Hall. With a parent removed by Providence every Tuesday and Friday, even the flabbiest female may be stiffened203, and the end was smuggled matrimony; though very soon the blessing204 of a minister brought Methodism into their madness. Roger Boldero not only became a Wesleyan like his wife and her father, but was one of the first Dissenters205 to be married in their own chapel206 by their own clergy207 under the new Act.
The odd union had turned out happy, but with one dismal208 drawback—the Bolderos could not rear children. They fared worse even than the Bidlakes, and with no such obvious reason. One hapless infant after another died, and when at last, in their late middle years, little Jinny was safely steered through three winters, it was they who were taken as if in lieu of their progeny.
The pair had finally settled down by the same waterside that had united them—the attractions of “Brandy Hole Creek” having been enhanced by the perpetual presence of their relative by marriage, Commander Dap, who with the subsidence of spirit duties and smuggling had found his mobile cutter replaced by the moored209 “Watch Vessel 23.” Here with Susannah and his children and five satellites (and their wives and families) the veteran lived in domestic beatitude under the title of Chief Coast Guard Officer. High on the beach, and boarded by a commodious210 staircase, the houseboat seemed a standing reminder211 of the adventure of the Tommy Devil. Under its challenging eye, that adventurous212 bark had sailed out and home, till that last fatal voyage when the lugger foundered213 almost within sight of a little Sussex port, which for weeks after was mysteriously littered with washed-up tobacco-bales. Though Roger Boldero was rescued, it had been the beginning of the end of his prosperity, already undermined by the diminution214 of duties, and a few years later both he and Emma were dead simultaneously215 of smallpox216. Again the carrier’s cart must fare to the Creek to fetch the penniless little orphan217, and there—soon after Will Flynt’s flight—Daniel brought her back for the burial of his sister Susannah. It was what buried Will’s memory too and replaced him in her prayers by a new being, conceived as her “Angel Mother.”
III
The moment she saw and smelt218 the creek she knew she had carried it in her soul all along: the white hut with its flagged mast, the great Watch Vessel, the tumble of cottages, sheds, barrels, pecking fowls219, grubbing black pigs, recumbent ladders, discoloured boats with their keels upwards220, black rotting barges, and rigged smacks222 stranded on hard steep mud. The sea came in sluggishly223 through a broad green chine, half slime, half green water, spitted with gaunt encrusted poles to mark the channel. The water seemed even wider than she remembered, and yet not so wide, for it was split by an island or a promontory224 that gave a second sail-dotted expanse between her and the farther shore. She yearned225 now towards that ultimate hump of hazy226 woodland, and it was to remain for ever bathed in the quiet beauty which wrapped it around as Methusalem toiled227 up to the “Leather Bottel.” They were to stay the night there, for Daniel would have none of the Commander’s hospitality, he being still unforgiven. Besides, the child might be afraid of the corpse228.
It was while sitting on that sea-wall with the octogenarian that evening, her great grown-up fingers toying once again with tiny white shells that strewed229 its top, and pewits again trying to lead her from their young, that she first heard in broken outlines how these waters had washed her into being. Something, too, she gleaned230 from her refound relative-in-law, the chief mourner, whose cocked hat, tattooed231 arm and genial157 senescence—not to mention his house-boat—were one of the pleasantest impressions or re-impressions of the funeral; and whose fascinating trick of rolling one eye while the other was fixed in a glassy stare almost made the child lose the sense of what he was saying. The death of his wife had reminded the veteran of the death of Nelson—nearly forty years before—and his tremulous tones grew still shakier as he recalled how the flags over the hut and the Watch Vessel and every other flag in England had flown at half-mast, though of course there were more joyous aspects of “Trafalgar” to be celebrated232 in bottles of Bony’s own brandy. He frankly233 admitted he had himself been “three sheets in the wind”—an image of bed-linen fluttering on a clothes-line that long puzzled her. He took her abaft234 the Watch Vessel—it was a way of leaving Daniel Quarles alone with his dead sister—and recounted his astonishment235 at seeing her father’s boat spued up like Jonah out of the whale.
“A handsome man,” he told her to her pleasure. But he spoilt it all by adding, “though he would talk the hind25 leg off a dog.”
“But wasn’t that cruel?” the little girl faltered236.
Dap laughed. “He never did it really, dearie, and if the leg had come off, he’d have helped the lame201 dog over a stile. And so many lingos—parleyvooing in French and swearing in Double Dutch. I don’t wonder your angel mother fell in love with him.”
“My angel mother!” echoed Jinny excitedly. “Was my mother an angel?”
The veteran was taken aback. For a child who must be past nine such primitiveness237 was startling. He had spoken loosely, hardly knowing whether he alluded239 to Emma’s present heavenly abode240 or to her sweet-temperedness on earth. He did not know that little Jinny read nothing but literature in which angels were a common feature of the landscape, and that Miss Gentry had not measured her for her blacks without dwelling241 on her own stained-glass specimen242.
“She was as pretty as one,” said the Commander after an instant, “and now she is one.” Thus it was that Jinny’s mother, already felt as a hovering243 sweetness, took on definite wings, and even when Jinny’s maturer experience amputated them from her earthly existence, they were what she still hovered over her child with.
“Susannah and she’ll make a pair now,” he added, feeling suddenly disloyal to the corpse at home.
“Susannah?” queried244 Jinny, for her grandfather had been calling his sister “Pegs245”—“poor Pegs!”
“Your mother’s aunt.”
It was a new idea, an angel’s aunt. She saw the twain flying, Susannah sailing with more sweeping pinions246, her mother softly rustling247.
The funeral was in style, and Jinny helped to set out the refreshments248 in the saloon. There was some dispute as to whether her grandfather could join the grand procession in his tilt-cart, but though he urged that squires249 were proud to be buried from farm-wagons, he consented to ride—like a fish out of water—inside a mourning-coach, and not even on the box.
The Commander and Jinny shared his dismal grandeur, she sitting bodkin though there was an empty seat opposite, which “the seventh baby” had been expected to occupy. But Toby had not arrived from his ship—he was a gunner—in time, and the earlier progeny were still more scattered250.
The widower251 held his handkerchief in his fist, but owing to the heat of a discussion on the manner the Navy had gone to the dogs—or returned from them—since the Admiralty had set up a gunnery school on a Portsmouth ship, he used it only to mop his brow.
“Excellent, indeed!” He was mocking at the ship’s name. “The ruination of the sarvice I tell you. It all comes from doing away with the pressgang—stands to reason they picked out the finest chaps—” here the Gaffer snorted—“Oh you may sniff252, but for fighting you want guts253 and muscle. Look what England was in them days and what she is coming to now.”
“To my lookin’-at-it-an’-thinkin’-o’t-too”—the Gaffer made one breathless word of it—“?’tis a blessin’ to be riddy of all them gaolbirds, swearers, drinkers, smokers255, and fornicators.”
“Hush256!” The Commander tried to wink his glass eye towards Jinny.
“She don’t understand. Oi remember, the year my good-for-nawthen Gabriel smashed up a threshin’-machine (and the poor farmer dedn’t git no compensation neither, though ef his furniture had been smashed ’twould have come on the Hundred) that wery same year Ebenezer Wagstaff—for ’twas the coronation year of King William, Oi remember, just afore my Emma desarted me——”
“That was a Sailor King,” interrupted Dap, half to stave off fulminations against Jinny’s dead mother. “Began as middy under Cap’n Digby in the unlucky Royal George—a ninety-eight gun ship she was——”
“Ye put me off the track, drat ye, aldoe it leads back to Ebenezer Wagstaff all the same, seein’ as the Prince might ha’ rubbed showlders with a thief as was sentenced for stealin’ half-a-suvran from a barge76 on the Brad. He could ha’ been hanged for it in them days, mind you—the case bein’ as clear as day or rather as black as night. But they marcifully brought him in guilty to stealin’ nine and ’levenpence and that saved his neck, being a navigable river, and the judge give him the option of gaol254 or jinin’ the Navy.”
“And a proper thing too. Set a thief to catch a Frenchy, and him used to taking prizes by water. Nowadays before the captain hoists258 his pennant259 he’s got a crew dumped on him that’s no choice of his—mealy-mouthed lubbers, full of book-larnin’, who don’t know a brigantine from a topsail schooner260: it’s the red ensign that gets all the good stuff, not the white. You mark me, it’ll be the downfall of England.”
“England’ll never fall down while she’s got God-fearin’ congregations,” maintained Daniel Quarles, and Jinny’s devout261 little heart thrilled to hear it.
In the pleasant sunny graveyard262 there were apiaries263 and a dismantled264 tower almost smothered265 by blackberry-bushes, and the tombs and gravestones passed imperceptibly into a garden of monkey-trees and weeping willows. These wrought266 in her no stirring of memories, but as she had got off the coach, the standing church tower, square and ivy-wrapped, had composed beautifully with ricks of all sorts, with trees, old tiles, and thatch5, into a picture that seemed as much hers as the waterside.
The parson—Susannah had remained a Churchwoman—was some minutes late, and Jinny was gratified to note how strong her grandfather was: how pillar-like he stood in his long black mourner’s cloak under the weight of the coffin267 at the churchyard gate, while all the other bearers, his obvious juniors, shifted and sweated. Nor did he blubber either like the Commander, whose weakness, considering how often she had been adjured268 to be “spunky,” and not—now that she was “grown up”—to cry, was as disconcerting as the double existence of his wife in the coffin and the empyrean. However, Dap grew “good” again when the thrilling if still more disconcerting episode of lowering his Susannah as far as possible from the skies and banking269 her safely against ascent270, was over; and—Daniel Quarles having gone vaguely271 roving over the churchyard—the widower led her stealthily in his absence to a stone behind the ruined tower—in the “unconsecrated” or Dissenting272 area—and read to her the inscription273, following it for her confirmation274 with his black-gloved forefinger275:
Here Lies Roger Boldero
After Many Stormy Voyages
Safely Neaped in Christ.
He arrested himself suddenly and whisked her round the tower.
“But we didn’t read it all,” she protested.
“Oh, it only says: ‘And also Emma Boldero, Wife of the Above.’ But don’t tell your grandfather.”
The child wondered why she was to keep Emma’s relationship to the Above a secret—she had already gathered from her grandfather that he knew it—and she was distressed276 as well as puzzled at the strange quarrel that broke out in the homeward coach.
“It ain’t at all a proper word,” said Daniel Quarles. “You might as well put ‘carted to Christ’ on mine.”
“That’ll be your affair,” persisted the widower, “but this ain’t. And how you came to see it gets over me.”
The Gaffer flushed uneasily. “Oi’ve got two eyes, I suppose,” he jerked.
The naval veteran glared glassily. “Them that pay the piper call the tune,” he retorted defensively. “Besides,” he added more gently, “Emma always said she’d have it somehow on her tombstone.”
“Emma was a silly.”
“Hush!” Dap again indicated the child with his glassy eye, now trickling277 without the other as in half-mourning.
“Oi won’t hush it up. That’s got to goo. The mason’s got to cut another for me. Who arxed you to pay pipers?”
“Such a handsome stone to be torn up! It’s a desecration278, it’s unlawful.”
“Unlawful? Whose darter is she, mine or yourn?”
“Not yours. You cut her off.”
“She cut me off. And ef poor Pegs and you had done your duty by my gal2, he’d ha’ never crossed your doorstep.”
“He’d ha’ met her on the sea-wall. I couldn’t help his beholding280 her looks, any more than you could help having a handsome daughter—or for the matter of that, a handsome sister.” His handkerchief came out again.
“Oi’m not denying their looks—a man with half an eye could see that. ’Tis just the handsome gals281 as seems to throw theirselves away,” he added musingly282.
“Maybe they are unhappy at home,” suggested the widower, with equal philosophic283 aloofness284.
“Or in the housen they stays at,” assented285 the Gaffer. “But let bygones by bygones. It may be the Lord dumped him down for our good. All Oi say is, that word’s got to goo. A Churchman may not see the blasphemy286, but think o’ what John Wesley would ha’ said to it.”
“He’d ha’ said ’twas a wicked extravagance to waste such a fine stone.”
“The mason’ll take it back. Happen there’ll be another Roger Boldero dead and neaped some day.”
“Very likely,” sneered287 the veteran. “And also an Emma, Wife of the Above.”
“Hush!” The little maid nudged him, wondering he should forget his own monition.
“That has more sense than you!” cried the Gaffer in high glee. “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings!” And drawing the astonished Jinny to his bristly beard, he kissed her lips with a hearty288 smack221.
Despite these half-understood discords289, Jinny was very sorry to leave the stony-eyed veteran and the motley waterside.
“Sometimes,” she confided290 to the more sympathetic swivel eye, as her grandfather was harnessing Methusalem for their return, “I wish I had never come to earth at all.”
Again Dap was startled by her simplicity—had not Daniel been telling him what a useful little body she was in the business?
“But then you’d never have had your grandfather—or me,” he said, stroking her cheek.
“I should have had God—and my angel mother!”
IV
“Noa, arter she run away with her Boldero Oi’d never cross her doorstep, never,” confessed the old carrier, picking up the story later, as she rode beside him on their day’s work. He was getting so old now that he preferred to talk of twenty rather than of two years before, and the veneer291 of book-education which his unexpected inheritance of the business had necessitated292 had fallen away, and he was speaking more and more in the idioms of his illiterate293 youth, curiously294 tempered at times by the magnificent English of his Bible.
“But that was wicked!” said Jinny decisively. She felt it wrong indeed that a father should thus cut off his daughter, but to have done this when that daughter was an angel (even if only in the making), still more when that daughter was her own mother, seemed to her confused consciousness the climax295 of iniquity296.
“Wicked! The contrairy! Oi’d taken my Bible oath never to set foot over her doorstep. So Oi dedn’t have no chance, you see.”
Jinny was silenced. She herself had succumbed297 to an oath, and that indeed on a less awful book.
“Arter she had lost two childer,” he went on, “and the third got measles298, she sent a man on hossback to beg me to take off the spell. Thought, d’ye see, dearie, that for her frowardness and disobedience Oi’d laid a curse on ’em all. Like one of our Methody preachers, the chap seemed, with all the texts to his tongue’s tip, and pleaded that wunnerful he ’most made me believe Oi did have the evil eye. But though of course Oi hadn’t no more to do wi’ the deaths of your little brothers and sisters than a babe unborn—or you yourself, for the matter o’ that, as was a babe unborn—Oi couldn’t break my oath and goo and pretend to cure the wean, and so when the measles turned to pneumonia299 and it died, she got woundily distracted, and writ300 me two sheets sayin’ as Oi was a child-murderer. That didn’t worrit me no more than the child’s death, seein’ as the Lord does everything for the best, though Oi had to pay double on the letter. But one fine arternoon the preachin’ chap comes again and says she’d been layin’ paralysed-like for a month and wouldn’t Oi come and forgive her afore she kicked the bucket!”
“Oh, Gran’fer!” Jinny protested.
“Oi’m givin’ you his words,” said the Gaffer defensively. “At least that was the meanin’, though ’haps he put it different, me not havin’ his gift o’ the gab257. But bein’ never a man to nuss rancour, when folks own up, Oi said that even ef Oi could forgive my darter, never could Oi enter a house harbourin’ that rascal161 Boldero——”
“Oh, Gran’fer!” she protested again.
“There’s no call to bristle301 up—he wasn’t your father yet. ‘But Boldero ain’t at home, he’s off on a jarney,’ says the chap. ‘D’ye swear that?’ says Oi. ‘By God, Oi will,’ says he. ‘Then od rabbet, Oi’ll goo,’ says Oi.”
“But,” urged Jinny, “if you had taken your oath——”
“You wait till Oi’ve broke it! Oi knew ’twould be dead o’ night by the time Oi got to Brandy Hole Crick and Oi made him swear too he wouldn’t let on to a soul, partic’ler to that rascal Boldero or my sister Pegs and her cock-eyed son of a cocked hat; and off we scuttles302 in a twinklin’, him on his hoss and me on mine——”
“Methusalem?”
“Noa, Jezebel. Methusalem and you wasn’t born yet!”
“Were we both in heaven, then?”
“Hosses don’t come from heaven.”
“From where then?”
“From stables o’ course. And you should see them two animals gallopin’ like hell. ’Twas a race for the Crick. We went down this wery road like fleck303 and turned off by the smithy——”
“And who won?” asked Jinny breathlessly.
“He hadn’t a chance, his hoss bein’ that winded already, and him a heavyweight; Oi had the best part of an hour with your mother afore he crossed the doorstep.”
“But how could you break your Bible oath?” persisted Jinny.
He chuckled305. “Oi dedn’t cross her doorstep. Oi’d sworn not to, and a Quarles never breaks even his plain word, bein’ a forthright306 family. ’Twas gettin’ on to bull’s-noon and like pitch, but Oi could see her bedroom above by the light in it, and up Oi climbs on Jezebel’s back and lifted myself up by the sill and got my knee acrost it and pushed open the casement307. Lord, how she screamed! Up she flew from her dyin’-bed—no more paralysis308 or sich-like maggots and molligrubs Oi warrant you!” And his chuckle304 broadened into a hearty laugh.
Jinny was strangely relieved. “Then she didn’t die!”
“How could she die, silly, when you wasn’t there yet? Od rabbet, wasn’t your feyther flabbergasted to see her up and bobbish and me holdin’ her hand!”
“My father! But he was on a journey!”
“Yes, to me, the great ole sinner. You ain’t guessed ’twas him with the gift o’ the gab? But no more did Daniel Quarles, never conceivin’ a sailor on hossback and him swelled309 in the stomach with prodigal200 livin’ since the day he diddled Pegs’s husband and tried to diddle me out o’ my darter. But Oi’ll do him the justice to say he never did blab to the Daps about my comin’—and no more dedn’t your mother.”
Jinny’s hand sought her grandfather’s, though through the whip-handle in his she could only secure a finger. “But why should you hide your goodness, Gran’fer?”
“?’Twasn’t no goodness, only nat’ral, Emma bein’ punished and chastised310 enough from on high. Why, if Pegs and her false-eyed mannikin’d a-got wind as we’d made it up, Emma and me and Roger, they’d ha’ come to think they was in the right arter all, lettin’ Emma be kidnapped by a furriner. And that ’ud ha’ been the last straw. As ill luck would have it Dap come knockin’ there that wery dead o’ night, he havin’ just come home from a trip and heard from Pegs as her niece was dyin’. Oi shan’t soon forgit the start Oi got at that knockin’, all on us settin’ so hearty at supper, and Emma in her scarlet311 dressin’-gownd, smart as a carrot. Noigh quackled Oi was, with the brandy gooin’ the wrong way. Your feyther he goes to the door with his face full o’ lobster312 and sputters313 through the crack as they’d got a new doctor who was operatin’ on her and wery ’opeful.” He chuckled again. “And Oi count ’twas a better doctor than any in Brandy Hole Crick, for wery soon there was a new baby—though that died too, Oi’m thankful to say!”
“You aren’t!” The little listener loosed his finger.
“Yes, Oi am, dearie.” He cracked his whip. “Otherwise wouldn’t Pegs ha’ gone to her grave believin’ it was my onforgiveness laid a spell on the tothers? That’s what womenkind be. Same as when the Faith Healers got hold of her. Arter you was oiled and prayed over, they said ’twas want o’ faith had killed all the tothers.”
“Was I oiled and prayed over?”
“Well, you see when you come, poor Emma felt elders and oils was all there was left to try—there’s a rare lot of you Peculiars down them parts and all the way to Southend, and they’d been gettin’ round her like gulls314 round the plough—so the instant you started barkin’——”
“Barking?” gasped315 the little girl.
“You had the croup—so she turned Peculiar,” he explained. “Like you,” he added reproachfully. “And a wery dangerous thing to do, bein’ as you might ha’ died like the tothers. Did, she’d ha’ been had up for child-murder—what she accused me of.”
“And why weren’t the doctors had up, that didn’t save all my little brothers and sisters?” asked Jinny.
“That’s just how your mother used to argufy,” he said angrily, flicking316 at poor Methusalem. “Turnin’ everything topsy-tivvy, Oi says. And what was the result? Two years arter you was prayed and oiled out o’ croup, she was took herself with smallpox and wouldn’t see a soul except elders and deacons and sich-like truck. Oi will say for your father though, that he was allus firm with her; naught317 she could say could turn him from his Wesleyan principles, and when he caught her smallpox he had the doctor in like blazes and took all the medicine he could lay hands on. But Emma would stick to her own way—though she died of it, poor thing.”
“But didn’t you tell me father died the same day as my angel mother?”
“Ain’t that why Oi come for you in my cart, bein’ as the creditors318 sold up everythin’ except the infected beddin’?”
“I know, Gran’fer,” she interrupted. “But then didn’t father die of his way just as much as mother of hers?”
“That’s a nat’ral death when you die with a doctor,” he maintained.
“And were you there when they died?” said the child after a mournful pause.
His brow clouded obstinately319. “How could Oi be, dearie, bein’ as Oi’d taken my Bible oath?”
“You could ha’ gone through the window?”
“With folks lookin’ on and nusses about, as ’ud ha’ thought me loony. Why, ’twas impossible for me even to goo to the funeral.”
“Oh, Gran’fer!”
He looked fiercer, and poor Methusalem got another flick71. “Wouldn’t Pegs be there, she havin’ her nat’ral feelin’? Could Oi let her think Oi’d come ’cos Oi was sorry Oi hadn’t made it up with my darter afore she died? Nay320, that ’ud a-been right-down deceit, bein’ as there wasn’t no ground for remorse321. Happen he’d a-been at the churchyard too with his fish-eye—dedn’t you see the stone he put up, drat his imperence, as ef Emma and Roger was aught of hisn—mebbe he’d a-preached to me as Oi ought to ha’ forgiven my darter time she was still alive. ’Twas on the cards he’d say Oi’d broken your mother’s heart, the blinkin’-fool, he not knowin’ ’twas me as raised her from the dead and had her goffling lobster with your feyther in a scarlet dressin’-gownd time he was knockin’ at her door to make inquirations——”
“Yes, I’ve heard about that,” she interrupted.
“Who told you?” he said suspiciously. “There was only three of us inside the door and two’s dead.”
“You told me.”
“Me! Oi never told a soul—Oi’ll take my Bible oath.”
“You told me just a minute ago.”
“Ah!” He was appeased322. “That may be. But Oi never told you afore—Oi’ll take my oath.”
“No, never before, Gran’fer.”
There was a pause of peace.
Jinny was afraid to stir up the subject for weeks. But her little brain had been busy with the story, and finally taking advantage of a not unfriendly reference to Roger Boldero, she asked: “And was that the last time you saw father, when he was eating lobster with my angel mother in the dead of night?”
“Nay, nay, Oi seen lots of ’em both, afore Oi was shet out agen by molloncholy circumstances.”
“Ah!” Jinny brightened up. “And did you always go in by the window?”
“?’Twasn’t in the house: ’twas on board the Tommy Devil. And that ain’t got no doorstep.” He laughed gleefully.
“Then did you go in by the porthole?” asked Jinny, smiling.
“Lord, missie, wherever did ye get that word? Ah, Oi mind me now—you was aboard the Watch Wessel the time we buried poor Pegs. No, dearie, Oi just shinned up the ladder, loight as a bird with that liddle ole oath off my showlders. But Pegs and her one-eyed fool of a pardner never suspicioned naught, for Oi never would set foot on the Tommy Devil except she was layin’ up in coves323 and cricks where the Gov’ment turned its glass eye—he, he, he! Not that Oi had much stomach for his etarnal brandy—you can’t take a satisfactory swig o’ that and keep your sea-legs—but your feyther he kept a cask o’ beer special for me, and Emma she ’ad allus cold roasts and kickshaws to be washed down with it. Oi reckon Oi was on board with your parents nigh once a month.”
“Then what a pity they didn’t invite you on board years before!”
“Ay, ’twas a pity. Only none of us ’ad never thought o’ that way out.”
“Or that way in,” added Jinny excitedly. “Why, you might have gone to my mother the day after your oath!”
The Gaffer sighed. “Mebbe that ’ud only ha’ ruinated your folks quicker. For Oi ain’t been on the lugger a dozen times afore she went down and your feyther was picked up by the revenue cutter, bein’ the onny toime he was took at sea—he, he, he! Thussins there wasn’t no place to meet in, and to goo over Emma’s window-sill was too risky324, for Pegs and her friends was allus spyin’ around, and there wasn’t a sharper eye in the Gov’ment than that dirty little Dap’s—when he was off duty.”
“But why didn’t they come to see you at Blackwater Hall?”
“Nay, they couldn’t do that. That was in my oath too. Never shall they cross my doorstep, neither—Oi’d sworn it on the Book!”
“But why didn’t they come in through our window? There’s hardly ever anybody on the common?”
“We never thought o’ that, neither.” He heaved a deeper sigh. “Ay, ’twas a pity,” he repeated.
That night Jinny caught his eye resting more than once on the vases of dried grass before their casement.
“He was a bonkka man, your feyther,” he observed at last. “Wery big-built, and it’s a middlin’ weeny window.”
V
Though Jinny winced325 at her grandfather’s attacks on the Peculiar Faith of her angel mother, she grew in time to understand the odd magnanimity he had evinced in letting her go to Sunday-school with the Flynt family and pick up the doctrine. That her one surviving child should be brought up of the sect326 that had saved it, was, it transpired327, poor Emma’s dying request, as conveyed by his sister Susannah Dap to the unforgiving father, whose oath never to cross his daughter’s doorstep still held when he drew up Methusalem at it after the double funeral, and found the house empty even of Jinny.
“?‘Child-stealin’, that’s what it is,’ Oi told Pegs when Oi boarded the Watch Wessel,” he recounted once to his granddaughter in the cart. “?‘Ain’t you got enough o’ your own?’ says Oi. ‘’Twas through your havin’ one too many that Jinny’s here at all,’ Oi says. ‘Then,’ says she, sharp as a needle, ‘the more reason she’s mine. You cut off her mother,’ says she, ‘and now, Daniel, Jinny cuts you off.’ ‘Not so fast, sister,’ says Oi. ‘Whatever my conduct to Emma—and folks with stone eyes don’t allus see through stone walls—the poor little brat153 haven’t enough sense to cut me off, and Oi don’t cut her off, for Oi ain’t got to wisit sins to the fourth generation, not bein’ the Almighty328, thank the Lord. That’s my lawful279 property, Pegs,’ Oi says, ‘and same as you don’t hand her over, Oi’ll summons you and carry off two o’ yourn in my cart—and what’s more Oi’ll ill-treat ’em cruel and hide ’em twice a day with my whip.’?”
“You didn’t mean it,” said Jinny.
“Dedn’t Oi, though?”
“But they were your nephews and nieces!”
“The more right to wallop ’em. You should ha’ seen Pegs climb down. She know’d well as Oi never broke my word, she bein’ o’ the same forthright family. Right up and down, Jo Perry, as the sayin’ goos. Do to others as they’d like to do to you—that’s good Christian329 gospel. Pegs she went as pale as a white butterfly and hiked you out on deck in your little yaller frock lookin’ as pritty as a gay. Lord, Oi reckonized you on the nail, though Oi’d never clapped eyes on you afore.”
“You’d never seen me before?” cried Jinny, amazed.
“How could Oi see you—you came arter the Tommy Devil was at the bottom, and your feyther never got the dubs330 from the insurance company, bein’ a flaw in the articles as swallered up all the rest of his cash in the lawsuit331. But you’d got his ways and your mother’s looks”—Jinny flushed with pleasure—“and ’steddy cuttin’ me off, you—ha, ha, ha!—made straight for my great ole beard and pulled out a great ole fistful.”
“Ought I to have cut it off?” laughed Jinny happily.
“?‘D’ye see that, Pegs,’ says Oi, ‘blood’s thicker than water. Will you come along o’ your gran’fer, liddle maid?’ says Oi.”
“And what did I say?” asked Jinny breathlessly.
“You dedn’t say naught—you bust176 into tears, bein’ as you thought Oi was the auctioneerer and you’d been sold with everything else, poor liddle ole orphan, and then Pegs catches hold o’ you and says you was clinging to her. But Oi soon stopped that lob-loll, for Oi holds you over the rail and shows you Methusalem all prancin’ in his pride, and ‘Won’t you go with your gran’fer’s hoss, liddle maid?’ says Oi.”
“And what did I say then?”
“You dedn’t say naught, but in a twinklin’ you jumps out o’ Susannah’s arms, scrambles332 down the accommodation ladder, and was rubbin’ noses with Methusalem. And Oi count his was as damp as yourn, bein’ as he’d come without a stop.”
“Dear old Methusalem!” And nothing would content Jinny but she must jump down and rub noses with him now, and again both noses were damp. But as Methusalem had seized the opportunity to come to a standstill, and Jinny, lost in shadowy memories, continued the caress82 ten seconds too long, the old carrier declared with sudden querulousness that he hadn’t got time for foolishness, and that since he had burdened himself with Jinny his business had gone “to rack and ruination.”
“Peculiar, Pegs warned me, Oi’d have to bring you up,” he added, as Jinny hastily clambered back to his side. “And Peculiar’s the word for your gooin’s on. Not that Methusalem’s got more sense nor you. Oi count ef there was churches for cattle, he’d a-stoyled hisself Brother Methusalem and kicked over his drench333.”
It was the Gaffer’s instinctive334 conviction that faith went with the father. In thus yielding to Emma’s dying breath he may, apart from the pressure of death-bed wishes, have found vent122 for a lingering resentment335 against the seductive Boldero. Or was it that he had a lurking336 apprehension337 that the one child of Emma’s which had at least survived prayer, might really be a testimony338 to the teaching, and as such entitled to share it? Jinny at any rate had absolute faith in the doctrine. It rested on the fifth chapter of James as clearly as the big Bible containing that chapter rested on the chest of drawers. Once indeed when the Gaffer was unbearably339 mocking, she had been goaded340 to read him the basal verses:
“Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:
“And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up: and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.”
But the Gaffer had not collapsed341 as she expected. It only meant a spiritual saving, in case he died, Daniel Quarles maintained, unruffled: otherwise why speak of his sins being forgiven? Moreover it didn’t say you couldn’t have a doctor, too.
Crestfallen342, the child wept in a corner and did not recover her spirits till at Sunday-school Elder Mawhood had supplied her for the first part of the Gaffer’s contention343 with Mark xvi. 18: “They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover”; while Martha, who was still at that date a Peculiar, comforted and equipped her against the second part with Asa, King of Judah, who (II Chronicles xvi) was diseased in his feet: “yet sought not to the Lord but to the physicians.” The Lord’s wishes in the matter were thus seen to be clearly indicated. “And the Lord’s the same now as then, isn’t He?” Martha wound up crushingly. “You ask your grandfather that.”
The courage to launch this counter-attack never came to her, however, and henceforward she and her grandfather lived in that kindly344 toleration of each other’s folly345 which comes from holding the proofs of it, yet letting sleeping dogmas lie. What after all was the old man’s obduracy346, Jinny told herself, but part of the perverseness347 and obstinacy348 of age? The fact that she now never needed either doctors or elders saved her from any personal problem. Such waverings as she had felt at fifteen were not towards Wesleyanism, but towards Martha’s mushroom doctrine. The texts of this convert to the latest thing in creeds349 were certainly staggering, and her scorn for the still unconverted, sublime350. “We don’t take some bits o’ the Word and leave others.” That was an argument not easy to answer, and the bits now exhumed351 in support of Christadelphianism by the tireless discoverer of King Asa were ever accumulating. Fortunately Jinny was far too busy for religious discussions or doubts, and the “angel mother,” softly hovering, made a restful background for the one true Faith.
VI
And a sensational352 episode in the history of the local Brethren came to strengthen the sect as well as to add to the number of Jinny’s homes: came too, at the very crisis when the impossibility of carrying the Carrier with her through the coming winter threatened to leave her stranded alone at “The Black Sheep” during the midday rest at Chipstone. It would have been easy enough in summer to sit in her cart in the courtyard munching353 her bread and cheese, while Methusalem was lost in his nosebag, and clients were coming with commissions, but the parcel-shed had no stove, and to wait in the bar or taproom or even the parlour—all alike masculine haunts where one could hardly dump the “scarecrow” or swain-chaser beside one—was not a pleasant prospect354.
Jinny’s and the Brotherhood’s good fortune began—such are the ways of Providence—with the death of the landlord.
Mother Gander—so everybody called Jeff Gander’s buxom355 spouse—had fought like a lioness to save him. “Not a doctor for miles around,” as the paralysed old Bundock put it triumphantly356 from his bed-of-all-news, “but she carted him over, and set ’em all consulting and quarrelling. There was two from London, one of ’em a bart, and all wasted. Charlie the potboy, as he was then, feelingly told my boy, the postman, that he could ha’ set up a public-house with the fees. Not that I approve o’ public-houses, but leastways they give you more waluable drinks than doctors does. And when poor Jeff was gone, and Mother Gander was carrying on like crazy, comes the Parson and tells her ’tis the Lord’s will.
“?‘Then if it’s the Lord’s will,’ says she, like lightning, for she was always quick in the uptake, ‘why do you run down the Peculiars as just begs the Lord to alter His will, instead o’ throwing their hard-earned gold to the doctors?’ That was the way her eyes opened to the Truth, and she learnt how to save her soul as well as her money.”
The Peculiars, they often lamented357, were “not strong enough” in Chipstone: they looked yearningly358 “over the water”—to Rochford where the great Banyard himself was prophesying359; or to Woodham where no less than five hundred Brethren and Sisters fevered themselves in a hall too small for the throngs360 that sought admission. But their own meetings, though, if we may trust Caleb, “noice things were brought out,” were numerically disheartening. The capture of “The Black Sheep”—a hostelry to which all social roads radiated—was thus an event of considerable importance.
Nevertheless the dismay of the Congregationalists, of whose community Mother Gander was a fallen pillar, was not counter-poised in jubilation361 by the Brethren. For if a stronghold had been captured, the devil had not been dispossessed. Mother Gander doffed362 her gold chain, but Sister Gander gave no sign of emptying her liquor into the gutters363, and to be proud of a convert against whose establishment you have to admonish364 one another is not simple. The Peculiars managed it, however, after some heart-searching. It was true old Bundock had been wont365 to make great play with Banyard’s declaration—universally admired as a gem366 of humour—“If you want to get me to a public-house, you’ll have to take a horse and hook me.” But after all, Elder Mawhood pointed out, “The Black Sheep” was far more than a public-house: as the headquarters for the mail-coach it was part of the constitution of the country, and it was better for the farmers to eat their ordinary under a God-fearing roof—even if they would drink with it—than for the profits of their custom to go to a rival house which would contribute no farthing to the Brethren’s treasury367. It was Brother Flynt, however, who supplied the finest soothing-powder. “Oi used to condemn368 myself,” he said, “but ’twasn’t no good. You must drink when you’re harvestin’. Don’t, you’ll be drippin’ as you goo.” If he did not drink now that his harvesting days were over, that did not prove other drinkers were wicked. You had to consider circumstances. And playing the Sancho Panza still more unexpectedly, he hinted that there was such a thing as over-zeal. “They used to call me a Banyard as a revilin’ word, them as made fun of us, but to tell the truth Oi’ve never got out o’ my warm bed in the middle o’ the noight to pray as he exhorted—leastways, not in winter. We’ve got to be thankful for Sister Gander, and not expect her to goo all the way at the start. She don’t want to lose her business as well as her husband.”
But it appeared that Mother Gander did not want to go without a husband either. She suddenly, and before her year of mourning was up, married Charley Mott, the aforesaid potboy, not half her age, and this was a fresh upset for the Brethren, modified only by the conversion369 of Charley. The Congregationalists took the opportunity to give the couple “rough music,” and the whole neighbourhood joined in with kettles and pokers370. Brother Bundock from his omniscient371 bed at first proclaimed the scandal as a divine chastisement372 on his Brethren for having failed to “admonish” her to give up purveying373 “beer and ’bacca”—he himself would have dared it, he declared without fear of contradiction, had he only had his legs—but finally, when the storm blew over, he would relate with gusto how she had weathered it.
“What with hating us and hating her marriage and hating the new landlord with his jackanip’s airs, they quit her, nearly all her customers, and them as was faithful looked askance at her between the drinks. So she offs with her silks and on with her apron374 and up with her sleeves, and back to the kitchen! She’d been poor Jeff’s cook, you know, in the long, long ago, and ’twas her steak and kidney puddens and her gravies375 and sauces that he married, and now she was back at the old game. Whether ’twas partly to escape the sour looks that she burrowed376 in her kitchen or whether the whole thing was female artfulness I don’t pretend to say, but in two months she’d cooked ’em all back again. Don’t come in good time, you couldn’t get a chair at the ordinary for all the tips at Chipstone, and my boy, the postman, he told me he hears everybody joking over the rhubarb tart238 and saying as the Lord’s will is best. And she never come out o’ that kitchen till she’d cooked it all down.”
It was during the dark interval that Jinny and Sister Mott alias377 Mother Gander were first drawn378 together, the girl being summoned to the kitchen to receive instructions for such purchases from local tradesmen as the lady-hermit found indispensable yet dreaded379 to make in person. The fact that the little carrier was of the despised sect cemented the relationship. Jinny passed her midday respite380 in the warm kitchen, even sharing the cook’s meal. And when at last Sister Mott resumed her blue silk bodice and faced her tradesmen and her customers, new and old, the run of the kitchen and the freedom of the joint381 remained gratuitous382 to the lucky Jinny. Here under the great bacon-hung oak beams of the ancient apartment, before a huge fire mirroring itself rosily383 in the copper384 pans and skillets, she could sit thawing385 her toes beside the clanking smokejack, while the wind howled through the arch of the sleety386 courtyard.
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1
wharves
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| n.码头，停泊处( wharf的名词复数 ) | |
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gal
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| n.姑娘，少女 | |
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grandeur
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| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
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whitewashed
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| 粉饰，美化，掩饰( whitewash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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thatch
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| vt.用茅草覆盖…的顶部；n.茅草(屋) | |
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jutting
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| v.（使）突出( jut的现在分词 )；伸出；（从…）突出；高出 | |
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den
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| n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室 | |
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glimmer
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| v.发出闪烁的微光；n.微光，微弱的闪光 | |
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haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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willows
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| n.柳树( willow的名词复数 )；柳木 | |
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transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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12
hopping
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| n. 跳跃 动词hop的现在分词形式 | |
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swooping
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| 俯冲，猛冲( swoop的现在分词 ) | |
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scampering
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| v.蹦蹦跳跳地跑，惊惶奔跑( scamper的现在分词 ) | |
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chirping
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| 鸟叫，虫鸣( chirp的现在分词 ) | |
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croaking
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| v.呱呱地叫( croak的现在分词 )；用粗的声音说 | |
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chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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twigs
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| 细枝，嫩枝( twig的名词复数 ) | |
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amorphous
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| adj.无定形的 | |
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tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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shrubs
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| 灌木( shrub的名词复数 ) | |
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prick
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| v.刺伤，刺痛，刺孔；n.刺伤，刺痛 | |
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homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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wink
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| n.眨眼，使眼色，瞬间；v.眨眼，使眼色，闪烁 | |
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hind
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| adj.后面的，后部的 | |
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lug
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| n.柄，突出部，螺帽；(英）耳朵；（俚）笨蛋；vt.拖，拉，用力拖动 | |
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27
pruning
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| n.修枝，剪枝，修剪v.修剪（树木等）( prune的现在分词 )；精简某事物，除去某事物多余的部分 | |
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groom
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| vt.给（马、狗等）梳毛，照料，使...整洁 | |
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grassy
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| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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exiguous
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| adj.不足的，太少的 | |
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piety
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| n.虔诚，虔敬 | |
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attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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cypress
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| n.柏树 | |
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progeny
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| n.后代，子孙；结果 | |
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ascended
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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wriggling
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| v.扭动，蠕动，蜿蜒行进( wriggle的现在分词 )；（使身体某一部位）扭动；耍滑不做，逃避（应做的事等）；蠕蠕 | |
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39
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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larder
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| n.食物贮藏室，食品橱 | |
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pane
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| n.窗格玻璃，长方块 | |
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42
draught
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| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
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43
jug
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| n.(有柄，小口，可盛水等的)大壶，罐，盂 | |
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44
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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45
gilt
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| adj.镀金的；n.金边证券 | |
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46
rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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sedulously
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| ad.孜孜不倦地 | |
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48
windings
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| （道路、河流等）蜿蜒的，弯曲的( winding的名词复数 )； 缠绕( wind的现在分词 )； 卷绕； 转动（把手） | |
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49
bulge
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| n.突出，膨胀，激增；vt.突出，膨胀 | |
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50
fumbled
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| （笨拙地）摸索或处理（某事物）( fumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 乱摸，笨拙地弄； 使落下 | |
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51
hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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52
squat
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| v.蹲坐，蹲下；n.蹲下；adj.矮胖的，粗矮的 | |
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53
prim
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| adj.拘泥形式的，一本正经的；n.循规蹈矩，整洁；adv.循规蹈矩地，整洁地 | |
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54
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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55
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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56
constrained
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| adj.束缚的,节制的 | |
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57
repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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58
recesses
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| n.壁凹( recess的名词复数 )；（工作或业务活动的）中止或暂停期间；学校的课间休息；某物内部的凹形空间v.把某物放在墙壁的凹处( recess的第三人称单数 )；将（墙）做成凹形，在（墙）上做壁龛；休息，休会，休庭 | |
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59
secreted
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| v.（尤指动物或植物器官）分泌( secrete的过去式和过去分词 )；隐匿，隐藏 | |
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60
bigotry
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| n.偏见，偏执，持偏见的行为[态度]等 | |
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61
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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62
hurled
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| v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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mattress
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| n.床垫，床褥 | |
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64
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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65
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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66
steered
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| v.驾驶( steer的过去式和过去分词 )；操纵；控制；引导 | |
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67
symbolized
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| v.象征，作为…的象征( symbolize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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68
relaxation
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| n.松弛，放松；休息；消遣；娱乐 | |
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laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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70
flicker
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| vi./n.闪烁，摇曳，闪现 | |
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71
flick
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| n.快速的轻打，轻打声，弹开；v.轻弹，轻轻拂去，忽然摇动 | |
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72
virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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joyous
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| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
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74
swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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75
barges
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| 驳船( barge的名词复数 ) | |
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76
barge
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| n.平底载货船，驳船 | |
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77
pervading
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| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的现在分词 ) | |
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78
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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profusely
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| ad.abundantly | |
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80
hovered
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| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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81
frantically
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| ad.发狂地, 发疯地 | |
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82
caress
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| vt./n.爱抚，抚摸 | |
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83
caressing
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| 爱抚的，表现爱情的，亲切的 | |
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84
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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85
affinity
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| n.亲和力，密切关系 | |
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86
vitality
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| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
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87
delectable
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| adj.使人愉快的；美味的 | |
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88
gentry
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| n.绅士阶级，上层阶级 | |
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quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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cemetery
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| n.坟墓，墓地，坟场 | |
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91
solidified
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| （使）成为固体，（使）变硬，（使）变得坚固( solidify的过去式和过去分词 )； 使团结一致； 充实，巩固； 具体化 | |
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92
spasms
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| n.痉挛( spasm的名词复数 )；抽搐；（能量、行为等的）突发；发作 | |
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93
anecdote
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| n.轶事，趣闻，短故事 | |
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parental
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| adj.父母的；父的；母的 | |
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perpetuate
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| v.使永存，使永记不忘 | |
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96
annulled
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| v.宣告无效( annul的过去式和过去分词 )；取消；使消失；抹去 | |
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97
vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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98
wafted
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| v.吹送，飘送，（使）浮动( waft的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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99
joyously
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| ad.快乐地, 高兴地 | |
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100
benighted
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| adj.蒙昧的 | |
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101
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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102
taxation
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| n.征税，税收，税金 | |
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103
cargo
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| n.(一只船或一架飞机运载的)货物 | |
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104
cargoes
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| n.（船或飞机装载的）货物( cargo的名词复数 )；大量，重负 | |
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105
speculative
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| adj.思索性的，暝想性的，推理的 | |
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106
marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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107
gale
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| n.大风，强风，一阵闹声（尤指笑声等） | |
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108
perilous
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| adj.危险的，冒险的 | |
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109
veering
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| n.改变的；犹豫的；顺时针方向转向；特指使船尾转向上风来改变航向v.（尤指交通工具）改变方向或路线( veer的现在分词 )；（指谈话内容、人的行为或观点）突然改变；（指风） （在北半球按顺时针方向、在南半球按逆时针方向）逐渐转向；风向顺时针转 | |
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110
improvised
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| a.即席而作的,即兴的 | |
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111
lashing
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| n.鞭打；痛斥；大量；许多v.鞭打( lash的现在分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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112
broaching
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| n.拉削；推削；铰孔；扩孔v.谈起( broach的现在分词 )；打开并开始用；用凿子扩大（或修光）；（在桶上）钻孔取液体 | |
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113
tilted
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| v. 倾斜的 | |
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114
verge
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| n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临 | |
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115
abate
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| vi.(风势，疼痛等)减弱，减轻，减退 | |
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116
recede
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| vi.退(去)，渐渐远去；向后倾斜，缩进 | |
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117
superfluous
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| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
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118
reposed
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| v.将（手臂等）靠在某人（某物）上( repose的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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119
providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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120
lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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121
majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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122
vent
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| n.通风口，排放口；开衩；vt.表达，发泄 | |
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123
rustic
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| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
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124
creek
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| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
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125
prolific
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| adj.丰富的，大量的；多产的，富有创造力的 | |
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126
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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127
ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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128
beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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129
loomed
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| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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130
inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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131
stranded
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| a.搁浅的，进退两难的 | |
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132
sagging
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| 下垂[沉，陷]，松垂，垂度 | |
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133
bulwark
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| n.堡垒，保障，防御 | |
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134
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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135
slanting
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| 倾斜的，歪斜的 | |
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136
stony
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| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
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137
watchful
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| adj.注意的，警惕的 | |
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138
smuggled
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| 水货 | |
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139
softened
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| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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140
blandly
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| adv.温和地，殷勤地 | |
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141
nautical
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| adj.海上的，航海的，船员的 | |
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142
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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143
consternation
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| n.大为吃惊，惊骇 | |
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144
modicum
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| n.少量，一小份 | |
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145
technically
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| adv.专门地，技术上地 | |
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146
entailed
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| 使…成为必要( entail的过去式和过去分词 )； 需要； 限定继承； 使必需 | |
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147
fiscal
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| adj.财政的，会计的，国库的，国库岁入的 | |
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148
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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149
obdurate
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| adj.固执的，顽固的 | |
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150
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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151
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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152
quarry
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| n.采石场；v.采石；费力地找 | |
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153
brat
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| n.孩子；顽童 | |
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154
amenities
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| n.令人愉快的事物；礼仪；礼节；便利设施；礼仪( amenity的名词复数 )；便利设施；（环境等的）舒适；（性情等的）愉快 | |
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155
hull
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| n.船身；(果、实等的)外壳；vt.去(谷物等)壳 | |
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156
copious
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| adj.丰富的，大量的 | |
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157
genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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158
genially
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| adv.亲切地，和蔼地；快活地 | |
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159
tars
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| 焦油，沥青，柏油( tar的名词复数 ) | |
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160
rascally
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| adj. 无赖的，恶棍的 adv. 无赖地，卑鄙地 | |
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161
rascal
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| n.流氓；不诚实的人 | |
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162
smuggler
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| n.走私者 | |
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163
slung
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| 抛( sling的过去式和过去分词 )； 吊挂； 遣送； 押往 | |
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164
discomfited
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| v.使为难( discomfit的过去式和过去分词)；使狼狈；使挫折；挫败 | |
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166
tarpaulin
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|
| n.涂油防水布，防水衣，防水帽 | |
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167
sundry
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| adj.各式各样的，种种的 | |
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168
mariner
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| n.水手号不载人航天探测器，海员，航海者 | |
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169
subjugated
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| v.征服，降伏( subjugate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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170
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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171
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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172
precipitated
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|
| v.（突如其来地）使发生( precipitate的过去式和过去分词 )；促成；猛然摔下；使沉淀 | |
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173
uncouthly
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174
aspired
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| v.渴望，追求( aspire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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175
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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176
bust
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| vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部 | |
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177
mitigated
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| v.减轻，缓和( mitigate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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178
jaw
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| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
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179
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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180
zest
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| n.乐趣；滋味，风味；兴趣 | |
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181
smuggling
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| n.走私 | |
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182
eked
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|
| v.（靠节省用量）使…的供应持久( eke的过去式和过去分词 )；节约使用；竭力维持生计；勉强度日 | |
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183
obtuse
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| adj.钝的；愚钝的 | |
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184
squire
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| n.护卫, 侍从, 乡绅 | |
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185
opprobrium
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| n.耻辱，责难 | |
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186
manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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187
patriot
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| n.爱国者，爱国主义者 | |
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188
thwarted
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| 阻挠( thwart的过去式和过去分词 )； 使受挫折； 挫败； 横过 | |
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189
naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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190
vaults
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| n.拱顶( vault的名词复数 )；地下室；撑物跳高；墓穴 | |
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191
cavalcades
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| n.骑马队伍，车队( cavalcade的名词复数 ) | |
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192
ethical
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| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
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193
smoker
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| n.吸烟者，吸烟车厢，吸烟室 | |
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194
puffing
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| v.使喷出( puff的现在分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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195
prohibition
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| n.禁止；禁令，禁律 | |
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196
miller
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| n.磨坊主 | |
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197
facetiousness
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| n.滑稽 | |
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198
grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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199
prodigally
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| adv.浪费地，丰饶地 | |
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200
prodigal
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| adj.浪费的，挥霍的，放荡的 | |
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201
lame
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| adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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202
lamenting
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| adj.悲伤的，悲哀的v.（为…）哀悼，痛哭，悲伤( lament的现在分词 ) | |
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203
stiffened
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| 加强的 | |
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204
blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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205
dissenters
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| n.持异议者，持不同意见者( dissenter的名词复数 ) | |
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206
chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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207
clergy
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| n.[总称]牧师，神职人员 | |
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208
dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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209
moored
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| adj. 系泊的 动词moor的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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210
commodious
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| adj.宽敞的；使用方便的 | |
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211
reminder
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| n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示 | |
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212
adventurous
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| adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的 | |
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213
foundered
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| v.创始人( founder的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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214
diminution
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| n.减少；变小 | |
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215
simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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216
smallpox
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| n.天花 | |
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217
orphan
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| n.孤儿；adj.无父母的 | |
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218
smelt
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| v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼 | |
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219
fowls
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| 鸟( fowl的名词复数 )； 禽肉； 既不是这； 非驴非马 | |
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220
upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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221
smack
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| vt.拍，打，掴；咂嘴；vi.含有…意味；n.拍 | |
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222
smacks
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| 掌掴（声）( smack的名词复数 )； 海洛因； （打的）一拳； 打巴掌 | |
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223
sluggishly
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| adv.懒惰地；缓慢地 | |
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224
promontory
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| n.海角；岬 | |
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225
yearned
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| 渴望，切盼，向往( yearn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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226
hazy
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| adj.有薄雾的，朦胧的；不肯定的，模糊的 | |
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227
toiled
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的过去式和过去分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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228
corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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229
strewed
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| v.撒在…上( strew的过去式和过去分词 )；散落于；点缀；撒满 | |
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230
gleaned
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| v.一点点地收集（资料、事实）( glean的过去式和过去分词 )；（收割后）拾穗 | |
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231
tattooed
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| v.刺青，文身( tattoo的过去式和过去分词 )；连续有节奏地敲击；作连续有节奏的敲击 | |
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232
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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233
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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234
abaft
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| prep.在…之后；adv.在船尾，向船尾 | |
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235
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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236
faltered
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| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
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237
primitiveness
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| 原始，原始性 | |
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238
tart
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| adj.酸的；尖酸的，刻薄的；n.果馅饼；淫妇 | |
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239
alluded
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| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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240
abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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241
dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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242
specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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243
hovering
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| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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244
queried
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| v.质疑，对…表示疑问( query的过去式和过去分词 )；询问 | |
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245
pegs
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| n.衣夹( peg的名词复数 )；挂钉；系帐篷的桩；弦钮v.用夹子或钉子固定( peg的第三人称单数 )；使固定在某水平 | |
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246
pinions
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| v.抓住[捆住]（双臂）( pinion的第三人称单数 ) | |
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247
rustling
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| n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
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248
refreshments
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| n.点心,便餐;(会议后的)简单茶点招 待 | |
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249
squires
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| n.地主，乡绅( squire的名词复数 ) | |
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250
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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251
widower
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| n.鳏夫 | |
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252
sniff
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| vi.嗅…味道；抽鼻涕；对嗤之以鼻，蔑视 | |
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253
guts
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| v.狼吞虎咽，贪婪地吃，飞碟游戏（比赛双方每组5人，相距15码，互相掷接飞碟）；毁坏（建筑物等）的内部( gut的第三人称单数 )；取出…的内脏n.勇气( gut的名词复数 )；内脏；消化道的下段；肠 | |
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254
gaol
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| n.(jail)监狱；(不加冠词)监禁；vt.使…坐牢 | |
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255
smokers
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| 吸烟者( smoker的名词复数 ) | |
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256
hush
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| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
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257
gab
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| v.空谈，唠叨，瞎扯；n.饶舌，多嘴，爱说话 | |
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258
hoists
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| 把…吊起，升起( hoist的第三人称单数 ) | |
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259
pennant
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| n.三角旗；锦标旗 | |
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260
schooner
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| n.纵帆船 | |
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261
devout
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| adj.虔诚的，虔敬的，衷心的 (n.devoutness) | |
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262
graveyard
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| n.坟场 | |
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263
apiaries
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| n.养蜂场，蜂房( apiary的名词复数 ) | |
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264
dismantled
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| 拆开( dismantle的过去式和过去分词 )； 拆卸； 废除； 取消 | |
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265
smothered
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| （使）窒息， （使）透不过气( smother的过去式和过去分词 )； 覆盖； 忍住； 抑制 | |
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266
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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267
coffin
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| n.棺材，灵柩 | |
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268
adjured
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| v.（以起誓或诅咒等形式）命令要求( adjure的过去式和过去分词 )；祈求；恳求 | |
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269
banking
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| n.银行业，银行学，金融业 | |
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270
ascent
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| n.(声望或地位)提高；上升，升高；登高 | |
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271
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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272
dissenting
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| adj.不同意的 | |
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273
inscription
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| n.（尤指石块上的）刻印文字，铭文，碑文 | |
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274
confirmation
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| n.证实，确认，批准 | |
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275
forefinger
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| n.食指 | |
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276
distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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277
trickling
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| n.油画底色含油太多而成泡沫状突起v.滴( trickle的现在分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动 | |
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278
desecration
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| n. 亵渎神圣, 污辱 | |
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279
lawful
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| adj.法律许可的，守法的，合法的 | |
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280
beholding
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| v.看，注视( behold的现在分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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281
gals
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| abbr.gallons （复数）加仑（液量单位）n.女孩，少女( gal的名词复数 ) | |
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282
musingly
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| adv.沉思地，冥想地 | |
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283
philosophic
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| adj.哲学的，贤明的 | |
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284
aloofness
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| 超然态度 | |
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285
assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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286
blasphemy
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| n.亵渎，渎神 | |
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287
sneered
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| 讥笑，冷笑( sneer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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288
hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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289
discords
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| 不和（discord的复数形式） | |
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290
confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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291
veneer
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| n.(墙上的)饰面，虚饰 | |
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292
necessitated
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| 使…成为必要，需要( necessitate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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293
illiterate
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|
| adj.文盲的；无知的；n.文盲 | |
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294
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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295
climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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296
iniquity
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| n.邪恶；不公正 | |
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297
succumbed
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| 不再抵抗（诱惑、疾病、攻击等）( succumb的过去式和过去分词 )； 屈从； 被压垮； 死 | |
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298
measles
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| n.麻疹，风疹，包虫病，痧子 | |
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299
pneumonia
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| n.肺炎 | |
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300
writ
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| n.命令状，书面命令 | |
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301
bristle
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| v.（毛发）直立，气势汹汹，发怒；n.硬毛发 | |
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302
scuttles
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| n.天窗( scuttle的名词复数 )v.使船沉没( scuttle的第三人称单数 )；快跑，急走 | |
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303
fleck
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| n.斑点，微粒 vt.使有斑点，使成斑驳 | |
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304
chuckle
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| vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑 | |
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305
chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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306
forthright
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| adj.直率的，直截了当的 [同]frank | |
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307
casement
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| n.竖铰链窗；窗扉 | |
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308
paralysis
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| n.麻痹(症)；瘫痪(症) | |
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309
swelled
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| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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310
chastised
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| v.严惩（某人）（尤指责打）( chastise的过去式 ) | |
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311
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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312
lobster
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| n.龙虾，龙虾肉 | |
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313
sputters
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| n.喷溅声( sputter的名词复数 )；劈啪声；急语；咕哝v.唾沫飞溅( sputter的第三人称单数 )；发劈啪声；喷出；飞溅出 | |
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314
gulls
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| n.鸥( gull的名词复数 )v.欺骗某人( gull的第三人称单数 ) | |
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315
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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316
flicking
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| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的现在分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
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317
naught
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| n.无，零 [=nought] | |
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318
creditors
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| n.债权人，债主( creditor的名词复数 ) | |
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319
obstinately
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| ad.固执地，顽固地 | |
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320
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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321
remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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322
appeased
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| 安抚，抚慰( appease的过去式和过去分词 )； 绥靖（满足另一国的要求以避免战争） | |
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323
coves
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| n.小海湾( cove的名词复数 )；家伙 | |
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324
risky
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| adj.有风险的，冒险的 | |
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325
winced
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| 赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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326
sect
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| n.派别，宗教，学派，派系 | |
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327
transpired
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| （事实，秘密等）被人知道( transpire的过去式和过去分词 )； 泄露； 显露； 发生 | |
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328
almighty
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| adj.全能的，万能的；很大的，很强的 | |
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329
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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330
dubs
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| v.给…起绰号( dub的第三人称单数 )；把…称为；配音；复制 | |
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331
lawsuit
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| n.诉讼，控诉 | |
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332
scrambles
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| n.抢夺( scramble的名词复数 )v.快速爬行( scramble的第三人称单数 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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333
drench
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| v.使淋透，使湿透 | |
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334
instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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335
resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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336
lurking
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| 潜在 | |
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337
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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338
testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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339
unbearably
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| adv.不能忍受地，无法容忍地；慌 | |
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340
goaded
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| v.刺激( goad的过去式和过去分词 )；激励；（用尖棒）驱赶；驱使（或怂恿、刺激）某人 | |
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341
collapsed
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| adj.倒塌的 | |
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342
crestfallen
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| adj. 挫败的，失望的，沮丧的 | |
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343
contention
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| n.争论，争辩，论战；论点，主张 | |
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344
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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345
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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346
obduracy
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| n.冷酷无情，顽固，执拗 | |
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347
perverseness
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| n. 乖张, 倔强, 顽固 | |
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348
obstinacy
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| n.顽固；（病痛等）难治 | |
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349
creeds
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| （尤指宗教）信条，教条( creed的名词复数 ) | |
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350
sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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351
exhumed
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| v.挖出，发掘出( exhume的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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352
sensational
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| adj.使人感动的，非常好的，轰动的，耸人听闻的 | |
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353
munching
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| v.用力咀嚼（某物），大嚼( munch的现在分词 ) | |
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354
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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355
buxom
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| adj.（妇女）丰满的，有健康美的 | |
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356
triumphantly
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| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
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357
lamented
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| adj.被哀悼的，令人遗憾的v.（为…）哀悼，痛哭，悲伤( lament的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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358
yearningly
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| 怀念地，思慕地，同情地； 渴 | |
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359
prophesying
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| v.预告，预言( prophesy的现在分词 ) | |
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360
throngs
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| n.人群( throng的名词复数 )v.成群，挤满( throng的第三人称单数 ) | |
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361
jubilation
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| n.欢庆，喜悦 | |
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362
doffed
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| v.脱去，（尤指）脱帽( doff的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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363
gutters
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| （路边）排水沟( gutter的名词复数 )； 阴沟； （屋顶的）天沟； 贫贱的境地 | |
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364
admonish
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| v.训戒；警告；劝告 | |
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365
wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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366
gem
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| n.宝石，珠宝；受爱戴的人 [同]jewel | |
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367
treasury
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| n.宝库；国库，金库；文库 | |
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368
condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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369
conversion
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| n.转化，转换，转变 | |
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370
pokers
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| n.拨火铁棒( poker的名词复数 )；纸牌；扑克；（通常指人）（坐或站得）直挺挺的 | |
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371
omniscient
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| adj.无所不知的；博识的 | |
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372
chastisement
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| n.惩罚 | |
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373
purveying
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| v.提供，供应( purvey的现在分词 ) | |
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374
apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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375
gravies
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| n.肉汁( gravy的名词复数 )；肉卤；意外之财；飞来福 | |
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376
burrowed
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| v.挖掘（洞穴），挖洞( burrow的过去式和过去分词 )；翻寻 | |
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377
alias
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| n.化名；别名；adv.又名 | |
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378
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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379
dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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380
respite
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| n.休息，中止，暂缓 | |
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381
joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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382
gratuitous
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| adj.无偿的，免费的；无缘无故的，不必要的 | |
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383
rosily
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| adv.带玫瑰色地，乐观地 | |
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384
copper
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| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
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385
thawing
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| n.熔化，融化v.（气候）解冻( thaw的现在分词 )；（态度、感情等）缓和；（冰、雪及冷冻食物）溶化；软化 | |
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386
sleety
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| 雨夹雪的，下雨雪的 | |
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