CHAPTER V WILL AT HOME

Is not this the merry month of May,

When love-lads masken in fresh array?

???How falls it, then, we no merrier be’n,

???Like as others, girt in gaudy¹ green?

              Spenser, “The Shepheards Calendar.”
I

Time hung heavy on Will’s hands the first few days of his return, as heavy as the meals heaped before him by the adoring Martha. There was as much for “bever” as for breakfast, yet quantity did not suffice him. He became almost as finnicking and fractious as Cousin Caroline, not content, for example, to strain the pond-water through muslin for the larger insects, but insisting on its being boiled: indeed hinting preposterously³ that the mortality among his unknown brothers and sisters might have been connected with potations on which Caleb and Martha had patently flourished. He held views on the house-refuse, ignoring Caleb’s plea that “the best drain be a pig,” and by making hinges the very first evening for the lower windows to open by, he had raised such a draught⁴ in the house that it was all they could do to keep their bedroom and their kitchen air-tight, and even Martha was glad when on the Wednesday afternoon he went off to get some fishing in the Brad, and the windows could all be closed up again.

But the few dace and bull-heads that rewarded his rod left too many intervals⁵ for reflection, and in the unsettlement of his thoughts, before settling down to a judicious⁷ expenditure⁸ of his ninety pounds, he felt he needed more deadening exertion⁹. He tried poling against the stream to that ancient faery island—somebody’s half-decked shooting punt was doing no good rusting¹⁰ on the bank in the off-season, he thought—but the process soon became automatic and his mind was still restless, while after the islands of the St. Lawrence this enchanted¹¹ playground of his youth seemed tame and its prettiness trivial.

He fed his fancy on a salt-water expedition for the Thursday: recalled the great catches of flat-fish he and his brothers had made, the sport to be got out of the voracious¹² if inedible¹³ “bull-rout,” but it would be a very long walk, and what if when one arrived the tide should be too low? So he walked inland around Bradmarsh Common. But though it was, he told himself, the “old haunts” that he went out for to see, he omitted to revisit that venerable landmark¹⁵, Gaffer Quarles. Conscience adjured¹⁶ him he ought to look up the old carrier, whether for respect or reproof—and he actually did hover¹⁷ around Blackwater Hall—but pride forbade his entering, lest he stumble upon the new Carrier. The Hall appeared even more dwindled¹⁸ to him than Frog Farm as he stood surlily surveying it; even the Common—after the Canadian prairie—seemed no longer to roll towards the blue infinities¹⁹. He had a strong impulse to burst in on that careless old Daniel and give him a piece of his mind, even at the risk of meeting his gadabout granddaughter; but the bleating²⁰ of the goats sounded forbidding, and as he was hesitating he found himself under the gaze of another gaffer, the crown of whose battered²² beaver²³ tied on to its brim with coloured strings²⁴ gave him a festal grotesquerie. Will remembered this ancient, though despite his gay headgear he now seemed inexpressibly grimy in his patched corduroys, his two ragged²⁵ coats, and the dirty towel wound round his throat. It was the Quarles’s nearest neighbour, “Uncle” Lilliwhyte, who lived in a cottage also on the Common; trading in cress, cherries, and mushrooms, driving home obstreperous²⁶ cows and doing other odd jobs. This worthy²⁷ was now exercising his equal right of gathering²⁸ sticks on the Common, and the sordid²⁹ association seemed to reduce Jinny to the same shrunken proportions as her cottage.

“Buy a nadder, sir?”

“Sir!” Yes, after all, his father had been a “looker,” not a mere³¹ labourer, he himself had a waistcoat lined with bank-notes and cut by Moses & Son, why should he expect a sense of dignity from a girl of so lowly a status? Let her earn her livelihood³² as she wished—it was not his affair, except in so far as she should have none of his custom. A cock crew lustily, and it subtly heartened him up. Yes, he would go in now, give her back her glove, professing³³ to have just picked it up, and wash his hands of her for ever.

“No, thank you, uncle,” he said, with an irrelevant³⁴ memory of the ancient’s blind mother, “what should I do with an adder³⁰?”

“But that’s a real loive nadder, just kitched, sir.” He cautiously displayed its hissing³⁵ head and darting³⁶ tongue. “There’s many a slowworm killed for a woiper, pore things. Onny fowrpence, sir!”

“Well, here’s sixpence,” said Will graciously. “No, no,” he explained hastily, as the ancient began handing over the wriggling³⁷ reptile³⁸. “Kill the beggar.” And he hurried homewards. On second thoughts—inspired perhaps by some dim impression of a female figure flitting among the clothes-lines behind the Hall—he would not risk an encounter with Jinny, but make a special call upon poor, lonely old Daniel on the morrow. Jinny would then be out on her rounds. And if he took care to go at about the hour she was due at Frog Farm, he could avoid her at both places. Yes, that were tactics worthy of a man of the world.

Casual conversation with his elders reminded him, however, that Jinny was not expected that Friday. She had already left the parcel of groceries on the Tuesday. He was thus safe from her for eight days—he had only to remain at home. But the discovery that the whole of Friday was free from any possibility of her appearance at Frog Farm, and that Blackwater Hall was equally immune from her presence, seemed to remove the zest³⁹ of his diplomacy⁴⁰. Neighbour Quarles remained unvisited, his solitude⁴¹ unmitigated, and Will wandered aimlessly on the high road between Bradmarsh and Chipstone.

The year was at its most beautiful moment. The hedges were white with hawthorn⁴³, and the fresh young leaves on the trees gave an exquisite⁴⁴ sense of greenness without blurring⁴⁵ the structural⁴⁶ grace of the branches, while the unspoiled cadence⁴⁷ of the cuckoo’s cry came magically over the sunny meadows. But Will could only swish viciously with his stick at the hedges and litter the lanes with ruined blossom.

It was with no little surprise that, as he and his elders sat at high tea on this same evening, they heard the windings⁴⁸ of Jinny’s horn. The three sprang up: then Will sat down again.

“Ain’t you comin’ out to see Jinny?” asked Caleb.

“Let the boy drink his tea,” said Martha.

“But you ain’t never spoke⁴⁹ to her yet,” persisted Caleb. “And you used to give her eggs.”

“Let the boy eat his eggs himself,” said Martha sternly.

“Oi dedn’t mean they eggs,” laughed Caleb.

“Do go and see what Jinny can want,” Martha commanded him. “I shouldn’t be surprised if it is eggs—now that Mr. Flippance has opened his show he’ll be wanting them regularly.”

“Whatever for?” asked Will.

“He sucks ’em raw, like weasels, him and his darter,” explained Caleb. “They should say it’s good for the woice, and by all accounts showmen fares to have a mort o’ pieces to speak.”

“But why doesn’t Jinny sell him her own eggs?” asked Will.

“How do you know she has them?” asked Martha quickly.

“Hasn’t she?” he said lightly, reddening like the comb of the cock he had heard crowing.

“Not enough. That old sinner eats her out of house and home.”

“Mr. Flippance?” murmured Will.

“No, no. Her grandfather. Why don’t you go, Caleb?”

Will sat on stolidly⁵¹, helping⁵² himself to more tea and pouring the milk into the slop-basin. Presently Caleb returned, announcing that Jinny had brought something for Will—she could only legally deliver it to Mr. Flynt, junior, she said.

Will turned redder than at the egg-talk. “But I never ordered anything,” he said.

“You can’t prewent folks sendin’ you presents, same as they’re foolish enough,” Caleb reminded him.

A fantastic fear that the blue-eyed girl of the train was discharging some proof of devotion at him made him drum nervously⁵⁴ with his teaspoon⁵⁵. “But who knows I’m back home?” he answered Caleb.

Through the open house-door came the gay strains of a fresh young voice:

“But still he’d sing fol de rol iddle ol!”

“Don’t she sing pritty?” sighed Caleb.

“I’d sooner hear her singing about Zion,” said Martha. “She’s rather flighty, to my thinking.”

“That’s the first time Oi heard ye say a word agen Jinny,” said Caleb, “leastways behind her back.”

Will, tingling⁵⁶ between the two tortures—the song without and the table-talk within—sprang up brusquely. “Drat the girl—my tea’ll get cold. Sit down, dad, I’ll see what she’s brought.”
II

Jinny sat stiffly on her seat, Nip clasped in her arms. The singing had ceased. Despite himself Will felt an odd pleasure in the sight of the trim figure so competently poised⁵⁷ above Methusalem, and he was touched to note Nip’s tail agitating⁵⁸ itself amicably⁵⁹ at the sight of him.

“Good evening,” she said politely. “I am glad to see it has not developed.”

“What hasn’t developed?”

“Your hydrophobia. And I am keeping the dog tight, you notice.”

He winced⁶⁰. “Oh, I’m not afraid of him.”

“But I am—he’s already bitten you once: get the cages, please, while I hold him.”

“The cages?” He had a confused idea that Nip was to be caged, was dangerous after all.

“They’re near the tail-board. Nothing to pay.”

He went behind the cart, wondering, semi-incredulous; did indeed perceive a couple of cages in the dusk, and reaching for one, drew back his hand in a hurry from some darting, snapping, creamy, pink-eyed yellowness.

“Oh!” he cried involuntarily.

“What’s the matter? Oh, I had forgotten they bite too.”

“What is this practical joke?” he cried angrily.

“Eh?” said Jinny. “Didn’t you order a pair of ferrets to be sent by the Carrier?”

His eyes grew wide. “I beg your pardon—I’d quite forgotten.”

“I thought Deacon Mawhood wasn’t a likely joker. Polecats, he said. Have you got the cages?” she asked, not looking back.

“I’m—I’m getting them,” he stammered⁶², and began cautiously haling them towards him.

“The Deacon asked me to say the hob and the jill must be kept apart.”

“I know,” he grunted⁶³, almost as shocked as over her mention of Maria’s litter. The impudicity of her calling was again borne in on him.

“Anything else?” burst from him sardonically⁶⁴.

“No—except there’s no need to cope them. I don’t know what coping is.”

“It’s what you want,” he said brutally⁶⁵. “Muzzling.”

“Afraid of my bite, too?” asked Jinny, and turning towards the interior shelf that held the smaller parcels, she began to sing softly to herself:

“A dashing young lad from Buckingham.”

He had been expecting “Canada” at the end, and felt somehow disappointed at its absence. “But when I gave the order,” he rejoined notwithstanding, “I didn’t know that the Bradmarsh Carrier was a girl.”

“That didn’t prevent you using her when you did know,” she said quietly.

“When have I used her?” he cried hotly.

“Well, what about this?” She produced from the shelf in the cart a long parcel half enclosed by a string in broken, dirty paper, within which showed a layer of grimy straw.

“But what is it?”

“That’s not my business.” She tendered it downwards⁶⁷.

“I never ordered this.”

“Hadn’t you better open it?” she asked with a twinkle. He dumped down the cages violently, to the alarm of the ferrets, and tore it open, only to shudder⁶⁸ back before the clammy-looking coils.

“An adder as well?” said Jinny. “You going to open a menagerie?”

“It’s dead,” he said.

“Did you want a live one?”

“I didn’t want one at all—I never ordered it.”

“Why, Uncle Lilliwhyte told me he sold it to you for fourpence and you gave him twopence extra to kill it.”

“I beg your pardon—he misunderstood.” It was his second apology. “But what a dirty way to deliver it.”

“Did you expect me to nurse a viper⁶⁹ in my bosom⁷⁰?”

Again this indelicate speech, hardly atoned⁷¹ for by its wit. “The old ragamuffin!” he muttered furiously. “How did the idiot know it was me?”

“Fellow-feeling, I suppose,” said Jinny.

“Now you’re saucy⁷² again. You must have told him it was me.”

“Right for once. Honest uncle was upset at your forgetting to tell him where to send your purchase. I was milking my goats and saw you hanging about.”

Again he flushed uneasily. “And how much do I owe you?” he asked hurriedly.

“Twopence for the viper, being only a short way. The Deacon says he prefers to pay the freightage on the ferrets, and to collect it from you himself.”

He put down the straw-entangled snake on top of one of the cages, and pulled out a coin. “Have you got change for sixpence?”

“Not unless I loose Nip.” She fumbled⁷³ with one hand in her pocket.

He glowered⁷⁴. “Oh, next time will do,” he said angrily.

“Oh, then, there is to be a next time!”

“Not so far as I am concerned.”

“Sure you don’t want any more wild animals?”

“No,” he shouted.

“Don’t be so fierce. The drumstick is found, you will be glad to hear.”

He grunted.

“And the show is doing big business, Mr. Flippance tells me. He was so set up he gave me a pair of new gloves.”

“That old braggart⁷⁵! What business had he to give you gloves?”

“Didn’t I lose one through his drumstick?”

“But then ’tis me ought to pay for them,” he protested.

“You? What nonsense! Why?”

“It was on my account you lost the glove—through trying to get a bite.”

She smiled. “You talk as if I were an angler.”

“I wish you were! Anything but a carrier.”

“Don’t say that. Would you like me to buy another pair of gloves—on your account?”

“If you would!” he said eagerly.

“Thank you!

But still he’d-sing fol de rol iddle ol.

“What size do you take?”

“Stow that fol-de-riddling—you know I don’t mean gloves for me.”

“Are you taking back the order?” she said, with feigned⁷⁶ disappointment.

“I never gave you an order!” he said, goaded⁷⁷. “I’d cut my tongue out sooner.”

“Keep your tongue between your teeth. You’ll want it to give me an order with before you’re a week older.”

“Never! I’d as soon shoe a horse with a hairpin⁷⁸.” He snatched up his cages decisively, one in each hand, and the adder rolled on to the ground, bursting its strawy cerements.

The girl’s grey eyes flashed steel-like. “And can’t I drive as well as Gran’fer? And don’t I know the roads?” And she uplifted her horn from her girdle and blew a resounding⁷⁹ blast of defiance⁸⁰. It set all the cocks crowing behind the house and brought Caleb bustling⁸¹ from within it.

“Did you summon me, Jinny?” he asked. “Gracious, Will, whatever you got there?” His eyes expanded to see the sinuous⁸² animals swirling⁸³ fiercely against their wires; in coming nearer to peer at them, he stumbled over the snake and uttered a cry.

“It’s all right,” called Jinny. “It’s dead.”

“You killed it, Willie?” he asked.

“With a drumstick,” said Jinny gravely.

“Fiddlesticks, father!” said Will angrily.

“Oi don’t care what sort o’ stick you killed that with,” said Caleb, “so long as it’s a dead corpse⁸⁴. But do ye come in now—mother’s grousin’ about the tea gittin’ cold.”

“I like cold tea. Go in, father. I’m just coming.” He harked back to her blast of rebellion. “You may be able to drive, and you may know the roads. But can’t you see how unnatural⁸⁵ it is, you perched up there and blowing a horn like Dick Burrage of the County Flyer?”

“And do I blow it as fine as he?” she asked eagerly.

“Anybody can blow a horn,” he answered curtly⁸⁶.

“Can they now?” She was piqued⁸⁷ again. “I’d like to see anybody do it. Why, Gran’fer can’t.”

“Gran’fer hasn’t got much breath left. I’m not talking of men in their eighties.”

“He is in his nineties,” she corrected.

“Exactly. I meant anybody with proper lungs.”

“Can you blow it?”

“Why shouldn’t I be able to blow it?”

“All right! Blow it!” said Jinny gravely. She unslung it with one arm and held it down. He gazed at it, taken aback, sandwiched between his cages.

“It’s no good opening your mouth,” she said. “I’m not going to stick it in. You’ll have to put down those horrible beasts and do that yourself. Why don’t they keep still? They make my head ache.”

He moved to the back of the house to place the ferrets out of the way, kicking the poor adder before him—it was a needed relief to his feelings. Returning, thus purged⁸⁹, he took the proffered⁹⁰ horn—it was not a professional coach-horn or post-horn, but just the little instrument of a master of foxhounds curling into a circle above—and with but scant⁹¹ misgiving⁹² put it to his mouth, and blew. But the silence remained unbroken. He puffed⁹³ on and on with solemn pertinacity⁹⁴. Not a sound issued. His cheeks swelled⁹⁵ to bursting-point, and grew redder and redder with shame and vexation. But silence still reigned⁹⁶.

“You mustn’t put it inside your lips,” corrected Jinny. “Think you’re tum-tumming into a comb.”

He readjusted it sullenly⁹⁸, but the music within was still coy.

“Slacken your lip,” she advised. “Try to splutter br-r-r-rr into it.”

But whatever he spluttered into it, nothing came out.

“I never realized it was quite so difficult, even the lipping,” said Jinny simply. “Of course I didn’t expect you to do the double or treble tonguing at once.”

“What do you mean, tonguing?” he inquired morosely⁹⁹.

“Dividing the notes. Say ‘Tucker, Tucker, Tucker’ into it.”

“But it’s blowing, not saying,” said Will obstinately¹⁰⁰.

But secretly he modified his methods, and at last a ghostly plangency¹⁰² or a staccato squeak¹⁰³ began to reward his apoplectic¹⁰⁴ agonizings, and the still prisoned Nip, who had been yawning in utter boredom¹⁰⁵, now accompanied the music with a critical and lugubrious¹⁰⁶ howling.

Upon this spectacle and situation reissued the guileless Caleb, and had the Crystal City itself come down upon earth, his eyes could scarcely have orbed themselves more spaciously¹⁰⁷.

“He didn’t summon you,” observed the merciless Jinny.

“Go away, father! What are you staring at?” yapped the tortured young man.

“You do be a fine musicianer!” And Caleb grinned. “But do ye don’t play now—mother’s gittin’ into her tantarums over your tea.”

“The instrument must be out of order,” said Will, handing it up crossly to Jinny. Remorselessly she drew from it a clarion¹⁰⁹ call that made the welkin ring and the poultry-yard respond in kind.

“How the cocks crow!” she observed artlessly.

“Thinks because she blows a horn she’s a devil of a fellow,” Will remarked witheringly to his receding¹¹⁰ father. “Say, Jinny, why don’t you wear the breeches?”

“Like those Bloomerites you told me of? I will,” she responded sweetly, “if you think it more becoming.”

“Me! You don’t suppose I notice what you wear.”

“Then how do you know I’m not wearing ’em now?”

“You have me there!” And he smiled despite himself. The smile lit up the face under the aureole of red hair—it seemed to Jinny a sudden glimpse, through a rift¹¹¹ of Time, of the boy she had known. “All the same,” he protested, “if I had a horn, I could learn it in an hour.”

“Well, get one,” said Jinny.

“Where can I get one?” he retorted fretfully.

“Dearie! Your tea——!” It was Martha herself now.

“Oh, I’d get you one,” said Jinny carelessly, “but I’ll wager¹¹² you won’t blow it properly in a week, much less an hour!”

“A week! What nonsense! In a moment.”

“In a moment?”

“I was speaking to mother. What’ll you wager?”

“A pair of gloves,” said Jinny.

“Done!” said Will.

She clucked to Methusalem. “Good-bye,” she called to the couple as the cart moved off. “I’ll deliver your order next Friday, Will—without fail.”

“Dearie, whatever are you running after her for?” cried Martha.

He came back sheepishly: “I thought the gate wasn’t open.”

From the Bradmarsh road the sound of the “fol-de-rol” refrain came sweetly on the quiet air.

“I wish she would sing of Zion,” repeated Martha wistfully.
III

The pair of polecat ferrets—creamy white albinos, pink of eye and black of belly—hung in the cages on the back wall of the farmhouse¹¹³, with a spare cage beside them as a retiring-place when a hutch was turned out. But only once—on the Saturday in the first ardour of possession—had Will taken them out a-hunting: on which occasion they had refused to rat or rabbit. Indeed their leaps and gambols¹¹⁴ persuaded Will that they pursued—as he remembered the Deacon once maintaining sympathetically about rats—their “private sports.” Why indeed should sensible creatures, comfortably fed on chicken-head and blackbirds, and provided with straw to cocoon¹¹⁵ themselves against cold, go squeezing into holes or drains? Restored to captivity¹¹⁶, these fainéant ferrets spent most of their day in squirming with desperate restlessness from one end of the cage to the other and perking¹¹⁷ their quivering noses and little black claws through the wires. And their master’s own plight¹¹⁸ was much the same, for after the prairie, Frog Farm was only a hutch to him: his father, too, being so unexpectedly on the shelf, there was nothing that really needed him, nor was there any land for sale in the vicinity on which he might commence operations. Like his ferrets, if with a larger run, he swayed restlessly to and fro; from farm to river, from river to Common, from Common to Steeples Wood, from Steeples Wood to Frog Farm.

When he was not thus oscillating on the landscape, he was sweating in intellectual indecision in the parlour: trying to write a little note to Jinny to inform her that she was to come to Frog Farm no more, inasmuch as he intended to go into Chipstone himself once or twice a fortnight, and could easily bring home whatever was necessary. He had thought that when he had found a feather dropped by a green goose, cut his quill¹²¹, concocted¹²² an ink out of soot¹²³ and water, and discovered a piece of white paper wrapped round his bank-notes, that his difficulties were over. But the worst now remained, for he could not satisfy himself as to the phraseology of this note, being, as he had truly pleaded, no great shakes at letter-writing. Such glibness¹²⁴ as he could muster¹²⁵ in conversation was paralysed in fact by a pen. There was not even one of those word-books he had seen scholarly people use to ensure the spelling, and one must not unnecessarily afford material to a minx who—having obviously to do with bills and accounts—might conceivably be literate¹²⁶. He had a vague remembrance of her reading texts quite easily at the Sunday-school, young as she was. Even if she could spell no better than he, she might possess one of these spelling-protectors.

The only book at Frog Farm being his mother’s Bible, he tried to secure accuracy by limiting himself to its words. But its vocabulary seemed strangely lacking. He had decided¹²⁷, for example, to begin with “Maddam.” One could not call such a stranger as the new Jinny “Dear Miss,” he thought, and “Miss” alone sounded thin and abrupt¹²⁸. No, “Maddam” was the mouth-filling resonance¹²⁹ necessary: it struck a note of massive dignity. But did it really have two “d’s”? And to his amazement¹³⁰ and anguish¹³¹ neither “Maddam” nor “Madam” was to be discovered from Genesis to Revelation. Adam, the nearest analogue¹³², who came in his reference volume with welcome promptitude, even precipitateness¹³³, had, he found, only one “d,” but was he a sure guide to the orthography¹³⁴ of the creature formed out of his spare rib⁸⁸? This and the many other curious and amazing passages that beguiled¹³⁵ him on his route—presented thus to a fresh and world-experienced eye—ran away with so much time that Martha would be summoning him to the next of his many meals before he had even dipped his quill into the soot.

“Mr. William Flynt presents his complements” was another promising¹³⁶ start—he had got a debt-demanding letter once at a boarding-house with this austerely¹³⁷ courteous¹³⁸ overture—but alas¹³⁹!—marvel on marvel—there did not appear to be a single “complement,” whether in the Old Testament¹⁴⁰ or the New. Not a very courteous people, the Jews, he thought, under either dispensation. This happy-go-lucky hunt for words—an exciting steeplechase in which one skipped over spacious¹⁰⁸ histories and major prophets with the chance of tumbling on the very word—began to be an absorbing substitute for ratting.

“The Epistles of James” suddenly caught his eye. Ah, here was a complete guide to letter-writing, he felt hopefully; what was good enough for James would do for William. But when written out, “William, the son of Caleb, of Frog Farm, to Jinny Quarles of Blackwater Hall, Little Bradmarsh, greeting” did not seem quite the correct opening. An Epistle of John was, even more misguiding. “The Elder to the Elect or Well-Beloved!” Clearly inappropriate to the point of absurdity¹⁴¹!

Still, with modifications¹⁴², Epistles must surely be valid¹⁴³ models. So he started writing and re-writing, wrestling and hunting and polishing. But the word-chase had now to be supplemented by a paper-chase. How keep pace in paper with this orgy of penmanship? Every corner of the house was ransacked¹⁴⁴, with meagre results: he even meditated¹⁴⁵ stealing back his own letter from his mother, knowing it had a blank fly-sheet, but it was always jealously guarded. It was not till he came on Farmer Gale¹⁴⁶’s boy—schoolward bound—and paid him twopence for the remains¹⁴⁷ of a penny copy-book that he could surrender himself freely to the labours of the file. An hour before this large laying-in of material, he had gone through a curious crisis. He had found in his purse, in a last desperate quest, a piece of paper which, unfolded, afforded a welcome white surface. He was composing quite a successful letter upon it when, on turning it over, he came upon the address of the forgotten blue-eyed charmer of the Chelmsford train. With frowning brow he tore it into small pieces. It was not merely that the letter was spoilt for sending: it was the juxtaposition¹⁴⁸ with Jinny—back to back—that seemed suddenly profane¹⁴⁹.
IV

After several days’ gestation¹⁵⁰, many words and turns of expression having to be rejected and replaced by phrases whose spelling could be ascertained¹⁵¹ from the Bible, the letter emerged as hereunder in a pale and aqueous ink:

“William Flynt to the Damsel of Blackwater Hall greeting. This epistle doth proclaim in the name of the generations of Frog Farm that Methuselah shall not come to pass here henceforward, inasmuch as behold¹⁵² here am I to purchase whatsoever¹⁵³ is verily to be desired from Chipstone, be it candles or oil or spice or any manner of thing whatsoever, nor shall you carry forth¹⁵⁴ aught hence, for lo! we will make no further covenant¹⁵⁵ with you or aught that is yours. Peace be with you, as thank God it leaves me at present.

“Yours truly,

“William Flynt.

“P.S.—Let not your horn be exalted¹⁵⁶, nor speak with a stiff neck, for surely this is not the way to find grace in the eyes of the discerning.”

But even this exalted effusion did not survive the first glow of satisfaction, for although it was treasured up as too good to destroy, and did not sound unlike the language that the Brothers and Sisters held in the meeting-house, he could not remember ever seeing a letter thus couched. It was succeeded by a homelier version, in which the word “Epistle” stood out as the only connecting-link. With a composition playing now for safety, and mainly monosyllabic, it would be a poor diplomacy not to work in one high-class word, of whose spelling he was sure.

“This Epistle is to say,” the new version began abruptly¹⁵⁷, “that we don’t need you to call on Frydays——”

Good heavens! Even Friday was not to be found in the Bible. Pursuing this astonishing line of investigation¹⁵⁸, he realized that Sunday itself was absent from its pages. The Bible without Sunday! O incredible discoveries of the illuminated¹⁵⁹!

He altered it, following Genesis, to the “sixth day,” but then came a paralysing doubt whether it was not the fifth, for how could you rest on Sunday if that was not the seventh? He casually¹⁶⁰ remarked to his mother that it was odd they did not rest on the seventh day, as commanded in Genesis. She explained to him that Sunday was the Lord’s Day, but he seemed dissatisfied with the argument. Perhaps Moses & Son were not so wrong, he remarked, repenting¹⁶¹ of his resentment¹⁶² against them for being closed that Saturday.

He woke up the next morning with the solution of dodging¹⁶³ the mention of the day and merely relieving Jinny of the duty of “markiting” for them. He felt sure that this word could be found, remembering a text about two sparrows being sold for a farthing. But to his chagrin¹⁶⁴ it was not in the “markit” that they were sold. In steeplechasing for the word, he tumbled on a text in Hosea: “Blow ye the cornet in Gibeah, and the trumpet¹⁶⁵ in Ramah,” and that seemed like an omen⁴². Yes, he would blow it in Bradmarsh, if not in Ramah. Let him wait till she came with the horn; then after whelming her with the wonder of his execution, he could, face to face and free of orthography, bid her trouble Frog Farm no more. And the postscript¹⁶⁶ of his great letter, “Let not your horn be exalted, nor speak with a stiff neck,” rang through his mind again, like a prophetic warning against overweening damsels.

“He’s come back a new soul,” Martha reported to Caleb, with shining eyes. “He’s found God.”

Caleb shook his head sceptically. “He’s too boxed up for that—he don’t open his heart enough.”

“But he opens the Bible,” urged Martha, “and he won’t close it even for meals. I can never get it for myself nowadays.”

“Dedn’t you read me as the Devil can spout¹⁶⁷ Scripture¹⁶⁸?” said Caleb shrewdly.

“For shame, Caleb. Anybody can see how changed the boy is—the only thing that makes me anxious is his Sabbatarian leanings. Suppose he should go and join the Seventh-Day Baptists.”

“Dip hisself o’ Saturdays?”

“No, no—’tis those that keep Sunday on Saturday. There’s two in Long Bradmarsh, but I hope Will won’t go straying into strange paths.”

“You better enlighten him,” said Caleb. “Them as is powerful enough to carry boxes from Chipstone ain’t allus bright in the brain-pan. Oi count it ’ud be aukard if he fared to keep Sunday on Saturday, bein’ as he’d want the Sunday dishes fust and we’d get ’em cold.”

“There’s higher considerations than the stomach,” said Martha severely¹⁶⁹.

“The stomach ain’t low and it ain’t high,” maintained Caleb. “The Lord put the stomach in the middle so as we shouldn’t neither worship it nor forgit it.”

“The only Sunday meal that matters,” persisted Martha, “is the bread and the wine, and though there’s no Lord’s table nigh, such as I could find dozens of in London, nor nobody to worship with except you, yet if you go on scoffing¹⁷⁰, my duty to my Brethren and Sisters of the synagogue will be to withdraw from you.”

“And where will you goo?” he asked in alarm.

“I won’t go anywhere—‘withdraw’ only means that it is forbidden to break bread with you.”

He was relieved. “Oi don’t mind so long as you don’t goo away.”

“And what will you do in the day of Ezekiel thirty-eight, when Gog and Magog dash themselves to pieces against Israel? And when the eighth of Daniel comes to pass, and the Great Horn is broken and the Little Horn stamps upon the host of heaven?”

“Oi count it won’t be just yet,” he said uneasily.

“You count wrong. To my reckoning the two thousand three hundred days of Daniel are nigh up. In the great day of Isaiah four, when the Tabernacle rises again with the cloud and smoke and the flaming fire, the people of God shall rise too from their graves while the others sleep.”

“Then you can wake me up, dear heart,” he said, “bein’ as you’re sure to be up.”

She shook her head. “You were always up first, sweetheart, but that day you’ll sleep on and I’ll have no power to rouse you—unless, says Isaiah, you ‘look unto me and be saved.’ ‘Dust to dust’—that shows we’re not immortal¹⁷¹ by nature.”

“But ef it’s comin’ so soon, Oi shan’t be in my grave at all,” he urged anxiously, “and Oi can push into the Tabernacle.”

“No more easy than for wasps¹⁷² to push into the hive. You’ve seen the bees push ’em back.”

“But one or two does get in and Oi reckon Oi’ll take hold o’ your skirt, same as you been readin’ me.”

“I read you there’ll be ten men to take hold of it,” she said.

“Nine other men!” he cried angrily. “But they won’t have no right to take hold o’ my wife’s skirt.”

“That’s what Zechariah says—‘ten men of all languages.’?”

Caleb’s gloom relaxed. “He was thinkin’ o’ Che’msford and sech-like great places full o’ furriners,” he said decisively. “Here there’s onny Master Peartree, and the shepherd ain’t a Goloiath. Oi’ll soon get riddy o’ him, happen he don’t hook hisself to you with his crook¹⁷³.”

“But I’ll pull in Will too,” said Martha.
V

But Jinny did not appear on Friday with the musical instrument. Only the unexpected arrived—in the shape of Bundock. That royal messenger was visibly hipped¹⁷⁴ as he delivered the letter to Will.

“A woman’s writing!” he observed reproachfully. “That means dragging me here time and again!”

But Will had broken open the high-class adhesive¹⁷⁵ envelope and was already absorbed in the letter.

“Sir,—Mr. Quarles thanks Mr. William Flynt for his esteemed¹⁷⁶ order, but regrets to inform him that a coach-horn of suitable size for a man is not to be had in Chipstone. They have not even got a little hunting-horn like mine. I will, however, superscribe to Chelmsford and get you one without fail. Trusting for your further patronage¹⁷⁷,

“Yours truly,

“Daniel Quarles.

“N.B.—All orders carried out—or in—with punctuality and dispatch. Goods sent off without fail to any part of Europe, America, and Australia.

“P.S.—Please inform your hond. parents that as she brought q.f. of groceries that Tuesday I shall not call again till I deliver your instrument.”

So Jinny had got in first in the pen-fight! And her letter bowled him over, not only by its bland¹⁷⁸ assumption that she was already established as his carrier, but by the fluency¹⁷⁹ and scholarship of its style, with its incomprehensible “superscribe” and “q.f.” He felt baffled too and even snubbed by the signature, which gave her a businesslike remoteness, and even a legitimate¹⁸⁰ status as a mere representative of the masculine, besides making him feel he had lost a chance by not sending off one of his many scrawls¹⁸¹ to the address of this same “Daniel Quarles.” His answer would now require the profoundest excogitation, he felt, as he adjusted her missive between the bank-notes and the glove. There was, moreover, the material problem of vying¹⁸² with this real and fashionable correspondence paper. Ultimately he became conscious that Bundock was still standing⁶⁶ at attention.

“Do you want anything?” he asked tartly¹⁸³.

“I’m waiting for the answer,” said Bundock nobly, “or you won’t catch a post till to-morrow night unless you trudge¹⁸⁴ to Long Bradmarsh.”

“Oh, there’s no answer—none at all! Thank you all the same.”

“Thank you!” said Bundock. “It’s not often folks consider me nowadays—especially when there’s a woman in the case. They just go on shuttlecocking letters till my feet are sore.”

“But it isn’t a woman!” said Will stiffly. “It’s just a business letter from Gaffer Quarles.” And he pulled it out, and the little glove fell out with it: which did not lessen¹⁸⁵ his annoyance¹⁸⁶.

“Daniel Quarles never put his fist to a pen this ten year,” asserted Bundock. “He was glad to be done with writing, says my father, for Daniel was never brought up to be a carrier, his parents never dreaming he’d inherit the business.”

“Why not, isn’t he the eldest¹⁸⁷?”

“The contrairy. Blackwater Hall and the bit of land is one of those queer properties that go to the youngest, if you die without a will.”

“The youngest?”

“Ay, and that’s what Daniel was. Borough¹⁸⁸ English, ’tis called by scholars,” said Bundock impressively. “However, he picked up a little from his brother Sidrach, who had already set up as a carrier on his own account round about Harwich, and a pretty business he did, old Sidrach, says my father, before he was discovered to be an owler and had to fly to America.”

“Were they so persecuted¹⁸⁹?” murmured Will.

“And didn’t they deserve it—smuggling our good English wool into France! Pack-horses they loaded with it, the rascals¹⁹⁰.”

“Oh, I thought they were a sect²!”

Bundock laughed. “That’s with an aitch; though I dare say many a man owled all the week and howled on Sunday—he, he, he! Do you know—between you and I—who it is writes the hymns¹⁹¹?”

“The village idiot!” answered Will smartly. “You told me so when I was a boy,” he added, seeing the postman’s disconcerted expression.

Bundock brightened up. “Ah, I thought ’twas too clever for you. But as for this letter o’ yours, it’s clearly a woman’s handwriting, and if Jinny once begins writing to her customers, it’s a bad look-out for me.”

Bundock might well feel a grievance¹⁹², for this was the first letter Jinny had ever written to a client, indeed to anybody with the exception of old Commander Dap, who, clinging to the friendship struck up at his wife’s funeral, sent her birthday presents and the gossip of the Watch Vessel¹⁹³. To him she had written as her heart and her illiteracy¹⁹⁴ prompted, but the elegant epistle received by Will Flynt was not achieved without considerable pains. She had the advantage, however, of not being limited to the Bible for her vocabulary, possessing as she did an almost modern guide in the shape of an olla podrida of a Spelling-Book, whose first edition dated no further back than 1755, the year of the Lisbon Earthquake. “The Universal Spelling-Book” had originally belonged to the “owler,” and it was from the almost limitless resources of this quaint¹⁹⁵ reservoir that, with a pardonable desire not to be outshone by her much-travelled neighbour, she culled¹⁹⁶ both the “superscribe” defined as “to write over” and the q.f. (given in the “List of Abbreviations” as standing for the Latin of “a sufficient quantity”), except that she misread the long “s” for an “f.” The immaculate spelling was, however, no mean feat¹²⁰, for the book’s vocabulary was very incomplete and devoid¹⁹⁷ of order, so that she had almost as much steeplechasing to do as her rival letter-writer. Moreover, she must fain study whole columns of traps for the unwary, where the terms of her own occupation appeared with disconcerting frequency. If there was not in the letter any necessity for distinguishing between “glutinous” and “gluttonous,” “rheum” and “Rome,” or any risk of confusing a “widow” with a “relic,” still “seller,” “fare,” “due”—any of which she might have needed—all had their dangerous doubles, and she did not write “call” without carefully discriminating¹⁹⁸ it from “Cawl, of a Wig¹⁹⁹ or Bowels²⁰⁰.” “Punctuality and dispatch” was lifted bodily from Miss Gentry²⁰¹’s billheads, and if she did not offer to send off goods to Asia and Africa, it was because only “Europe, America, and Australia” figured on Mr. Flippance’s posters.

The recipient²⁰² of this impressive communication was staggered by the strides in female education made since his boyhood. He betook himself at once—to his mother’s joy—to the Bible, like a Cromwell before a great battle. Martha had stolen the book back to the kitchen and was pondering texts anxiously when he wandered in to hunt for it.

“Who sent you a letter?” she inquired uneasily.

“Old Quarles,” he answered readily. “It’s about an order he can’t supply, and he asks me to tell you his granddaughter won’t be coming to-day.”

Martha’s face lit up. “What a pity!” she cried. “She might have taken my bonnet²⁰³ to Miss Gentry to be re-trimmed.” Martha had become reconciled to this minor²⁰⁴ vanity, now it was strategically unnecessary. “However, your young legs can do that, dearie, now they’re back, can’t they?”

“With pleasure, mother,” he said, all unconscious of the lapsed²⁰⁵ plan. “Why waste money on carriers?”

She kissed him passionately²⁰⁶, but seeing his anxiety to be at the Bible, she released him.

“I should look at Revelation, one, ten, Willie,” she advised, “and you’ll understand why the Sabbath——”

“Yes, yes,” he interrupted soothingly²⁰⁷.

“Also Colossians, two, sixteen and seventeen—the seventh day is but a shadow of things to come.”

“I see,” he said, escaping.

It took hours of hard theological study—indeed till Saturday morning—before the reply to Jinny shaped itself:

“Sir,—Mr. William Flynt thanks Mr. Daniel Quarles for his esteemed epistle, and regrets to learn that a coach-horn of suitable size for a gentelman is not to be had in Chipstone. I beseech²⁰⁸ you, however, not to superscribe to Chelmsford as Methuselah cannot fetch such a compass, and the righteous man regardeth his beast. Neither do I require a horn at her hand now or henceforwards.

“Yours truly,

“William Flynt.

“P.S.—Do you think that a maiden²⁰⁹ of your years aught to superscribe alone to Chelmsford, a city full of lewdness²¹⁰ and abominations, where men use deceit with their tongues and the poison of asps is under their lips?”

“What are you writing, Will?” said his mother, coming in to sun herself in his holy studies.

“Nothing.” He put his hand over the page of the copy-book, forgetting she could not read it.

“Are you writing to Jinny?” she inquired suspiciously.

“No, no—-it’s Daniel,” he corrected.

“Daniel!” she said in amaze. “About the Sabbath?”

“No, about the horn,” he blurted²¹¹ out petulantly²¹².

“The Horn!” She was wildly excited. “Is it the Little Horn or the Great Horn?”

He was amazed. “Well it began with the little horn——”

Martha was radiant. She poured forth her own theory of the Beast in Daniel, and emboldened²¹³ by his silent agreement—when his daze²¹⁴ changed into comprehension of her misunderstanding—she proceeded to elaborate her interpretation²¹⁵ of the two thousand three hundred days of sacrifice. He, meantime, was finally deciding to turn “Daniel” into “Miss” except in the address.
VI

But Will’s letter could not be posted—for many reasons. He possessed²¹⁶ neither an envelope to vie with Jinny’s, nor one that was closed with outside devices, nor any sealing-wax to make his letter its own envelope; he could only fold it into a cocked-hat and deliver it himself. Apart from these material reasons, he could not well let Bundock carry an answer, when he had denied there would be any, and he shrank from conducting his affairs under that official inquisition: moreover, haste was imperative²¹⁷ if he was to save the girl from that difficult and dangerous journey, for “superscribe” conveyed to him a sense of precipitation, and he saw her cart almost stampeding to Chelmsford. At any moment she might set out in quest of the Great Horn. That was why he abandoned the idea of toiling²¹⁸ to Chipstone to emulate²¹⁹ her refined writing materials. He must hie to Blackwater Hall that very afternoon and play postman. He would not, of course, enter the house, but would find a way of slipping the letter in.

The surreptitious deed he meditated gave him almost a skulking²²⁰ air as he neared the Common, and he shrank from the observation of all he met, though with the exception of Uncle Lilliwhyte in a corduroy sleeved waistcoat, driving cows with a weed-hook, and an old crone who stopped and muttered with twisted head, he saw only frightened partridges whirring above or rabbits and field-mice scurrying²²¹ at his feet. Near Blackwater Hall he encountered two of Jinny’s milch-goats tethered, pasturing on the hedgerows, and their bleat²¹ had a cynical²²² ring. The Common itself seemed almost to meet the sky, for clouds had gathered as suddenly as the crowd by the Silverlane Pump. He was feeling dispirited as he stole towards the house, but as he caught sight of the stables and barn at the rear, it seemed a happy idea to plant his note in some obtrusive²²³ coign. His heart beat like a raw burglar’s as he stood surveying from afar the primitive²²⁴ sheds whose roofs were thatch²²⁵, whose gates palings, whose sides faggots, and in one of which he could see Methusalem’s head in a trough of oats. The stable-shed would be the surest place, he thought, or perhaps he could pin the note on to the harness he saw hanging in an adjoining shed from nails in the beams. Coming nearer to peer at Methusalem’s manger, he was startled by the sight of a brown smock-frocked figure crouched²²⁶ on the littered, dungy floor and belatedly brushing Methusalem’s fetlocks. Before he could escape he saw the wizened²²⁷, snow-bearded, horn-spectacled face turned up at him, and heard himself recognized in a weakened but unmistakable voice.

“Why, bless my soul! Ef that bain’t little Willie Flynt!”

Daniel Quarles rose and straightened himself to his full height, but nothing in Little Bradmarsh had seemed to Will so pitifully shrunken. “Little” Willie Flynt indeed towered over the patriarch who had once seemed Herculean to him. Yet if the robustiousness that the old carrier had preserved in his eighties had vanished at last, there was still fire in his eye and a fang²²⁸ or two in his mouth.

“Hope you are well, Mr. Quarles,” said Will, recovering from the double shock of discovering and being discovered.

“No, you don’t, my lad,” piped the Gaffer. “Did, you’d a come sooner, seein’ as Time is gettin’ away from me.”

“Did Jin—did your granddaughter tell you I was back?”

“She ain’t scarcely told me nawthen else.”

Will’s cheeks burned.

“You ain’t come back improved, says she.”

Will’s flush grew redder.

“But Oi don’t agree with her—you’ve growed like a prize marrow²²⁹. Come into the house and she shall make you a dish o’ tay—Oi don’t drink it myself, bein’ as Oi promised John Wesley.”

“No, thank you—I’d rather talk where we are.”

“Well, Oi can’t inwoite you in here—’tis too mucky.” He gave Methusalem’s tail a final flick²³⁰ with the brush. “And it’s blowin’ up for rine. We’ll goo into the barn.” And he led the way imperiously round by a great and ramifying apple-tree that hid a little black door secured by a padlock and infinite knots of string.

“One has to be witty²³¹,” he commented, patiently undoing²³² the complications, “with so many thieves about to steal my dole²³³ hay.”

Will had not heard of these thieves, and thought Little Bradmarsh must be changed indeed, but he waited silently, wondering what to do with his note. And as he stood thus, there came from the cottage the sound of a girl’s singing. Fortunately it was not satirical, so Will could hear it with pleasure:

“Of all the horses in the merry greenwood

?The bob-tailed mare²³⁴ bears the bells away.”

“Always jolly, my little mavis,” said the patriarch, fumbling²³⁵ on, and, unable to resist the infection, his sepulchral²³⁶ bass²³⁷ voice took up the Carters’ Chorus:

“There is Hey, there is Ree,

?There is Hoo, there is Gee——”

“Oi wouldn’t unlock the barn,” he broke off to explain as the door swung open, “ef Oi hadn’t such good company.” He stood peering suspiciously into the tall raftered and beamed glooms; redolent of old hay and punctuated²³⁸ with a few cobwebbed and rusty²³⁹ instruments amid the endless litter. Will’s eye was fascinated by an old wine-barrel flanked by a chaff²⁴⁰-cutter and a turnip-cutter and covered with boards and weights. He divined it held corn and was thus closed against rats, and a whiff of aniseed came up in memory, and in a flash he saw the faces of Tony Flip⁵⁰ and the Deacon—and himself flying after a carrier’s cart.

“They’ve stole my flail,” cried the Gaffer.

“Why, there it is, under that straw,” said Will.

“Oh, ay. But there was more logs, Oi’ll goo bail²⁴¹. Drat ’em, can’t they chop for theirselves? It’ll be that Uncle Lilliwhyte.”

“Oh, but he’s only too honest,” said Will incautiously.

“There ain’t nobody honest,” barked the Gaffer.

“But he sent me an adder——” he began.

“Not he. ’Twas Jinny told him to send the adder. He’d ha’ kept your sixpence and let you whistle for your sarpint. But next time you want an adder, you come to me.”

“Do you sell ’em too?” he murmured, surprised.

“Oi be an adder!”

“What do you mean?”

His spectacles glowed strangely. “Read your Bible, young man—Dan is an adder in the path, what biteth the horse’s heels, so that the rider should fall backwards—that’s the blessing²⁴³ of Jacob—and let no man try to ride roughshod over the likes o’ me.”

Will shrank back before the passion of his words. Indeed in that gloomy old barn he began to feel a bit nervous.

“I’ve brought a note for Jinny,” he said hastily. “Will you give it to her?”

The old man took the cocked-hat. “Mr. Daniel Quarles!” he read slowly. “But it’s for me!”

Will’s blush was now papaverous. “No—no!” he stammered. It was a conjuncture he had not foreseen.

The fire in the old eye leapt up at the contradiction, shot through the spectacles. “Plain as a pikestaff—Mr. Daniel Quarles! And then you has the imperence to say there ain’t no thieves. But ye can’t bamboozle²⁴⁴ me. Oi could read afore you could woipe your nose with a muckinger, ay, and my feyther afore me. Carriers ha’ we been for over a hundred year, and my big brother Sidrach he had his own pack-horses loaded up with waluable stuff and writ¹¹⁹ me a piece ten year ago come haysel, sayin’ as he hoped Oi should jarney to see him, and please God Oi will, he gittin’ old.”

“But where is he?” asked Will, glad that the Gaffer’s monologue²⁴⁵ had drifted from its angry beginning.

“In Babylon!”

“Babylon?” gasped²⁴⁶ Will, whose recent theological excursions had made him almost at home in that purpureal city.

“That’s my nickname for Che’msford, chuck-full o’ lewdness and Church-folk. But Oi’ve been meanin’ to goo and look Sidrach up and hear all about his travels, he bein’ a rare one for adwentures, but somehow what with my carryin’ work and one thing and the tother my days fly by—like the Book says—swifter than a weaver’s shuttle. Happen lucky, though, Oi’ll git over there to-year.”

“I hope so,” murmured Will vaguely²⁴⁷.

“No you don’t, drat you!” said the veteran with sudden viciousness. “Tain’t your care whether Oi ever clap eyes on my beloved brother agen. A ’nation cowld day it was he had to goo away—the Brad all ice and they should be tellin’ of the Che’msford coach as come in without the driver, and he fallen down on the road, frozen stiff as a sparrow.”

“What year was that?” asked Will, to keep the conversation on this more agreeable level.

“It was the year my brother Sidrach went away,” said Daniel Quarles simply. “?’Nation cowld. We heerd that in Lunnon the river was as froze as ourn, and flue-full o’ sports—booths and turnabouts and pigs roasted whole, and great crowds to see a young bear baited. But feyther’s cart went to and fro Chipstone just the same, and brought the news as how a woman was burned at Newgate for coinin’—it dedn’t seem wery dreadful in that weather. Waterloo year that was another cowld winter—all the marsh¹⁴ ditches was solid ice, and all the eels²⁴² was found dead and frozen. Couldn’t eat ’em neither, not after the first day, they stank²⁴⁹ so. That numb²⁵⁰ was my fingers Oi could scarce howld the reins²⁵¹, and you’d ha’ thought by my breath Oi was a wicked smoker²⁵². But ’twas wunnerful times, and we heaped up a deadly great pile o’ fagots and bushes for the beacon²⁵³, top o’ yonder rise where ye see Beacon Hill Farm.”

“Ah, the bonfire to celebrate the victory!” said Will, rejoiced to find irascibility cooled into reminiscence.

“Wictory! That was the name o’ Nelson’s ship as that silly old Dap should say he sarved in. Nay²⁵⁴, this was but a bonfire to be lit when Bony landed. All along Blackwater we was ready for the inwasion, and when the beacon was fired, that was to be the signal. The soldiers was to goo to the coast and the ciwilians inland. But Bony never come, and ’twas a great waste. And Sidrach never come neither. ’Nation cowld the day he went away—Oi moind me gooin’ through a foot o’ snow across Chipstone poor-piece to the Church to see the Knight²⁵⁵ Templar what was dug up in the north aisle²⁵⁶, pickled inside three coffins²⁵⁷, but they’d put him back in the outer lead time Oi arrived. They should say it was a sort o’ mushroom ketchup²⁵⁸ as kept him together for the Resurrection Day—a bit blackish, but wellnigh as sound and good-lookin’ as you.”

It was a compliment that made the young man shudder again.

“Ah, there is the rain!” he exclaimed, with relief at the hearty²⁵⁹ patter on the apple-tree.

But the old man would not be fobbed off so enjoyable a topic. “Three coffins—lead, ellum, and a shell—’twas a witty way agin them body-snatchers—you ain’t safe agin thieves even in your tomb. And when you’re above ground they tries to steal your wery letters.” He pulled open the note.

“It’s merely addressed to you as head of the business,” Will explained.

“Ay, that Oi be, though the youngest. He that is last shall be fust, says the Book, ay, and the Law too, though ’twasn’t fair to Sidrach to my thinkin’, bein’ agin nature. And next time a letter comes for me, do ye don’t bring it and play your tricks, but let it come natural through Bundock’s grandson. What’s this? ‘Mr. William Flynt thanks Miss Quarles for her esteemed epistle.’ And who is Miss Quarles, and what’s she been writin’ to you?”

“About—about business,” said Will.

“There ain’t no Miss Quarles in the business,” said the old man testily²⁶⁰. “That be my business, and Oi lets Jinny amuse herself jauntin’ to and fro, pore gal⁵³, she bein’ that lonely on the Common and afeared o’ dangerous charriters. Rare mistakes, she makes, bein’ onny a gal, and costs me a pritty penny. But it ’ud cost me more ef Oi dedn’t stop at home and guard the house from thieves. And now she wastes more o’ my hard-earned dubs²⁶² writin’ to you as is a neighbour—drat the child, ain’t that got a tongue? ‘A suitable horn?’ Dash my buttons! What do you be wantin’ with a horn—you bain’t a guard or a postman, be you?”

“No, but——!” he stammered. The explanation was not simple.

“?‘Oi beseech you, however, not to superscroibe to Che’msford’ . . . ‘the righteous man regardeth his beast.’ Dang your imperence! Why shouldn’t Oi goo to Che’msford? Oi ain’t seen him these sixty year, and do ye don’t come interferin’ ’twixt brothers. Sidrach writ me a piece ten years agoo come haysel, arxin’ me to superscroibe to Che’msford, and Oi’ll not be put off by the likes o’ you. You look here, my lad, ef you’re come home to meddle²⁶³ or make, the sooner you goos furrin agen, the better.”

“But it’s not you—it’s Miss Quarles I don’t like journeying to Chelmsford. Look at the P.S.”

It was imprudent counsel, for, as the Gaffer followed it, his face became a black cloud, the fire in his eye was lightning, the odd fangs²⁶⁴ in his mouth showed like tigers’ tusks²⁶⁵, and his beard seemed like a tempestuous²⁶⁶ besom sweeping²⁶⁷ all before it.

“?‘Lewdness and abominations.’ You call my Jinny a Jezebel! Git out o’ my house!”

“I’m only in your barn,” Will reminded him, “and it’s raining, and you just said yourself that Chelmsford is a Babylon chock-full of abominations. And you’d let a young girl superscribe there all alone!”

“Jinny shall superscroibe where she pleases!” roared the Gaffer. “For over a hundred year the Quarleses have superscroibed in foul²⁶⁸ weather or foine, with none to say ’em nay, and it ain’t for a looker’s son to come here dictatin’.”

“I didn’t dictate,” said Will, with a fleeting²⁶⁹ schoolboy memory. “I wrote it with my own hand. Look here, Mr. Quarles,” he went on, trying another tack²⁷⁰, “you’re a sensible old gent with great experience of the world, and it makes me frightened to see that grandchild of yours gadding²⁷¹ about so far from home, and sometimes not getting back here till dark.”

“That ain’t timorsome—onny when she’s alone here,” he added cunningly.

“Maybe, but with such a pretty girl——!”

“Ay, she’s like a little bird with her little fitten—and allus singin’ like one too—all the day that goos about singin’, ‘Fol de rol——’?”

“Yes, yes,” said Will, wincing²⁷².

“And Oi’d best tear up your letter—she don’t want to read about lewdness and abomination except in the Howly Book. And Oi count she has enough o’ that on Sunday with you Peculiars.”

“It is better she should read about it than scutter about seeing it. A cart ain’t a suitable place for a girl.”

“A cart’s as suitable for Jinny as a horn for you,” retorted the old man, bridling²⁷⁴ up again. “Oi suspicion you’re plottin’ to steal her away from me.”

“What!” Will’s cheeks burned with indignation.

“And Oi count you’ve got your eye on the cart too, like you bolted off to Harwich with your feyther’s wagon²⁷⁵. There won’t be naught²⁷⁶ left for me but the poorhouse. But Oi’d die sooner.” He was almost blubbering now with self-pity.

“Oi saved a mort o’ money once,” he said, “though it took a deadly time scrapin’ the dubs together, what with the expense o’ dinner at “The Black Sheep” and the hoss’s feed—fower parcels or fowerty, Oi never stinted²⁷⁷ him o’ his peck o’ chaff, and three and a half pound o’ oats and the same o’ ground beans, and there’s folks as grumble²⁷⁸ to pay accordin’ to the soize and compass o’ the parcel, though there’s nights your hoss goos so lame²⁷⁹ and you’re that pierced with wind and snow you got to knock up a farm and borry a hoss to git home with, and them days it was the barges²⁸⁰ took away custom. Old Bidlake used to goo along canals and cricks as ain’t there no longer, thank the Lord, bein’ as they sea-walls have made a many willages high and droy. But Oi had to pay all my savin’s away to keep our name from disgrace, so as Emma should howd up her head in Kingdom Come. He hadn’t the bed he died in, for all his traipsin’ around in Tommy Devils; but time Oi went down to git Jinny, Oi made inquirations among the tradespeople and paid ’em to the last farden, aldoe soon as my back was turned, my own sister plots with her one-eyed little ship’s monkey to pay for a stone, as ef Oi’d neglected my own darter, and all spiled with wicked words—did you ever see such words in a Christian²⁸¹ churchyard?”

“No, of course not,” soothingly murmured Will, to whom the long rigmarole conveyed nothing except: a sense of pathetic and loquacious²⁸² senility.

“Ha!” said the Gaffer with satisfaction. “Oi says to Dap, says Oi, ‘A Churchman like you may not see the blarsphemy, but think what John Wesley would ha’ said to it.’ ‘Sir,’ Oi says to the old gentleman, ‘you jump into my cart,’ says Oi, ‘and not a sowl here shall harm a hair o’ your wig’; and with that Oi wheeled round my whip, and bein’ then an able-bodied young man (’twas the wery fust year arter feyther died), them as was throwin’ stones and cryin’ ‘Knock his brines out’ slunk away like blackbeadles, which was a pity, seein’ as they missed the be-yutiful words he preached from my cart. From Chipstone to Che’msford Oi carried him—a dogged piece out o’ my way, bein’ as he wanted to preach there and his own hoss had gone lame—’twas the wile²⁸³ o’ that great old murderer, Satan, says he, but the Almoighty sent you to confound his knavish²⁸⁴ tricks. That was a man of God, my lad, never out of heart, roighteous and bold as a lion, would preach even in front of a gin-shop where ’twas writ up: ‘Drunk a penny, dead-drunk twopence, clean straw for nawthen.’ Pounded glass mixed with mud the sons of Bellal threw in his face, but his eye-soight was not dimmed, nor his nat’ral force abated²⁸⁵. Used to preach as much as foive times a day, gittin’ up at fower o’ the clock, and travellin’ a bigger round than me, but wunnerful healthy, slept like a baby in my cart, and that saintly he said all his life he’d never done naught as ’ud bear lookin’ at. He made me sing a hume with him and we was singin’ it as we come into Babylon:

Oi the chief of sinners am,

But Jesus died for me.”

As the sepulchral bass quavered out the tune²⁸⁶, Jinny’s fresh voice could be heard from the back door calling “Gran’fer! Gran’fer! Where are you?”

“She thinks Oi’m out in the rine,” chuckled²⁸⁷ the old man, “but let her come and find me. His blessin’ he gave me at partin’, did John Wesley, and do ye don’t never smoke nor drink that pison stuff, tay, says he. ‘Oi’ll promise ye tay and gin too,’ says Oi, bein’ as Oi liked beer best. ‘But to give up baccy, that’s main hard,’ Oi says. ‘There’s harder,’ says he, lightning-like. ‘Promise me as ye won’t be friends with a woman as is younger than your wife, for there’s unhowly sperrits about,’ says he, ‘as brings gales²⁸⁸ and earthquakes and tempitations, and the best o’ men may git capsoized same as the Royal George, our best ship, t’other year.’ Lord, that fair capsoized me, for how could this furrin ole gen’leman in his eighties know about Annie, as wasn’t seventeen yet for all her wunnerful fine buzzom, and the missus older than me, in looks Oi mean, bein’ as she was two years younger the fust time that worritin’ census²⁸⁹ paper come along.”

“When was that?”

“That would be the year Oi put new thatch on this wery barn for the new century.”

“And what year did you meet John Wesley?”

“Ye’d best git Jinny to work that out. But it couldn’t be many year afore the Jew Mendoza boxed Dick Humphreys for the Championship, for Oi wouldn’t goo, ne yet bet on it, bein’ as my sowl was saved, and when Oi lifted up my woice at the camp-meetin’s and chapels²⁹¹ in praise and repentance²⁹² and shouted ‘Glory! Glory!’ dancin’-like, with the tears for my sins runnin’ down my cheeks, that was more joy to me than Annie and the prize-ring and cock-foightin’ rolled into one. And Oi ain’t never backslided, praise the Lord, bein’ as Annie married a sedan-chair man and was hiked away to Cowchester, and Oi hope for your immortal sowl’s sake, my lad, you bain’t like what Oi was at your age.”

“I hope so,” said Will, not without uneasiness.

The patriarch shook his head. “There’s the old Adam in you, plain to discern. Ye won’t be safe till ye’re married. But do ye don’t marry an old gander of a widow like that potboy they should be tellin’ of,”—he began to cackle—“that’ll onny lead to wuss mischief²⁹³. Wait till you happen on a clean little lass, rosy²⁹⁴ and untapped.”

“A girl like your granddaughter, you mean?” Will heard himself saying.

The cackle ceased abruptly and the grin was replaced by a glare. “That ain’t gooin’ to be married! That’s got to goo out with my cart, whenever Oi’m too busy workin’. Ef a rich man like Farmer Gale as drives her to chapel²⁹⁰ Sundays should be wantin’ her all the week, Oi don’t say Oi wouldn’t goo with her to the big house, but that ain’t likely, and she can’t have nawthen to say to a rollin’ stone as mebbe left a pack o’ wives among they Mormons.”

Will was nettled²⁹⁵. “And who asked for your granddaughter?” he retorted. “Besides, you’re quite right. I married dozens of wives in America—all widows too!”

The veteran chuckled afresh. “Dash my buttons! How you do mind me o’ your feyther when he was your age—always had his little joke. Not that Oi count him growed up yet, he havin’ never cut his wisdom teeth, but gooin’ off as skittish²⁹⁶ as a colt arter peculiar²⁷³ doctrines²⁹⁷ and seducin’ sperrits.”

“Oh, there you are, Gran’fer!” And pat as to a cue a most “seducin’ sperrit” flashed, like a shaft²⁹⁹ of sunshine, through the half-open door into the gloomy old barn. But she was aproned and bare-armed to the elbow, and rain-spotted, and a ringlet of hair was blown almost across her mouth, and the instant she perceived Will, she drew back in confusion, patting her hair tidy.

“Sorry, Gran’fer. I didn’t know you had visitors.”

But Will, to whom the sense she conveyed of brooms and dusters was sweetly reassuring³⁰⁰ of a still unsubmerged femininity, cried out as hastily:

“No, I was just going. You’ll get drowned.”

And he tried to pass her.

But the old man dramatically extended the uncocked hat.

“Howd hard, sonny.”

Will, disconcerted, found his feet sticking to the floor.

“He’s writ me a letter, imperent little Willie, and brought it hisself.” Then a flash of amusement toned down the asperity³⁰¹. “Aldoe he had his tongue with him!” And the old man chuckled.

“Shall I read it?” murmured Jinny, putting forth her hand.

“Nay, nay!” He snatched the note back and tore it into careful pieces. “Ain’t fit to be seen.”

“No more am I,” said Jinny with an uneasy laugh, and again she essayed to escape.

“Stop!” commanded the ancient, kindled³⁰² afresh. “Willie’s got to tell you what’s in they scraps³⁰³.”

Will was silent.

“Don’t stand gawmin’. Out with the abomination.”

But no sound issued from the young man’s lips. It was not merely that this new housemaidenly figure seemed safe enough even in Chelmsford, wrapped in its own sweet domesticity, and that adjurations designed for the minx bade fair to blunt themselves against this sober angelhood; but that the girl’s radiance against the littered gloom within and the rainfall without, robbed him literally³⁰⁴ of breath.

“Speak out, Willie!” said the Gaffer, softened³⁰⁵ to contempt by his obvious confusion.

“Perhaps he hasn’t brought his tongue,” suggested Jinny, recovering herself.

“Then Oi’ll lend him mine. You ain’t to goo to Che’msford, he says.”

“But I don’t want to go to Chelmsford, Gran’fer. Why should I go to Chelmsford?”

“To get his horn, you baggage. And he don’t be wantin’ it.”

“Oh, but he ordered it—it’s too late now.”

“Ay,” said Daniel Quarles, “and goo you shall to git it ef the adder has to bite Methusalem’s heels.”

“But I don’t have to go to Chelmsford for it!”

“You said you’d go to Chelmsford,” burst out Will at last.

“Nothing of the sort.”

“But I’ve got your letter!” He pulled it out, and again that awkward glove fell out. “Ah, there’s your glove I’ve found on the road,” he said, crimsoning³⁰⁶ furiously.

“Thank you!” She took both letter and glove placidly³⁰⁷. “Now I shall have two pairs! But where do I say anything about going to Chelmsford?”

Thus invited, he came and looked down at the paper she held, and gripped an end of it himself, very conscious of her near fingers, and her bared arm, and her bending head. He was about to cry: “Why, there!” when a horrible doubt lest “superscribe” did not mean dashing away, or stampeding, or scurrying, or driving, or even going, checked the exclamation³⁰⁸.

“I must ha’ misread it,” he said. “I beg your pardon.”

“Spoken like a Christian!” said the Gaffer. “And Oi count John Wesley ’ud a said let bygones be bygones. Sow bring out the beer, Jinny.”

“Thank you—I’m afraid I can’t stay,” said Will. He had a sullen⁹⁷ sense of defeat, which the loss of the glove seemed to accentuate³⁰⁹ and symbolize³¹⁰. “My folks’ll expect me home to tea.”

“Your Mormon wives? Ay, Jinny, you may well blush,” the Gaffer chuckled. “Willie’s been and married a pack o’ widows in America.”

“And left them there!” said Will, permitting himself a faint smile.

“Left all those widows!” laughed Jinny. “How deadly dead you must be!”

But despite the merriment in which the episode had so unexpectedly ended, and despite the rain which had now grown torrential, he tore himself obstinately away, even refusing the “umberella” which the old man suggested and Jinny offered to fetch; though as he stepped under the plashing apple-boughs, he felt himself doubly foolish to refuse what would have been a literal handle for a return visit. And now that he had caught a glimpse of what he told himself was the real Jinny, not the Tuesday and Friday swashbuckler, but the Saturday-cleaning-up-for-Sunday house-angel, he did not despair of inducing her to shed these husks of bravado³¹¹. But he had said “no,” and “no” to his great annoyance it must be.

“When do you propose to superscribe?” he asked with crafty³¹² lightness, as he raised his hat.

“Oh, but I have superscribed,” said Jinny. “But of course if it doesn’t come soon, I shall write over to Chelmsford again.”
VII

The first Sunday of Will’s home-coming, nothing had been said about chapel. That, his elders thought, might be still a sore subject with the boy whose resentment at sacrificing his buttons on the altar had driven him “furrin.” Still more delicate was the theological position into which the couple themselves had gradually drifted, and of which they now—before a spectator and critic—grew uneasily conscious. Martha’s Ecclesia in Long Bradmarsh having collapsed³¹³ almost as soon as she had been converted to it, she had no meeting-house to go to, and, almost simultaneously³¹⁴, Caleb, whose farm-wagons had recently been shifted to the new “looker’s” headquarters, ceased to attend his Chipstone Chapel. This was partly to keep his wife company of a Sunday, partly because so many miles there and back was getting too much for his legs. In consequence the pair had arrived by compromise at a Sunday ritual of their own, a sort of Peculiar Christadelphianism, and Uncle Lilliwhyte, who never entered any of the many houses of God—it was popularly supposed he would not or could not remove his gay-stringed beaver—would often loiter outside Frog Farm in Church hours, listening to their loudly trolled and hybrid³¹⁵ hymnology in a sort of pious³¹⁶ eavesdropping³¹⁷. That was Uncle Lilliwhyte’s individual contribution to the chaos³¹⁸ of creeds³¹⁹ that reigned in Bradmarsh.

But even this minimum of religion was denied the honest snake-seller when Will returned. The first Sunday, Caleb and Martha held their services furtively³²¹ in their hermetically sealed bedroom, hardly daring to hum what they had so lustily intoned: by a common instinct they shrank from obtruding³²² their departure from that straitness of doctrine²⁹⁸ in which Will had been reared. They were indeed secretly relieved that he made no reference to religion, nor seemed to expect them to go to the old chapel, nor even noted³²³ the Sundayness of the dishes that Martha served up with the same careful everyday air with which Caleb consumed them. They were equally relieved, however, that he did not go out rabbiting on the holy day with his new pet ferrets. “Oi’ve known some as dedn’t consider that work,” said Caleb, as they discussed this dread²⁴⁸ possibility. “But to my thinkin’, if ye goo out with a spade, ye might as well be ploughin’.”

That was what they said in bed on the first Saturday night. Very different was their conversation on the eve of the next Sunday. The problems all came now from Will’s over-interest in religion. True, the Sabbatarian peril³²⁴ had not yet materialized: he had neither worn his best clothes on the Saturday nor demanded priority in the Sabbath dishes. But he had dropped more than one perturbing³²⁵ remark. Old Quarles, he supposed, was now too old to worship at his Wesleyan Chapel in Long Bradmarsh, to which Caleb had replied na?vely: “Ay, he sleeps at home Sunday mornings.” Presumably, then, Jinny would not leave the old man alone on Sunday as well as on Tuesday and Friday: to which Caleb had answered cautiously—and without admitting that his observations were not up to date—that doubtless Jinny could only worship occasionally with the Peculiars and it depended on her getting a lift, Methusalem being a strict Sunday observer. Yes, he had heard Farmer Gale sometimes gave her a lift—who had told Willie? he wondered—but he supposed it was because the farmer, like her grandfather, was a Wesleyan. Later, Will had remarked casually to his mother that he didn’t suppose Miss Quarles would be able to get to chapel on the morrow, as he had happened on her old grandfather, who seemed quite breaking up. Martha, murmuring sympathetically that Mr. Quarles must be getting old, was likewise compelled to gloss³²⁶ over her inacquaintance with Jinny’s latest Sunday habits: she shocked and surprised herself by remarking that one’s grandfather would hardly count against Farmer Gale, and hastened to add—especially as Will seemed shocked too—that such was Jinny’s devotion to her grandfather that not for some years had she been able to stay longer than the Morning Service. Rejoiced though the old woman was at Will’s mingled³²⁷ concern for the religion of the young and the weal of the old, she was a little uneasy at this personal turn of his theological thinking, and she quickly changed the conversation to the Great Horn and the Beast, a discussion which in her eagerness she hardly noticed was practically a monologue.

By nightfall that Saturday Caleb had gathered, with a sinking of the heart, that Will designed to accompany his elders on the morrow—and to Early Service! The boy had apparently³²⁸ failed to remark the breach³²⁹ in the old chapel routine the previous Sabbath: the Sunday had been hushed up only too successfully. It was as far as Caleb dared go, in the first plunge³³⁰ of confession³³¹, to say that, in the absence of a vehicle, Early Service at Chipstone was out of the question nowadays.

Such was the situation that faced the old couple in the sleepless³³² watches of the second Saturday night, and dimmed even Martha’s joy in the prodigal’s return to religion.

“Best go with him, like when he was little,” she decided. “We mustn’t unsettle him so soon, now he’s found God again.”

“Ain’t so sure he’s found God,” said Caleb shrewdly. “God ain’t in a goose-quill, and writin’ a piece about Daniel ain’t the road to heaven, else where would me and most o’ the Brethren be? To my thinkin’ Will’s onny lost the Devil.”

“It’s the same thing. What else does he want to go to chapel for, and Early Service at that?”

“To make trouble,” said Caleb fretfully. “We was all so happy till he come—and you had Maria.”

“Oh, Caleb, you don’t deserve the Lord should give him back to you! And if you don’t go to-morrow, I’ll withdraw from you.”

“That ain’t right,” said poor Caleb, puzzled by the unscrupulous threat. “But ef it’s onny for Morning Sarvice he’ll expect you to goo too.”

“He knows about my rheumatics, dear heart,” she said casuistically. “He knows I couldn’t walk even to get my bonnet cleaned.”

“But ef you were to tell him about the New Jerusalem——?”

“He’d best find that himself, now he’s on the way. It’s not far from Daniel.”
VIII

Thus it was that Uncle Lilliwhyte was again defrauded³³³ of his ritual and that after a still more furtive³²⁰ and still earlier service in the sanctity of their airless bedroom, with hymns muted and prayers guiltily whispered, the couple appeared at an eight o’clock breakfast with an air of devotions unpaid³³⁴, and Caleb, hurrying the meal, remarked that ’twas time to get ready for chapel or they would miss even the Morning Service.

At this, Will, who was in his fashionable London jacket—to the admiring awe³³⁵ of his elders—sprang up, and rushing to the back of the house near the water-barrel, brushed away hastily at a dull speck³³⁶ on his boot where a spurt³³⁷ from the boiling kettle had blotted³³⁸ out the shine he had so laboriously³³⁹ imparted. The male ferret, caged just above his stooping head, awoke at the agitation³⁴⁰, and started rubbing itself under the neck as if in parody³⁴¹, but far more swiftly and persistently³⁴²; then it jerked its nose and its thin whiskers through the wires.

“Not to-day,” laughed Will, jabbing its nose with the blacking-brush. He felt very gentlemanly and happy, for the brief rain of the evening before had dried up, and the day was as fine as his clothes. As Caleb came out in quest of Will, the ferret was just snuggling back to slumber³⁴³, and the old man, yawning with the loss of his Sunday morning sleep, looked enviously³⁴⁴ at the creature coiling itself so voluptuously³⁴⁵ in its straw.

“Lucky Jinny brought me sech a noice Sunday neckercher,” he said, “or Oi’d ha’ been ashamed to walk with ye. Ye look like our Member o’ Parlyment.” He himself looked, however, a respectable figure enough in his tall hat and finely stitched and patterned Sunday smock, his high-lows and gaiters, and it was not till they were getting over the stile that led to the short cut through the Green Lane that Will observed that his senior carried, like a tramp, a bundle in his handkerchief.

“What’s that?” he inquired fretfully, becoming aware too that the Green Lane, even at its best, offered perils³⁴⁶ to his boot-polish.

“That’s my hume-book and our dinner and tea. There’s two packets for each on us, and we must be home for supper. Don’t, your poor mother will be lonely.”

Will had forgotten these meals: they had, in his boyhood, been carried decorously in the wagon. But the sunshine of the mid-May morning did not permit ill-humours, and they strode happily along the dappled by-ways, bounding over the shrunken sloughs³⁴⁷, the son uplifted even beyond boot-polish by the intoxication³⁴⁸ of the Spring, and the father by the intoxication of the Spirit. For, the moment Caleb had crossed the stile, the old rapture³⁴⁹ of fellow-worship had returned, and the absence of Martha seemed to lift the shadow of her criticism; while doubts of his son’s regeneration could hardly survive the sight of his springy step chapelwards.

Will was indeed living over again his childish memories of these Sunday journeys, and, somewhat to his surprise, something fresh and delicious seemed to emanate³⁵⁰ from them. It had after all been a pleasant change in the weekly round, this family jaunt²⁶¹ with the big double-lidded provision basket, while the congregational picnicking in the chapel had not been without its jollity.

But Caleb did not leave him long to his memories. The old Peculiar was anxious to have a problem solved that had been weighing upon him these two years. In the New Jerusalem, whose descent to earth—ready-made and complete—was, according to Martha, imminent³⁵¹, to the impending³⁵² confusion of disbelievers, there was to be “A street of pure gold, as it were transparent³⁵³ glass.” Martha—as if to immunize him against his visit to the old Peculiar Meeting-house—had read out the text that very morning at their surreptitious service. And his ear had always heard “brass³⁵⁴” instead of “glass.” But how could gold be brass or either transparent? He did not like to shock her by questioning the letter of a text—his differences from her turned merely on the relative importance and significance of her texts as compared with those he had picked up from the Peculiars. Yet this puzzle was perhaps what really prevented him making the final plunge into Christadelphianism. It is true he might have demanded her solution of it—often through those long months of controversy³⁵⁵ as he looked at her saintly face so quiet on the pillow beside him, it was borne in upon him that in that bookish brain, under that frilled cotton nightcap, lay the explanation of the holy mystery. But possibly, with the subterranean³⁵⁶ obstinacy³⁵⁷ of the peasant, he shrank from an elucidation³⁵⁸ which might have left him irremediably at her mercy. A vindication³⁵⁹ of the text by Will, on the other hand, would give him time to turn round, take his new bearings. And a young man who was capable of composing a thesis upon the Little Horn and the Great Horn, could surely wrestle³⁶⁰ with this mystery.

“Oi hear you writ a piece about Daniel,” he began tactfully, as they crossed the bridge.

Will frowned. He had forgotten Martha’s misunderstanding. “Has he been round telling you?” he asked angrily.

“Me!” Caleb stared. “Oi bain’t howly enough for wisions.”

Will was puzzled in his turn. “You mean he can’t walk so far!”

“Oi wouldn’t say that: happen he can fly if he wants to.”

“Fly!”

“Surely! A man so howly in his life—him what——”

Dead! So suddenly! Will stood still. This altered many things. The winged image of the Gaffer faded before the picture of a lonely Jinny. “When did he die?”

“You know that better than me,” said Caleb meekly³⁶¹.

At this the thought that his “epistle” had over-excited the patriarch and stilled that aged⁶¹ heart, shot up, agitating the young man. That was why relief mingled with a vague disappointment when Caleb went on: “They lions couldn’t kill him, but Oi reckon he had to die some time. But many of them what sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, he tells us, and maybe”—he added with a flash—“they’ll wake up in that golden city.”

Will grunted a vague “Maybe.”

“Touching that there city,” said Caleb, “the gold of the street thereof will be transparent.”

“I know,” murmured Will, suppressing a yawn.

He knew! And the contradiction did not strike him! Instantly, as by another flash, the text solved itself in the old man’s mind—gold in those millennial³⁶² days, while it retained its sacred splendour would also lose its gross opaqueness³⁶³, becoming rarefied, disembodied, spiritualized, so that gold was as brass since both were like glass, making thus a harmony of light with the jasper wall, clear as crystal, and the twelve giant pearls of the gates.

“It’ll be a pritty sight!” he mused³⁶⁴ aloud.

“Yes, like the Crystal Palace,” sneered³⁶⁵ Will.

“You seen that?” asked Caleb eagerly.

“A man couldn’t be in London and escape seeing it,” said Will. “Every cad drags you into his omnibus bound for Hyde Park. Such a crowd!”

“Yes, the chimney-sweep got his pocket picked, Bundock’s buoy-oy was a-tellin’,” said Caleb, “but the streets thereof, be they of gold?”

“The streets of London?” said Will, smiling.

“Noa, the streets of the Crystal City?”

“No, of course not, father.”

“Then they can’t be brass neither?”

“More like grass,” Will laughed. “For there’s real trees left standing inside.”

Caleb joined in the boy’s laugh. Though he had never really believed that the Crystal Palace represented the Millennial City, it was well to have the danger finally cleared away. And, abandoning the gold-brass puzzle, his mind flew back illogically but passionately to his Peculiar Brethren and the joy of the awaiting ritual.

“Ah, here’s Plashy Hall!” said Will. “And the dog seems having his Sunday nap.” He threw open the white gate marked “No thoroughfare!”

“But that’s closed.”

“Closed!” said Will in fiery³⁶⁶ accents. “I shan’t even close it after us.”

“I count they won’t mind you in your Parlyment coat, but——”

“Go along, dad.” And Will pushed the old man into Plashy Walk and strode forward like a village Hampden. Within a minute he missed Caleb, and looking back, saw him hurrying back from the gate.

“Must allus shut ga-aites!” he apologized with his rising accent.

“I’ll burn it next time,” said Will. “Why, this saves us a mile.”

“But we’ll miss the Early Sarvicers,” complained Caleb. “You’ve forgot how they walk out to meet the Brethren, what come footin’ it from afar, and have an extry sarvice at a half-way house back o’ Long Bradmarsh.”

“Surely the regular services will be enough.”

“But ’tis noice to git an extry snack,” said Caleb wistfully. “Many’s the Sunday Oi’ve had foive sarvices.” He sighed voluptuously.

“Well, better luck next time,” said Will lightly.

The tone was not unkindly, but Caleb took it in full earnest, and his long secret grievance against Martha began to ooze³⁶⁸ into speech under the spell of his son’s sympathy. Her warning against unsettling the boy was forgotten in this natural gravitation of male to male against female fantasy.

“Yes,” he said, “I’ve allus been fast and faithful all along. ’Tis mother that’s allus gooin’ forrard. And woundily wilful—Oi never met nobody loike her, barrin’ old Quarles. When we married we was both Sprinklers, but scarcely had we got six childer afore she says she must be baptoized. Wait till the summer, says Oi, for ’twas a black Feb’ary. But no—sow headlong is her natur’ they had to break the ice. She give a deep soigh when the water took her—it a’most unhinged me. But she would have it she felt sow happy and contented³⁶⁹. She drilled me hard to make me take the total immersion³⁷⁰ too—’nation obstinate¹⁰¹ is mother, but Oi’ve allus stood out stubborn for the Truth. Fast and faithful,” he repeated, as if to reassure³⁷¹ himself.

“Well, but you changed too!” Will reminded him less kindly³⁶⁷. “You weren’t born a Faith-Healer.”

“That ain’t my fault, bein’ as the truth wasn’t found out in my young days, though they warses o’ Jeames was there all the time. But the fust day Oi met the Brethren Oi knowed they were the people for me. There was one on ’em among my own labourers. When Oi said as we didn’t know ’zactly what God was, he said, says he: ‘God’s like you and me, bein’ as He made man in His own image.’ That was an eye-opener to me. But the others parsecuted him and called him Brother Jerusalem as a rewoilin’ word. He had a fork to pitch a high load—cost foive shillin’s, fancy what a good fork that must ha’ been—and they went and broke it. Oi was grieved, but naught grieved him except to grieve the Lord. He dedn’t drink neither, and you look so odd if you don’t drink. But when they wanted to stand treat, he said he’d take bread and cheese. ‘Goo to hell,’ says they. ‘There ain’t no hell, even for you,’ he answers soft; ‘you’ll be in the same darkness as now, that’s all.’ That was another eye-opener. Oi was taken with that hell—not bright and burnin’, but all black and cowld—so Oi came out o’ my darkness and jined the Brethren, and gave up beer, barrin’ harvest-time, which rejoiced mother and was money saved for the childer. Be-yu-tiful things were brought to pass and be-yu-tiful things were said the day Oi went to my fust sarvice, and ef the Lord is with you to-day when you speak o’ your experiences, Oi count be-yu-tiful things will be brought out agen.”

Will shuddered³⁷². He stopped abruptly and was nigh turning back. He had forgotten that the Brethren would expect his soul-experiences and confessions—especially after this spacious and adventurous³⁷³ interval⁶.

“What’s-a-matter?” asked Caleb.

“Nothing, nothing,” he said, remembering his own power of sullen silence. And to say something, he asked, as he walked on: “And what’s wrong with mother now?”

“Wrong?” Caleb was shocked at this crude interpretation. “Oi don’t be meanin’ she ain’t in her rights to hunt out new texts, she bein’ a scholard. There was allus a bran-span-new one, Oi mind me, the Sundays I used to goo a-courtin’ her. A wery long way she lived—they talk broad and careless where she comes from, not moist and proper like here—and Oi had to git up early and goo along the sea-wall—deadly dark and lonesome it was winter nights and mornin’s, but her face was allus with me like the moon.”

“Why, was she pretty then?” asked Will.

“Can’t you see?” replied Caleb, with a faint surprise. “She ain’t changed much, she havin’ allus the peace of God in her heart.”

Will was touched and astonished by this revelation of romance in the two elderly people foisted³⁷⁴ upon him as parents, whom he had all his life taken as eternally elderly. But still more surprising was the realization³⁷⁵ forced upon him that the religion which to him was a bore was to them a thrill.

“Shall I carry the parcel, father?” he asked gently.

“Nay, nay, that don’t goo with Parlyment clothes. And it ain’t as sizeable as the box you carried from Chipstone.” He chuckled in freshly admiring glee.

Passing adown the long hawthorn avenue, they now issued from Plashy Walk, the rights of leg vindicated³⁷⁶, and soon they began to see signs of other pilgrims faring towards Chipstone, that great gathering-place of faiths and creeds.

1 gaudy   

adj.华而不实的；俗丽的

参考例句：

• She was tricked out in gaudy dress.她穿得华丽而俗气。
• The gaudy butterfly is sure that the flowers owe thanks to him.浮华的蝴蝶却相信花是应该向它道谢的。

2 sect   

n.派别，宗教，学派，派系

参考例句：

• When he was sixteen he joined a religious sect.他16岁的时候加入了一个宗教教派。
• Each religious sect in the town had its own church.该城每一个宗教教派都有自己的教堂。

3 preposterously   

adv.反常地；荒谬地；荒谬可笑地；不合理地

参考例句：

• That is a preposterously high price! 那价格高得出奇！ 来自辞典例句

4 draught   

n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计

参考例句：

• He emptied his glass at one draught.他将杯中物一饮而尽。
• It's a pity the room has no north window and you don't get a draught.可惜这房间没北窗，没有过堂风。

5 intervals   

n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息

参考例句：

• The forecast said there would be sunny intervals and showers. 预报间晴，有阵雨。
• Meetings take place at fortnightly intervals. 每两周开一次会。

6 interval   

n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息

参考例句：

• The interval between the two trees measures 40 feet.这两棵树的间隔是40英尺。
• There was a long interval before he anwsered the telephone.隔了好久他才回了电话。

7 judicious   

adj.明智的，明断的，能作出明智决定的

参考例句：

• We should listen to the judicious opinion of that old man.我们应该听取那位老人明智的意见。
• A judicious parent encourages his children to make their own decisions.贤明的父亲鼓励儿女自作抉择。

8 expenditure   

n.(时间、劳力、金钱等)支出；使用，消耗

参考例句：

• The entry of all expenditure is necessary.有必要把一切开支入账。
• The monthly expenditure of our family is four hundred dollars altogether.我们一家的开销每月共计四百元。

9 exertion   

n.尽力，努力

参考例句：

• We were sweating profusely from the exertion of moving the furniture.我们搬动家具大费气力，累得大汗淋漓。
• She was hot and breathless from the exertion of cycling uphill.由于用力骑车爬坡，她浑身发热。

10 rusting   

n.生锈v.（使）生锈( rust的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• There was an old rusting bolt on the door. 门上有一个生锈的旧门闩。 来自辞典例句
• Zinc can be used to cover other metals to stop them rusting. 锌可用来涂在其他金属表面以防锈。 来自辞典例句

11 enchanted   

adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• She was enchanted by the flowers you sent her. 她非常喜欢你送给她的花。
• He was enchanted by the idea. 他为这个主意而欣喜若狂。

12 voracious   

adj.狼吞虎咽的，贪婪的

参考例句：

• She's a voracious reader of all kinds of love stories.什么样的爱情故事她都百看不厌。
• Joseph Smith was a voracious book collector.约瑟夫·史密斯是个如饥似渴的藏书家。

13 inedible   

adj.不能吃的，不宜食用的

参考例句：

• The food was totally inedible.食物完全无法下咽。
• These chemicals make the fruit inedible.这些化学品使这种水果不宜食用。

14 marsh   

n.沼泽，湿地

参考例句：

• There are a lot of frogs in the marsh.沼泽里有许多青蛙。
• I made my way slowly out of the marsh.我缓慢地走出这片沼泽地。

15 landmark   

n.陆标，划时代的事，地界标

参考例句：

• The Russian Revolution represents a landmark in world history.俄国革命是世界历史上的一个里程碑。
• The tower was once a landmark for ships.这座塔曾是船只的陆标。

16 adjured   

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

参考例句：

• He adjured them to tell the truth. 他要求他们讲真话。
• The guides now adjured us to keep the strictest silence. 这时向导恳求我们保持绝对寂静。 来自辞典例句

17 hover   

vi.翱翔，盘旋；徘徊；彷徨，犹豫

参考例句：

• You don't hover round the table.你不要围着桌子走来走去。
• A plane is hover on our house.有一架飞机在我们的房子上盘旋。

18 dwindled   

v.逐渐变少或变小( dwindle的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Support for the party has dwindled away to nothing. 支持这个党派的人渐渐化为乌有。
• His wealth dwindled to nothingness. 他的钱财化为乌有。 来自《简明英汉词典》

19 infinities   

n.无穷大( infinity的名词复数 )；无限远的点；无法计算的量；无限大的量

参考例句：

20 bleating   

v.（羊，小牛）叫( bleat的现在分词 )；哭诉；发出羊叫似的声音；轻声诉说

参考例句：

• I don't like people who go around bleating out things like that. 我不喜欢跑来跑去讲那种蠢话的人。 来自辞典例句
• He heard the tinny phonograph bleating as he walked in. 他步入室内时听到那架蹩脚的留声机在呜咽。 来自辞典例句

21 bleat   

v.咩咩叫，(讲)废话，哭诉；n.咩咩叫，废话，哭诉

参考例句：

• He heard the bleat of a lamb.他听到小羊的叫声。
• They bleat about how miserable they are.他们诉说他们的生活是多么悲惨。

22 battered   

adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损

参考例句：

• He drove up in a battered old car.他开着一辆又老又破的旧车。
• The world was brutally battered but it survived.这个世界遭受了惨重的创伤,但它还是生存下来了。

23 beaver   

n.海狸，河狸

参考例句：

• The hat is made of beaver.这顶帽子是海狸毛皮制的。
• A beaver is an animals with big front teeth.海狸是一种长着大门牙的动物。

24 strings   

n.弦

参考例句：

• He sat on the bed,idly plucking the strings of his guitar.他坐在床上，随意地拨着吉他的弦。
• She swept her fingers over the strings of the harp.她用手指划过竖琴的琴弦。

25 ragged   

adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的

参考例句：

• A ragged shout went up from the small crowd.这一小群人发出了刺耳的喊叫。
• Ragged clothing infers poverty.破衣烂衫意味着贫穷。

26 obstreperous   

adj.喧闹的，不守秩序的

参考例句：

• He becomes obstreperous when he's had a few drinks.他喝了些酒就爱撒酒疯。
• You know I have no intention of being awkward and obstreperous.你知道我无意存心作对。

27 worthy   

adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的

参考例句：

• I did not esteem him to be worthy of trust.我认为他不值得信赖。
• There occurred nothing that was worthy to be mentioned.没有值得一提的事发生。

28 gathering   

n.集会，聚会，聚集

参考例句：

• He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
• He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。

29 sordid   

adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的

参考例句：

• He depicts the sordid and vulgar sides of life exclusively.他只描写人生肮脏和庸俗的一面。
• They lived in a sordid apartment.他们住在肮脏的公寓房子里。

30 adder   

n.蝰蛇；小毒蛇

参考例句：

• The adder is Britain's only venomous snake.蝰蛇是英国唯一的一种毒蛇。
• An adder attacked my father.一条小毒蛇攻击了我父亲。

31 mere   

adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过

参考例句：

• That is a mere repetition of what you said before.那不过是重复了你以前讲的话。
• It's a mere waste of time waiting any longer.再等下去纯粹是浪费时间。

32 livelihood   

n.生计，谋生之道

参考例句：

• Appropriate arrangements will be made for their work and livelihood.他们的工作和生活会得到妥善安排。
• My father gained a bare livelihood of family by his own hands.父亲靠自己的双手勉强维持家计。

33 professing   

声称( profess的现在分词 )； 宣称； 公开表明； 信奉

参考例句：

• But( which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. 只要有善行。这才与自称是敬神的女人相宜。
• Professing Christianity, he had little compassion in his make-up. 他号称信奉基督教，却没有什么慈悲心肠。

34 irrelevant   

adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的

参考例句：

• That is completely irrelevant to the subject under discussion.这跟讨论的主题完全不相关。
• A question about arithmetic is irrelevant in a music lesson.在音乐课上，一个数学的问题是风马牛不相及的。

35 hissing   

n. 发嘶嘶声, 蔑视 动词hiss的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• The steam escaped with a loud hissing noise. 蒸汽大声地嘶嘶冒了出来。
• His ears were still hissing with the rustle of the leaves. 他耳朵里还听得萨萨萨的声音和屑索屑索的怪声。 来自汉英文学 - 春蚕

36 darting   

v.投掷，投射( dart的现在分词 )；向前冲，飞奔

参考例句：

• Swallows were darting through the clouds. 燕子穿云急飞。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Swallows were darting through the air. 燕子在空中掠过。 来自辞典例句

37 wriggling   

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

参考例句：

• The baby was wriggling around on my lap. 婴儿在我大腿上扭来扭去。
• Something that looks like a gray snake is wriggling out. 有一种看来象是灰蛇的东西蠕动着出来了。 来自辞典例句

38 reptile   

n.爬行动物；两栖动物

参考例句：

• The frog is not a true reptile.青蛙并非真正的爬行动物。
• So you should not be surprised to see someone keep a reptile as a pet.所以，你不必惊奇有人养了一只爬行动物作为宠物。

39 zest   

n.乐趣；滋味，风味；兴趣

参考例句：

• He dived into his new job with great zest.他充满热情地投入了新的工作。
• He wrote his novel about his trip to Asia with zest.他兴趣浓厚的写了一本关于他亚洲之行的小说。

40 diplomacy   

n.外交；外交手腕，交际手腕

参考例句：

• The talks have now gone into a stage of quiet diplomacy.会谈现在已经进入了“温和外交”阶段。
• This was done through the skill in diplomacy. 这是通过外交手腕才做到的。

41 solitude   

n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方

参考例句：

• People need a chance to reflect on spiritual matters in solitude. 人们需要独处的机会来反思精神上的事情。
• They searched for a place where they could live in solitude. 他们寻找一个可以过隐居生活的地方。

42 omen   

n.征兆，预兆；vt.预示

参考例句：

• The superstitious regard it as a bad omen.迷信的人认为那是一种恶兆。
• Could this at last be a good omen for peace?这是否终于可以视作和平的吉兆了？

43 hawthorn   

山楂

参考例句：

• A cuckoo began calling from a hawthorn tree.一只布谷鸟开始在一株山楂树里咕咕地呼叫。
• Much of the track had become overgrown with hawthorn.小路上很多地方都长满了山楂树。

44 exquisite   

adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的

参考例句：

• I was admiring the exquisite workmanship in the mosaic.我当时正在欣赏镶嵌画的精致做工。
• I still remember the exquisite pleasure I experienced in Bali.我依然记得在巴厘岛所经历的那种剧烈的快感。

45 blurring   

n.模糊，斑点甚多，（图像的）混乱v.（使）变模糊( blur的现在分词 )；（使）难以区分

参考例句：

• Retinal hemorrhage, and blurring of the optic dise cause visual disturbances. 视网膜出血及神经盘模糊等可导致视力障碍。 来自辞典例句
• In other ways the Bible limited Puritan writing, blurring and deadening the pages. 另一方面，圣经又限制了清教时期的作品，使它们显得晦涩沉闷。 来自辞典例句

46 structural   

adj.构造的，组织的，建筑（用）的

参考例句：

• The storm caused no structural damage.风暴没有造成建筑结构方面的破坏。
• The North American continent is made up of three great structural entities.北美大陆是由三个构造单元组成的。

47 cadence   

n.（说话声调的）抑扬顿挫

参考例句：

• He delivered his words in slow,measured cadences.他讲话缓慢而抑扬顿挫、把握有度。
• He liked the relaxed cadence of his retired life.他喜欢退休生活的悠闲的节奏。

48 windings   

（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）

参考例句：

• The time harmonics can be considered as voltages of higher frequencies applied to the windings. 时间谐波可以看作是施加在绕组上的较高频率的电压。
• All the vales in their manifold windings shaded by the most delightful forests. 所有的幽谷，都笼罩在繁茂的垂枝下。

49 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

50 flip   

vt.快速翻动；轻抛；轻拍；n.轻抛；adj.轻浮的

参考例句：

• I had a quick flip through the book and it looked very interesting.我很快翻阅了一下那本书，看来似乎很有趣。
• Let's flip a coin to see who pays the bill.咱们来抛硬币决定谁付钱。

51 stolidly   

adv.迟钝地，神经麻木地

参考例句：

• Too often people sat stolidly watching the noisy little fiddler. 人们往往不动声色地坐在那里，瞧着这位瘦小的提琴手闹腾一番。 来自辞典例句
• He dropped into a chair and sat looking stolidly at the floor. 他坐在椅子上，两眼呆呆地望着地板。 来自辞典例句

52 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

53 gal   

n.姑娘，少女

参考例句：

• We decided to go with the gal from Merrill.我们决定和那个从梅里尔来的女孩合作。
• What's the name of the gal? 这个妞叫什么？

54 nervously   

adv.神情激动地，不安地

参考例句：

• He bit his lip nervously,trying not to cry.他紧张地咬着唇，努力忍着不哭出来。
• He paced nervously up and down on the platform.他在站台上情绪不安地走来走去。

55 teaspoon   

n.茶匙

参考例句：

• Add one teaspoon of sugar.加一小茶匙糖。
• I need a teaspoon to stir my tea.我需要一把茶匙搅一搅茶。

56 tingling   

v.有刺痛感( tingle的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• My ears are tingling [humming; ringing; singing]. 我耳鸣。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• My tongue is tingling. 舌头发麻。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

57 poised   

a.摆好姿势不动的

参考例句：

• The hawk poised in mid-air ready to swoop. 老鹰在半空中盘旋，准备俯冲。
• Tina was tense, her hand poised over the telephone. 蒂娜心情紧张，手悬在电话机上。

58 agitating   

搅动( agitate的现在分词 )； 激怒； 使焦虑不安； （尤指为法律、社会状况的改变而）激烈争论

参考例句：

• political groups agitating for social change 鼓吹社会变革的政治团体
• They are agitating to assert autonomy. 他们正在鼓吹实行自治。

59 amicably   

adv.友善地

参考例句：

• Steering according to the wind, he also framed his words more amicably. 他真会看风使舵，口吻也马上变得温和了。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The couple parted amicably. 这对夫妻客气地分手了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

60 winced   

赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He winced as the dog nipped his ankle. 狗咬了他的脚腕子，疼得他龇牙咧嘴。
• He winced as a sharp pain shot through his left leg. 他左腿一阵剧痛疼得他直龇牙咧嘴。

61 aged   

adj.年老的，陈年的

参考例句：

• He had put on weight and aged a little.他胖了，也老点了。
• He is aged,but his memory is still good.他已年老，然而记忆力还好。

62 stammered   

v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He stammered most when he was nervous. 他一紧张往往口吃。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Barsad leaned back in his chair, and stammered, \"What do you mean?\" 巴萨往椅背上一靠，结结巴巴地说，“你是什么意思？” 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

63 grunted   

（猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的过去式和过去分词 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说

参考例句：

• She just grunted, not deigning to look up from the page. 她只咕哝了一声，继续看书，不屑抬起头来看一眼。
• She grunted some incomprehensible reply. 她咕噜着回答了些令人费解的话。

64 sardonically   

adv.讽刺地，冷嘲地

参考例句：

• Some say sardonically that combat pay is good and that one can do quite well out of this war. 有些人讽刺地说战地的薪饷很不错，人们可借这次战争赚到很多钱。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Tu Wei-yueh merely drew himself up and smiled sardonically. 屠维岳把胸脯更挺得直些，微微冷笑。 来自子夜部分

65 brutally   

adv.残忍地，野蛮地，冷酷无情地

参考例句：

• The uprising was brutally put down.起义被残酷地镇压下去了。
• A pro-democracy uprising was brutally suppressed.一场争取民主的起义被残酷镇压了。

66 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

67 downwards   

adj./adv.向下的（地），下行的（地）

参考例句：

• He lay face downwards on his bed.他脸向下伏在床上。
• As the river flows downwards,it widens.这条河愈到下游愈宽。

68 shudder   

v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动

参考例句：

• The sight of the coffin sent a shudder through him.看到那副棺材，他浑身一阵战栗。
• We all shudder at the thought of the dreadful dirty place.我们一想到那可怕的肮脏地方就浑身战惊。

69 viper   

n.毒蛇；危险的人

参考例句：

• Envy lucks at the bottom of the human heart a viper in its hole.嫉妒潜伏在人心底，如同毒蛇潜伏在穴中。
• Be careful of that viper;he is dangerous.小心那个阴险的人，他很危险。

70 bosom   

n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的

参考例句：

• She drew a little book from her bosom.她从怀里取出一本小册子。
• A dark jealousy stirred in his bosom.他内心生出一阵恶毒的嫉妒。

71 atoned   

v.补偿，赎（罪）( atone的过去式和过去分词 )；补偿，弥补，赎回

参考例句：

• He atoned for his sin with life. 他以生命赎罪。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• She had atoned for everything by the sacrifice she had made of her life. 她用牺牲生命来抵偿了一切。 来自辞典例句

72 saucy   

adj.无礼的；俊俏的；活泼的

参考例句：

• He was saucy and mischievous when he was working.他工作时总爱调皮捣蛋。
• It was saucy of you to contradict your father.你顶撞父亲，真是无礼。

73 fumbled   

（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

参考例句：

• She fumbled in her pocket for a handkerchief. 她在她口袋里胡乱摸找手帕。
• He fumbled about in his pockets for the ticket. 他（瞎）摸着衣兜找票。

74 glowered   

v.怒视( glower的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He just glowered without speaking. 他一言不发地皱眉怒视我。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He glowered at me but said nothing. 他怒视着我，却一言不发。 来自辞典例句

75 braggart   

n.吹牛者；adj.吹牛的，自夸的

参考例句：

• However,Captain Prien was not a braggart.不过，普里恩舰长却不是一个夸大其词的人。
• Sir,I don't seek a quarrel,not being a braggart.先生，我并不想寻衅挑斗，也不是爱吹牛的人。

76 feigned   

a.假装的，不真诚的

参考例句：

• He feigned indifference to criticism of his work. 他假装毫不在意别人批评他的作品。
• He accepted the invitation with feigned enthusiasm. 他假装热情地接受了邀请。

77 goaded   

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

参考例句：

• Goaded beyond endurance, she turned on him and hit out. 她被气得忍无可忍，于是转身向他猛击。
• The boxers were goaded on by the shrieking crowd. 拳击运动员听见观众的喊叫就来劲儿了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

78 hairpin   

n.簪,束发夹，夹发针

参考例句：

• She stuck a small flower onto the front of her hairpin.她在发簪的前端粘了一朵小花。
• She has no hairpin because her hair is short.因为她头发短，所以没有束发夹。

79 resounding   

adj. 响亮的

参考例句：

• The astronaut was welcomed with joyous,resounding acclaim. 人们欢声雷动地迎接那位宇航员。
• He hit the water with a resounding slap. 他啪的一声拍了一下水。

80 defiance   

n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗

参考例句：

• He climbed the ladder in defiance of the warning.他无视警告爬上了那架梯子。
• He slammed the door in a spirit of defiance.他以挑衅性的态度把门砰地一下关上。

81 bustling   

adj.喧闹的

参考例句：

• The market was bustling with life. 市场上生机勃勃。
• This district is getting more and more prosperous and bustling. 这一带越来越繁华了。

82 sinuous   

adj.蜿蜒的，迂回的

参考例句：

• The river wound its sinuous way across the plain.这条河蜿蜒曲折地流过平原。
• We moved along the sinuous gravel walks,with the great concourse of girls and boys.我们沿着曲折的石径,随着男孩女孩汇成的巨流一路走去。

83 swirling   

v.旋转，打旋( swirl的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Snowflakes were swirling in the air. 天空飘洒着雪花。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• She smiled, swirling the wine in her glass. 她微笑着，旋动着杯子里的葡萄酒。 来自辞典例句

84 corpse   

n.尸体，死尸

参考例句：

• What she saw was just an unfeeling corpse.她见到的只是一具全无感觉的尸体。
• The corpse was preserved from decay by embalming.尸体用香料涂抹以防腐烂。

85 unnatural   

adj.不自然的；反常的

参考例句：

• Did her behaviour seem unnatural in any way?她有任何反常表现吗？
• She has an unnatural smile on her face.她脸上挂着做作的微笑。

86 curtly   

adv.简短地

参考例句：

• He nodded curtly and walked away. 他匆忙点了一下头就走了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The request was curtly refused. 这个请求被毫不客气地拒绝了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

87 piqued   

v.伤害…的自尊心( pique的过去式和过去分词 )；激起（好奇心）

参考例句：

• Their curiosity piqued, they stopped writing. 他们的好奇心被挑起，停下了手中的笔。 来自辞典例句
• This phenomenon piqued Dr Morris' interest. 这一现象激起了莫里斯医生的兴趣。 来自辞典例句

88 rib   

n.肋骨，肋状物

参考例句：

• He broke a rib when he fell off his horse.他从马上摔下来折断了一根肋骨。
• He has broken a rib and the doctor has strapped it up.他断了一根肋骨，医生已包扎好了。

89 purged   

清除（政敌等）( purge的过去式和过去分词 )； 涤除（罪恶等）； 净化（心灵、风气等）； 消除（错事等）的不良影响

参考例句：

• He purged his enemies from the Party. 他把他的敌人从党内清洗出去。
• The iron in the chemical compound must be purged. 化学混合物中的铁必须清除。

90 proffered   

v.提供，贡献，提出( proffer的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She proffered her cheek to kiss. 她伸过自己的面颊让人亲吻。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He rose and proffered a silver box full of cigarettes. 他站起身，伸手递过一个装满香烟的银盒子。 来自辞典例句

91 scant   

adj.不充分的，不足的；v.减缩，限制，忽略

参考例句：

• Don't scant the butter when you make a cake.做糕饼时不要吝惜奶油。
• Many mothers pay scant attention to their own needs when their children are small.孩子们小的时候，许多母亲都忽视自己的需求。

92 misgiving   

n.疑虑，担忧，害怕

参考例句：

• She had some misgivings about what she was about to do.她对自己即将要做的事情存有一些顾虑。
• The first words of the text filled us with misgiving.正文开头的文字让我们颇为担心。

93 puffed   

adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧

参考例句：

• He lit a cigarette and puffed at it furiously. 他点燃了一支香烟，狂吸了几口。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He felt grown-up, puffed up with self-importance. 他觉得长大了，便自以为了不起。 来自《简明英汉词典》

94 pertinacity   

n.执拗，顽固

参考例句：

95 swelled   

增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情）

参考例句：

• The infection swelled his hand. 由于感染，他的手肿了起来。
• After the heavy rain the river swelled. 大雨过后，河水猛涨。

96 reigned   

vi.当政，统治（reign的过去式形式）

参考例句：

• Silence reigned in the hall. 全场肃静。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Night was deep and dead silence reigned everywhere. 夜深人静，一片死寂。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

97 sullen   

adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的

参考例句：

• He looked up at the sullen sky.他抬头看了一眼阴沉的天空。
• Susan was sullen in the morning because she hadn't slept well.苏珊今天早上郁闷不乐，因为昨晚没睡好。

98 sullenly   

不高兴地，绷着脸，忧郁地

参考例句：

• 'so what?" Tom said sullenly. “那又怎么样呢？”汤姆绷着脸说。
• Emptiness after the paper, I sIt'sullenly in front of the stove. 报看完，想不出能找点什么事做，只好一人坐在火炉旁生气。

99 morosely   

adv.愁眉苦脸地，忧郁地

参考例句：

• Everybody, thought Scarlett, morosely, except me. 思嘉郁郁不乐地想。除了我，人人都去了。 来自飘（部分）
• He stared at her morosely. 他愁容满面地看着她。 来自辞典例句

100 obstinately   

ad.固执地，顽固地

参考例句：

• He obstinately asserted that he had done the right thing. 他硬说他做得对。
• Unemployment figures are remaining obstinately high. 失业数字仍然顽固地居高不下。

101 obstinate   

adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的

参考例句：

• She's too obstinate to let anyone help her.她太倔强了，不会让任何人帮她的。
• The trader was obstinate in the negotiation.这个商人在谈判中拗强固执。

102 plangency   

n.隆隆作响；轰鸣；回荡； 哀鸣；悲哀

参考例句：

103 squeak   

n.吱吱声，逃脱；v.（发出）吱吱叫，侥幸通过；（俚）告密

参考例句：

• I don't want to hear another squeak out of you!我不想再听到你出声！
• We won the game,but it was a narrow squeak.我们打赢了这场球赛，不过是侥幸取胜。

104 apoplectic   

adj.中风的；愤怒的；n.中风患者

参考例句：

• He died from a stroke of apoplexy.他死于中风。
• My father was apoplectic when he discovered the truth.我父亲在发现真相后勃然大怒。

105 boredom   

n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊

参考例句：

• Unemployment can drive you mad with boredom.失业会让你无聊得发疯。
• A walkman can relieve the boredom of running.跑步时带着随身听就不那么乏味了。

106 lugubrious   

adj.悲哀的，忧郁的

参考例句：

• That long,lugubrious howl rose on the night air again!夜空中又传来了那又长又凄凉的狗叫声。
• After the earthquake,the city is full of lugubrious faces.地震之后，这个城市满是悲哀的面孔。

107 spaciously   

adv.宽敞地；广博地

参考例句：

• The furniture was spaciously spread out. 家具摆开后显得宽敞。
• The citizens will live more spaciously and comfortably, benefiting most directly from achieving the goal. 这一目标的实现，最直接的应该是老百姓住得更宽敞了，更舒服了。

108 spacious   

adj.广阔的，宽敞的

参考例句：

• Our yard is spacious enough for a swimming pool.我们的院子很宽敞，足够建一座游泳池。
• The room is bright and spacious.这房间很豁亮。

109 clarion   

n.尖音小号声；尖音小号

参考例句：

• Clarion calls to liberation had been mocked when we stood by.当我们袖手旁观的时候，自由解放的号角声遭到了嘲弄。
• To all the people present,his speech is a clarion call.对所有在场的人而言，他的演讲都是动人的号召。

110 receding   

v.逐渐远离( recede的现在分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题

参考例句：

• Desperately he struck out after the receding lights of the yacht. 游艇的灯光渐去渐远，他拼命划水追赶。 来自辞典例句
• Sounds produced by vehicles receding from us seem lower-pitched than usual. 渐渐远离我们的运载工具发出的声似乎比平常的音调低。 来自辞典例句

111 rift   

n.裂口，隙缝，切口；v.裂开，割开，渗入

参考例句：

• He was anxious to mend the rift between the two men.他急于弥合这两个人之间的裂痕。
• The sun appeared through a rift in the clouds.太阳从云层间隙中冒出来。

112 wager   

n.赌注；vt.押注，打赌

参考例句：

• They laid a wager on the result of the race.他们以竞赛的结果打赌。
• I made a wager that our team would win.我打赌我们的队会赢。

113 farmhouse   

n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房）

参考例句：

• We fell for the farmhouse as soon as we saw it.我们对那所农舍一见倾心。
• We put up for the night at a farmhouse.我们在一间农舍投宿了一夜。

114 gambols   

v.蹦跳，跳跃，嬉戏( gambol的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

115 cocoon   

n.茧

参考例句：

• A cocoon is a kind of silk covering made by an insect.蚕茧是由昆虫制造的一种由丝组成的外包层。
• The beautiful butterfly emerged from the cocoon.美丽的蝴蝶自茧中出现。

116 captivity   

n.囚禁；被俘；束缚

参考例句：

• A zoo is a place where live animals are kept in captivity for the public to see.动物园是圈养动物以供公众观看的场所。
• He was held in captivity for three years.他被囚禁叁年。

117 perking   

（使）活跃( perk的现在分词 )； （使）增值； 使更有趣

参考例句：

• The weather seems to be perking up. 天气似乎要变好。
• She is perking herself at mirror. 她正对镜化妆。

118 plight   

n.困境，境况，誓约，艰难；vt.宣誓，保证，约定

参考例句：

• The leader was much concerned over the plight of the refugees.那位领袖对难民的困境很担忧。
• She was in a most helpless plight.她真不知如何是好。

119 writ   

n.命令状，书面命令

参考例句：

• This is a copy of a writ I received this morning.这是今早我收到的书面命令副本。
• You shouldn't treat the newspapers as if they were Holy Writ. 你不应该把报上说的话奉若神明。

120 feat   

n.功绩；武艺，技艺；adj.灵巧的，漂亮的，合适的

参考例句：

• Man's first landing on the moon was a feat of great daring.人类首次登月是一个勇敢的壮举。
• He received a medal for his heroic feat.他因其英雄业绩而获得一枚勋章。

121 quill   

n.羽毛管；v.给（织物或衣服）作皱褶

参考例句：

• He wrote with a quill.他用羽毛笔写字。
• She dipped a quill in ink,and then began to write.她将羽毛笔在墨水里蘸了一下，随后开始书写。

122 concocted   

v.将（尤指通常不相配合的）成分混合成某物( concoct的过去式和过去分词 )；调制；编造；捏造

参考例句：

• The soup was concocted from up to a dozen different kinds of fish. 这种汤是用多达十几种不同的鱼熬制而成的。
• Between them they concocted a letter. 他们共同策划写了一封信。 来自《简明英汉词典》

123 soot   

n.煤烟，烟尘；vt.熏以煤烟

参考例句：

• Soot is the product of the imperfect combustion of fuel.煤烟是燃料不完全燃烧的产物。
• The chimney was choked with soot.烟囱被煤灰堵塞了。

124 glibness   

n.花言巧语；口若悬河

参考例句：

• Mr Samgrass replied with such glibness and at such length, telling me of mislaid luggage. 桑格拉斯先生却油嘴滑舌，事无巨细地告诉我们说行李如何被错放了。 来自辞典例句

125 muster   

v.集合，收集，鼓起，激起；n.集合，检阅，集合人员，点名册

参考例句：

• Go and muster all the men you can find.去集合所有你能找到的人。
• I had to muster my courage up to ask him that question.我必须鼓起勇气向他问那个问题。

126 literate   

n.学者；adj.精通文学的，受过教育的

参考例句：

• Only a few of the nation's peasants are literate.这个国家的农民中只有少数人能识字。
• A literate person can get knowledge through reading many books.一个受过教育的人可以通过读书而获得知识。

127 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

128 abrupt   

adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的

参考例句：

• The river takes an abrupt bend to the west.这河突然向西转弯。
• His abrupt reply hurt our feelings.他粗鲁的回答伤了我们的感情。

129 resonance   

n.洪亮；共鸣；共振

参考例句：

• Playing the piano sets up resonance in those glass ornaments.一弹钢琴那些玻璃饰物就会产生共振。
• The areas under the two resonance envelopes are unequal.两个共振峰下面的面积是不相等的。

130 amazement   

n.惊奇，惊讶

参考例句：

• All those around him looked at him with amazement.周围的人都对他投射出惊异的眼光。
• He looked at me in blank amazement.他带着迷茫惊诧的神情望着我。

131 anguish   

n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼

参考例句：

• She cried out for anguish at parting.分手时，她由于痛苦而失声大哭。
• The unspeakable anguish wrung his heart.难言的痛苦折磨着他的心。

132 analogue   

n.类似物；同源语

参考例句：

• The gill of a fish is the analogue of the lung of a cat.鱼的鳃和猫的肺是类似物。
• But aside from that analogue standby,the phone, videoconferencing is their favorite means of communication.除了备用的相似物电话，可视对话是他们最喜欢的沟通手段。

133 precipitateness   

参考例句：

134 orthography   

n.拼字法，拼字式

参考例句：

• In dictionaries,words are listed according to their orthography.在词典中，词是按照字母拼写顺序排列的。
• American and English orthography are very much alike.美语与英语的拼字方法非常相像。

135 beguiled   

v.欺骗( beguile的过去式和过去分词 )；使陶醉；使高兴；消磨（时间等）

参考例句：

• She beguiled them into believing her version of events. 她哄骗他们相信了她叙述的事情。
• He beguiled me into signing this contract. 他诱骗我签订了这项合同。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

136 promising   

adj.有希望的，有前途的

参考例句：

• The results of the experiments are very promising.实验的结果充满了希望。
• We're trying to bring along one or two promising young swimmers.我们正设法培养出一两名有前途的年轻游泳选手。

137 austerely   

adv.严格地，朴质地

参考例句：

• The austerely lighted garage was quiet. 灯光黯淡的车库静悄悄的。 来自辞典例句
• Door of Ministry of Agriculture and produce will be challenged austerely. 农业部门及农产品将受到严重的挑战。 来自互联网

138 courteous   

adj.彬彬有礼的，客气的

参考例句：

• Although she often disagreed with me,she was always courteous.尽管她常常和我意见不一，但她总是很谦恭有礼。
• He was a kind and courteous man.他为人友善，而且彬彬有礼。

139 alas   

int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等)

参考例句：

• Alas!The window is broken!哎呀！窗子破了！
• Alas,the truth is less romantic.然而，真理很少带有浪漫色彩。

140 testament   

n.遗嘱；证明

参考例句：

• This is his last will and testament.这是他的遗愿和遗嘱。
• It is a testament to the power of political mythology.这说明，编造政治神话可以产生多大的威力。

141 absurdity   

n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论

参考例句：

• The proposal borders upon the absurdity.这提议近乎荒谬。
• The absurdity of the situation made everyone laugh.情况的荒谬可笑使每个人都笑了。

142 modifications   

n.缓和( modification的名词复数 )；限制；更改；改变

参考例句：

• The engine was pulled apart for modifications and then reassembled. 发动机被拆开改型，然后再组装起来。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The original plan had undergone fairly extensive modifications. 原计划已经作了相当大的修改。 来自《简明英汉词典》

143 valid   

adj.有确实根据的；有效的；正当的，合法的

参考例句：

• His claim to own the house is valid.他主张对此屋的所有权有效。
• Do you have valid reasons for your absence?你的缺席有正当理由吗？

144 ransacked   

v.彻底搜查( ransack的过去式和过去分词 )；抢劫，掠夺

参考例句：

• The house had been ransacked by burglars. 这房子遭到了盗贼的洗劫。
• The house had been ransacked of all that was worth anything. 屋子里所有值钱的东西都被抢去了。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

145 meditated   

深思，沉思，冥想( meditate的过去式和过去分词 )； 内心策划，考虑

参考例句：

• He meditated for two days before giving his answer. 他在作出答复之前考虑了两天。
• She meditated for 2 days before giving her answer. 她考虑了两天才答复。

146 gale   

n.大风，强风，一阵闹声（尤指笑声等）

参考例句：

• We got our roof blown off in the gale last night.昨夜的大风把我们的房顶给掀掉了。
• According to the weather forecast,there will be a gale tomorrow.据气象台预报，明天有大风。

147 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

148 juxtaposition   

n.毗邻，并置，并列

参考例句：

• The juxtaposition of these two remarks was startling.这两句话连在一起使人听了震惊。
• It is the result of the juxtaposition of contrasting colors.这是并列对比色的结果。

149 profane   

adj.亵神的，亵渎的；vt.亵渎，玷污

参考例句：

• He doesn't dare to profane the name of God.他不敢亵渎上帝之名。
• His profane language annoyed us.他亵渎的言语激怒了我们。

150 gestation   

n.怀孕；酝酿

参考例句：

• The gestation period can be anything between 95 and 150 days.妊娠期从95天至150天不等。
• This film was two years in gestation.这部电影酝酿了两年。

151 ascertained   

v.弄清，确定，查明( ascertain的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The previously unidentified objects have now been definitely ascertained as being satellites. 原来所说的不明飞行物现在已证实是卫星。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I ascertained that she was dead. 我断定她已经死了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

152 behold   

v.看，注视，看到

参考例句：

• The industry of these little ants is wonderful to behold.这些小蚂蚁辛勤劳动的样子看上去真令人惊叹。
• The sunrise at the seaside was quite a sight to behold.海滨日出真是个奇景。

153 whatsoever   

adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么

参考例句：

• There's no reason whatsoever to turn down this suggestion.没有任何理由拒绝这个建议。
• All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you,do ye even so to them.你想别人对你怎样，你就怎样对人。

154 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

155 covenant   

n.盟约，契约；v.订盟约

参考例句：

• They refused to covenant with my father for the property.他们不愿与我父亲订立财产契约。
• The money was given to us by deed of covenant.这笔钱是根据契约书付给我们的。

156 exalted   

adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的

参考例句：

• Their loveliness and holiness in accordance with their exalted station.他们的美丽和圣洁也与他们的崇高地位相称。
• He received respect because he was a person of exalted rank.他因为是个地位崇高的人而受到尊敬。

157 abruptly   

adv.突然地，出其不意地

参考例句：

• He gestured abruptly for Virginia to get in the car.他粗鲁地示意弗吉尼亚上车。
• I was abruptly notified that a half-hour speech was expected of me.我突然被通知要讲半个小时的话。

158 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

159 illuminated   

adj.被照明的；受启迪的

参考例句：

• Floodlights illuminated the stadium. 泛光灯照亮了体育场。
• the illuminated city at night 夜幕中万家灯火的城市

160 casually   

adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地

参考例句：

• She remarked casually that she was changing her job.她当时漫不经心地说要换工作。
• I casually mentioned that I might be interested in working abroad.我不经意地提到我可能会对出国工作感兴趣。

161 repenting   

对（自己的所为）感到懊悔或忏悔( repent的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• He was repenting rapidly. 他很快就后悔了。
• Repenting of his crime the thief returned the jewels and confessed to the police. 那贼对自己的罪行痛悔不已；归还了珠宝并向警方坦白。

162 resentment   

n.怨愤，忿恨

参考例句：

• All her feelings of resentment just came pouring out.她一股脑儿倾吐出所有的怨恨。
• She cherished a deep resentment under the rose towards her employer.她暗中对她的雇主怀恨在心。

163 dodging   

n.避开，闪过，音调改变v.闪躲( dodge的现在分词 )；回避

参考例句：

• He ran across the road, dodging the traffic. 他躲开来往的车辆跑过马路。
• I crossed the highway, dodging the traffic. 我避开车流穿过了公路。 来自辞典例句

164 chagrin   

n.懊恼；气愤；委屈

参考例句：

• His increasingly visible chagrin sets up a vicious circle.他的明显的不满引起了一种恶性循环。
• Much to his chagrin,he did not win the race.使他大为懊恼的是他赛跑没获胜。

165 trumpet   

n.喇叭，喇叭声；v.吹喇叭，吹嘘

参考例句：

• He plays the violin, but I play the trumpet.他拉提琴，我吹喇叭。
• The trumpet sounded for battle.战斗的号角吹响了。

166 postscript   

n.附言，又及；(正文后的)补充说明

参考例句：

• There was the usual romantic postscript at the end of his letter.他的信末又是一贯的浪漫附言。
• She mentioned in a postscript to her letter that the parcel had arrived.她在信末附笔中说包裹已寄到。

167 spout   

v.喷出，涌出；滔滔不绝地讲；n.喷管；水柱

参考例句：

• Implication in folk wealth creativity and undertaking vigor spout.蕴藏于民间的财富创造力和创业活力喷涌而出。
• This acts as a spout to drain off water during a rainstorm.在暴风雨季，这东西被用作喷管来排水。

168 scripture   

n.经文，圣书，手稿；Scripture:(常用复数)《圣经》，《圣经》中的一段

参考例句：

• The scripture states that God did not want us to be alone.圣经指出上帝并不是想让我们独身一人生活。
• They invoked Hindu scripture to justify their position.他们援引印度教的经文为他们的立场辩护。

169 severely   

adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地

参考例句：

• He was severely criticized and removed from his post.他受到了严厉的批评并且被撤了职。
• He is severely put down for his careless work.他因工作上的粗心大意而受到了严厉的批评。

170 scoffing   

n. 嘲笑, 笑柄, 愚弄 v. 嘲笑, 嘲弄, 愚弄, 狼吞虎咽

参考例句：

• They were sitting around the table scoffing. 他们围坐在桌子旁狼吞虎咽地吃着。
• He the lid and showed the wonderful the scoffing visitors. 他打开盖子给嘲笑他们的老人看这些丰富的收获。

171 immortal   

adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的

参考例句：

• The wild cocoa tree is effectively immortal.野生可可树实际上是不会死的。
• The heroes of the people are immortal!人民英雄永垂不朽！

172 wasps   

黄蜂( wasp的名词复数 )； 胡蜂； 易动怒的人； 刻毒的人

参考例句：

• There's a wasps' nest in that old tree. 那棵老树上有一个黄蜂巢。
• We live in dread not only of unpleasant insects like spiders or wasps, but of quite harmless ones like moths. 我们不仅生活在对象蜘蛛或黄蜂这样的小虫的惧怕中，而且生活在对诸如飞蛾这样无害昆虫的惧怕中

173 crook   

v.使弯曲；n.小偷，骗子，贼；弯曲(处)

参考例句：

• He demanded an apology from me for calling him a crook.我骂他骗子，他要我向他认错。
• She was cradling a small parcel in the crook of her elbow.她用手臂挎着一个小包裹。

174 hipped   

adj.着迷的，忧郁的

参考例句：

• The dark Blue Ridge Mountains in which I dwell, great-hipped, big-breasted, slumber on the western sky. 黛色的兰岭山，那是我居住的地方，它象臀丰乳高的女郎，依然安睡在浩瀚的天幕之下。 来自辞典例句
• Mountains in which I dwell, great-hipped, bigbreasted, slumber on the western sky. 黛色的兰岭山，那是我居住的地方，她象风姿绰约的女郎，依然安睡在浩瀚的天幕之下。 来自互联网

175 adhesive   

n.粘合剂；adj.可粘着的，粘性的

参考例句：

• You'll need a strong adhesive to mend that chair. 你需要一种粘性很强的东西来修理那把椅子。
• Would you give me an adhesive stamp?请给我一枚带胶邮票好吗？

176 esteemed   

adj.受人尊敬的v.尊敬( esteem的过去式和过去分词 )；敬重；认为；以为

参考例句：

• The art of conversation is highly esteemed in France. 在法国十分尊重谈话技巧。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He esteemed that he understood what I had said. 他认为已经听懂我说的意思了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

177 patronage   

n.赞助，支援，援助；光顾，捧场

参考例句：

• Though it was not yet noon,there was considerable patronage.虽然时间未到中午，店中已有许多顾客惠顾。
• I am sorry to say that my patronage ends with this.很抱歉，我的赞助只能到此为止。

178 bland   

adj.淡而无味的，温和的，无刺激性的

参考例句：

• He eats bland food because of his stomach trouble.他因胃病而吃清淡的食物。
• This soup is too bland for me.这汤我喝起来偏淡。

179 fluency   

n.流畅，雄辩，善辩

参考例句：

• More practice will make you speak with greater fluency.多练习就可以使你的口语更流利。
• Some young children achieve great fluency in their reading.一些孩子小小年纪阅读已经非常流畅。

180 legitimate   

adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法

参考例句：

• Sickness is a legitimate reason for asking for leave.生病是请假的一个正当的理由。
• That's a perfectly legitimate fear.怀有这种恐惧完全在情理之中。

181 scrawls   

潦草的笔迹( scrawl的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He scrawls, and no one can recognize what he writes. 他写字像鬼画符，没人能认出来。

182 vying   

adj.竞争的；比赛的

参考例句：

• California is vying with other states to capture a piece of the growing communications market.为了在日渐扩大的通讯市场分得一杯羹，加利福尼亚正在和其他州展开竞争。
• Four rescue plans are vying to save the zoo.4个拯救动物园的方案正争得不可开交。

183 tartly   

adv.辛辣地，刻薄地

参考例句：

• She finished by tartly pointing out that he owed her some money. 她最后刻薄地指出他欠她一些钱。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Kay said tartly, "And you're more Yankee than Italian. 恺酸溜溜他说：“可你哪，与其说是意大利人，还不如说是新英格兰人。 来自教父部分

184 trudge   

v.步履艰难地走；n.跋涉，费力艰难的步行

参考例句：

• It was a hard trudge up the hill.这趟上山是一次艰难的跋涉。
• The trudge through the forest will be tiresome.长途跋涉穿越森林会令人疲惫不堪。

185 lessen   

vt.减少，减轻；缩小

参考例句：

• Regular exercise can help to lessen the pain.经常运动有助于减轻痛感。
• They've made great effort to lessen the noise of planes.他们尽力减小飞机的噪音。

186 annoyance   

n.恼怒，生气，烦恼

参考例句：

• Why do you always take your annoyance out on me?为什么你不高兴时总是对我出气？
• I felt annoyance at being teased.我恼恨别人取笑我。

187 eldest   

adj.最年长的，最年老的

参考例句：

• The King's eldest son is the heir to the throne.国王的长子是王位的继承人。
• The castle and the land are entailed on the eldest son.城堡和土地限定由长子继承。

188 borough   

n.享有自治权的市镇；(英)自治市镇

参考例句：

• He was slated for borough president.他被提名做自治区主席。
• That's what happened to Harry Barritt of London's Bromley borough.住在伦敦的布罗姆利自治市的哈里.巴里特就经历了此事。

189 persecuted   

（尤指宗教或政治信仰的）迫害(~sb. for sth.)( persecute的过去式和过去分词 )； 烦扰，困扰或骚扰某人

参考例句：

• Throughout history, people have been persecuted for their religious beliefs. 人们因宗教信仰而受迫害的情况贯穿了整个历史。
• Members of these sects are ruthlessly persecuted and suppressed. 这些教派的成员遭到了残酷的迫害和镇压。

190 rascals   

流氓( rascal的名词复数 )； 无赖； （开玩笑说法）淘气的人（尤指小孩）； 恶作剧的人

参考例句：

• "Oh, but I like rascals. "唔，不过我喜欢流氓。
• "They're all second-raters, black sheep, rascals. "他们都是二流人物，是流氓，是恶棍。

191 hymns   

n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌( hymn的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• At first, they played the hymns and marches familiar to them. 起初他们只吹奏自己熟悉的赞美诗和进行曲。 来自英汉非文学 - 百科语料821
• I like singing hymns. 我喜欢唱圣歌。 来自辞典例句

192 grievance   

n.怨愤，气恼，委屈

参考例句：

• He will not easily forget his grievance.他不会轻易忘掉他的委屈。
• He had been nursing a grievance against his boss for months.几个月来他对老板一直心怀不满。

193 vessel   

n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管

参考例句：

• The vessel is fully loaded with cargo for Shanghai.这艘船满载货物驶往上海。
• You should put the water into a vessel.你应该把水装入容器中。

194 illiteracy   

n.文盲

参考例句：

• It is encouraging to read that illiteracy is declining.从读报中了解文盲情况正在好转，这是令人鼓舞的。
• We must do away with illiteracy.我们必须扫除文盲。

195 quaint   

adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的

参考例句：

• There were many small lanes in the quaint village.在这古香古色的村庄里，有很多小巷。
• They still keep some quaint old customs.他们仍然保留着一些稀奇古怪的旧风俗。

196 culled   

v.挑选，剔除( cull的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The herd must be culled. 必须有选择地杀掉部分牧畜。 来自辞典例句
• The facts were culled from various sources. 这些事实是从各方收集到的。 来自辞典例句

197 devoid   

adj.全无的，缺乏的

参考例句：

• He is completely devoid of humour.他十分缺乏幽默。
• The house is totally devoid of furniture.这所房子里什么家具都没有。

198 discriminating   

a.有辨别能力的

参考例句：

• Due caution should be exercised in discriminating between the two. 在区别这两者时应该相当谨慎。
• Many businesses are accused of discriminating against women. 许多企业被控有歧视妇女的做法。

199 wig   

n.假发

参考例句：

• The actress wore a black wig over her blond hair.那个女演员戴一顶黑色假发罩住自己的金黄色头发。
• He disguised himself with a wig and false beard.他用假发和假胡须来乔装。

200 bowels   

n.肠，内脏，内部；肠( bowel的名词复数 )；内部，最深处

参考例句：

• Salts is a medicine that causes movements of the bowels. 泻盐是一种促使肠子运动的药物。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The cabins are in the bowels of the ship. 舱房设在船腹内。 来自《简明英汉词典》

201 gentry   

n.绅士阶级，上层阶级

参考例句：

• Landed income was the true measure of the gentry.来自土地的收入是衡量是否士绅阶层的真正标准。
• Better be the head of the yeomanry than the tail of the gentry.宁做自由民之首，不居贵族之末。

202 recipient   

a.接受的,感受性强的 n.接受者,感受者,容器

参考例句：

• Please check that you have a valid email certificate for each recipient. 请检查是否对每个接收者都有有效的电子邮件证书。
• Colombia is the biggest U . S aid recipient in Latin America. 哥伦比亚是美国在拉丁美洲最大的援助对象。

203 bonnet   

n.无边女帽；童帽

参考例句：

• The baby's bonnet keeps the sun out of her eyes.婴孩的帽子遮住阳光，使之不刺眼。
• She wore a faded black bonnet garnished with faded artificial flowers.她戴着一顶褪了色的黑色无边帽，帽上缀着褪了色的假花。

204 minor   

adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修

参考例句：

• The young actor was given a minor part in the new play.年轻的男演员在这出新戏里被分派担任一个小角色。
• I gave him a minor share of my wealth.我把小部分财产给了他。

205 lapsed   

adj.流失的，堕落的v.退步( lapse的过去式和过去分词 )；陷入；倒退；丧失

参考例句：

• He had lapsed into unconsciousness. 他陷入了昏迷状态。
• He soon lapsed into his previous bad habits. 他很快陷入以前的恶习中去。 来自《简明英汉词典》

206 passionately   

ad.热烈地，激烈地

参考例句：

• She could hate as passionately as she could love. 她能恨得咬牙切齿，也能爱得一往情深。
• He was passionately addicted to pop music. 他酷爱流行音乐。

207 soothingly   

adv.抚慰地，安慰地；镇痛地

参考例句：

• The mother talked soothingly to her child. 母亲对自己的孩子安慰地说。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He continued to talk quietly and soothingly to the girl until her frightened grip on his arm was relaxed. 他继续柔声安慰那姑娘，她那因恐惧而紧抓住他的手终于放松了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

208 beseech   

v.祈求，恳求

参考例句：

• I beseech you to do this before it is too late.我恳求你做做这件事吧，趁现在还来得及。
• I beseech your favor.我恳求您帮忙。

209 maiden   

n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的

参考例句：

• The prince fell in love with a fair young maiden.王子爱上了一位年轻美丽的少女。
• The aircraft makes its maiden flight tomorrow.这架飞机明天首航。

210 lewdness   

n. 淫荡, 邪恶

参考例句：

• That book Yeh-yeh gave me-"On Filial Piety and the Shunning of Lewdness"-was still on the table. 我坐下来，祖父给我的那本《刘芷唐先生教孝戒淫浅训》还在桌子上。 来自汉英文学 - 家（1-26） - 家（1-26）
• Thou hast borne thy lewdness and thine abominations, saith the Lord. 结16:58耶和华说、你贪淫和可憎的事、你已经担当了。

211 blurted   

v.突然说出，脱口而出( blurt的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She blurted it out before I could stop her. 我还没来得及制止，她已脱口而出。
• He blurted out the truth, that he committed the crime. 他不慎说出了真相，说是他犯了那个罪。 来自《简明英汉词典》

212 petulantly   

参考例句：

• \"No; nor will she miss now,\" cries The Vengeance, petulantly. “不会的，现在也不会错过，”复仇女神气冲冲地说。 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

213 emboldened   

v.鼓励，使有胆量( embolden的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Emboldened by the wine, he went over to introduce himself to her. 他借酒壮胆，走上前去向她作自我介绍。
• His success emboldened him to expand his business. 他有了成就因而激发他进一步扩展业务。 来自《简明英汉词典》

214 daze   

v.(使)茫然，(使)发昏

参考例句：

• The blow on the head dazed him for a moment.他头上受了一击后就昏眩了片刻。
• I like dazing to sit in the cafe by myself on Sunday.星期日爱独坐人少的咖啡室发呆。

215 interpretation   

n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理

参考例句：

• His statement admits of one interpretation only.他的话只有一种解释。
• Analysis and interpretation is a very personal thing.分析与说明是个很主观的事情。

216 possessed   

adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的

参考例句：

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

217 imperative   

n.命令，需要；规则；祈使语气；adj.强制的；紧急的

参考例句：

• He always speaks in an imperative tone of voice.他老是用命令的口吻讲话。
• The events of the past few days make it imperative for her to act.过去这几天发生的事迫使她不得不立即行动。

218 toiling   

长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的现在分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉

参考例句：

• The fiery orator contrasted the idle rich with the toiling working classes. 这位激昂的演说家把无所事事的富人同终日辛劳的工人阶级进行了对比。
• She felt like a beetle toiling in the dust. She was filled with repulsion. 她觉得自己像只甲虫在地里挣扎，心中涌满愤恨。

219 emulate   

v.努力赶上或超越，与…竞争；效仿

参考例句：

• You must work hard to emulate your sister.你必须努力工作，赶上你姐姐。
• You must look at the film and try to emulate his behavior.你们必须观看这部电影，并尽力模仿他的动作。

220 skulking   

v.潜伏，偷偷摸摸地走动，鬼鬼祟祟地活动( skulk的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• There was someone skulking behind the bushes. 有人藏在灌木后面。
• There were half a dozen foxes skulking in the undergrowth. 在林下灌丛中潜伏着五六只狐狸。 来自辞典例句

221 scurrying   

v.急匆匆地走( scurry的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• We could hear the mice scurrying about in the walls. 我们能听见老鼠在墙里乱跑。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• We were scurrying about until the last minute before the party. 聚会开始前我们一直不停地忙忙碌碌。 来自辞典例句

222 cynical   

adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的

参考例句：

• The enormous difficulty makes him cynical about the feasibility of the idea.由于困难很大，他对这个主意是否可行持怀疑态度。
• He was cynical that any good could come of democracy.他不相信民主会带来什么好处。

223 obtrusive   

adj.显眼的；冒失的

参考例句：

• These heaters are less obtrusive and are easy to store away in the summer.这些加热器没那么碍眼，夏天收起来也很方便。
• The factory is an obtrusive eyesore.这工厂很刺眼。

224 primitive   

adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物

参考例句：

• It is a primitive instinct to flee a place of danger.逃离危险的地方是一种原始本能。
• His book describes the march of the civilization of a primitive society.他的著作描述了一个原始社会的开化过程。

225 thatch   

vt.用茅草覆盖…的顶部；n.茅草(屋)

参考例句：

• They lit a torch and set fire to the chapel's thatch.他们点着一支火把，放火烧了小教堂的茅草屋顶。
• They topped off the hut with a straw thatch. 他们给小屋盖上茅草屋顶。

226 crouched   

v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He crouched down beside her. 他在她的旁边蹲了下来。
• The lion crouched ready to pounce. 狮子蹲下身，准备猛扑。

227 wizened   

adj.凋谢的；枯槁的

参考例句：

• That wizened and grotesque little old man is a notorious miser.那个干瘪难看的小老头是个臭名远扬的吝啬鬼。
• Mr solomon was a wizened little man with frizzy gray hair.所罗门先生是一个干瘪矮小的人，头发鬈曲灰白。

228 fang   

n.尖牙，犬牙

参考例句：

• Look how the bone sticks out of the flesh like a dog's fang.瞧瞧,这根骨头从肉里露出来，象一只犬牙似的。
• The green fairy's fang thrusting between his lips.绿妖精的尖牙从他的嘴唇里龇出来。

229 marrow   

n.骨髓；精华；活力

参考例句：

• It was so cold that he felt frozen to the marrow. 天气太冷了，他感到寒冷刺骨。
• He was tired to the marrow of his bones.他真是累得筋疲力尽了。

230 flick   

n.快速的轻打，轻打声，弹开；v.轻弹，轻轻拂去，忽然摇动

参考例句：

• He gave a flick of the whip.他轻抽一下鞭子。
• By a flick of his whip,he drove the fly from the horse's head.他用鞭子轻抽了一下，将马头上的苍蝇驱走。

231 witty   

adj.机智的，风趣的

参考例句：

• Her witty remarks added a little salt to the conversation.她的妙语使谈话增添了一些风趣。
• He scored a bull's-eye in their argument with that witty retort.在他们的辩论中他那一句机智的反驳击中了要害。

232 undoing   

n.毁灭的原因，祸根；破坏，毁灭

参考例句：

• That one mistake was his undoing. 他一失足即成千古恨。
• This hard attitude may have led to his undoing. 可能就是这种强硬的态度导致了他的垮台。

233 dole   

n.救济，（失业）救济金；vt.（out）发放，发给

参考例句：

• It's not easy living on the dole.靠领取失业救济金生活并不容易。
• Many families are living on the dole since the strike.罢工以来，许多家庭靠失业救济金度日。

234 mare   

n.母马，母驴

参考例句：

• The mare has just thrown a foal in the stable.那匹母马刚刚在马厩里产下了一只小马驹。
• The mare foundered under the heavy load and collapsed in the road.那母马因负载过重而倒在路上。

235 fumbling   

n. 摸索,漏接 v. 摸索,摸弄,笨拙的处理

参考例句：

• If he actually managed to the ball instead of fumbling it with an off-balance shot. 如果他实际上设法拿好球而不是fumbling它。50-balance射击笨拙地和迅速地会开始他的岗位移动，经常这样结束。
• If he actually managed to secure the ball instead of fumbling it awkwardly an off-balance shot. 如果他实际上设法拿好球而不是fumbling它。50-50提议有时。他从off-balance射击笨拙地和迅速地会开始他的岗位移动，经常这样结束。

236 sepulchral   

adj.坟墓的，阴深的

参考例句：

• He made his way along the sepulchral corridors.他沿着阴森森的走廊走着。
• There was a rather sepulchral atmosphere in the room.房间里有一种颇为阴沉的气氛。

237 bass   

n.男低音(歌手)；低音乐器；低音大提琴

参考例句：

• He answered my question in a surprisingly deep bass.他用一种低得出奇的声音回答我的问题。
• The bass was to give a concert in the park.那位男低音歌唱家将在公园中举行音乐会。

238 punctuated   

v.（在文字中）加标点符号，加标点( punctuate的过去式和过去分词 )；不时打断某事物

参考例句：

• Her speech was punctuated by bursts of applause. 她的讲演不时被阵阵掌声打断。
• The audience punctuated his speech by outbursts of applause. 听众不时以阵阵掌声打断他的讲话。 来自《简明英汉词典》

239 rusty   

adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的

参考例句：

• The lock on the door is rusty and won't open.门上的锁锈住了。
• I haven't practiced my French for months and it's getting rusty.几个月不用，我的法语又荒疏了。

240 chaff   

v.取笑，嘲笑；n.谷壳

参考例句：

• I didn't mind their chaff.我不在乎他们的玩笑。
• Old birds are not caught with chaff.谷糠难诱老雀。

241 bail   

v.舀（水），保释；n.保证金，保释，保释人

参考例句：

• One of the prisoner's friends offered to bail him out.犯人的一个朋友答应保释他出来。
• She has been granted conditional bail.她被准予有条件保释。

242 eels   

abbr. 电子发射器定位系统（=electronic emitter location system）

参考例句：

• Eels have been on the feed in the Lower Thames. 鳗鱼在泰晤士河下游寻食。
• She bought some eels for dinner. 她买回一些鳗鱼做晚餐。

243 blessing   

n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿

参考例句：

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

244 bamboozle   

v.欺骗，隐瞒

参考例句：

• He was bamboozled by con men.他被骗子骗了。
• He bamboozled Mercer into defeat.他骗得默瑟认了输。

245 monologue   

n.长篇大论，（戏剧等中的）独白

参考例句：

• The comedian gave a long monologue of jokes.喜剧演员讲了一长段由笑话组成的独白。
• He went into a long monologue.他一个人滔滔不绝地讲话。

246 gasped   

v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要

参考例句：

• She gasped at the wonderful view. 如此美景使她惊讶得屏住了呼吸。
• People gasped with admiration at the superb skill of the gymnasts. 体操运动员的高超技艺令人赞叹。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

247 vaguely   

adv.含糊地，暖昧地

参考例句：

• He had talked vaguely of going to work abroad.他含糊其词地说了到国外工作的事。
• He looked vaguely before him with unseeing eyes.他迷迷糊糊的望着前面，对一切都视而不见。

248 dread   

vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧

参考例句：

• We all dread to think what will happen if the company closes.我们都不敢去想一旦公司关门我们该怎么办。
• Her heart was relieved of its blankest dread.她极度恐惧的心理消除了。

249 stank   

n. (英)坝，堰，池塘 动词stink的过去式

参考例句：

• Her breath stank of garlic. 她嘴里有股大蒜味。
• The place stank of decayed fish. 那地方有烂鱼的臭味。

250 numb   

adj.麻木的，失去感觉的；v.使麻木

参考例句：

• His fingers were numb with cold.他的手冻得发麻。
• Numb with cold,we urged the weary horses forward.我们冻得发僵，催着疲惫的马继续往前走。

251 reins   

感情，激情； 缰( rein的名词复数 )； 控制手段； 掌管； （成人带着幼儿走路以防其走失时用的）保护带

参考例句：

• She pulled gently on the reins. 她轻轻地拉着缰绳。
• The government has imposed strict reins on the import of luxury goods. 政府对奢侈品的进口有严格的控制手段。

252 smoker   

n.吸烟者，吸烟车厢，吸烟室

参考例句：

• His wife dislikes him to be a smoker.他妻子不喜欢他当烟民。
• He is a moderate smoker.他是一个有节制的烟民。

253 beacon   

n.烽火，（警告用的）闪火灯，灯塔

参考例句：

• The blink of beacon could be seen for miles.灯塔的光亮在数英里之外都能看见。
• The only light over the deep black sea was the blink shone from the beacon.黑黢黢的海面上唯一的光明就只有灯塔上闪现的亮光了。

254 nay   

adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者

参考例句：

• He was grateful for and proud of his son's remarkable,nay,unique performance.他为儿子出色的，不，应该是独一无二的表演心怀感激和骄傲。
• Long essays,nay,whole books have been written on this.许多长篇大论的文章，不，应该说是整部整部的书都是关于这件事的。

255 knight   

n.骑士，武士；爵士

参考例句：

• He was made an honourary knight.他被授予荣誉爵士称号。
• A knight rode on his richly caparisoned steed.一个骑士骑在装饰华丽的马上。

256 aisle   

n.（教堂、教室、戏院等里的）过道，通道

参考例句：

• The aisle was crammed with people.过道上挤满了人。
• The girl ushered me along the aisle to my seat.引座小姐带领我沿着通道到我的座位上去。

257 coffins   

n.棺材( coffin的名词复数 )；使某人早亡[死，完蛋，垮台等]之物

参考例句：

• The shop was close and hot, and the atmosphere seemed tainted with the smell of coffins. 店堂里相当闷热，空气仿佛被棺木的味儿污染了。 来自辞典例句
• Donate some coffins to the temple, equal to the number of deaths. 到寺庙里，捐赠棺材盒给这些死者吧。 来自电影对白

258 ketchup   

n.蕃茄酱，蕃茄沙司

参考例句：

• There's a spot of ketchup on the tablecloth.桌布上有一点番茄酱的渍斑。
• Could I have some ketchup and napkins,please?请给我一些番茄酱和纸手巾？

259 hearty   

adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的

参考例句：

• After work they made a hearty meal in the worker's canteen.工作完了，他们在工人食堂饱餐了一顿。
• We accorded him a hearty welcome.我们给他热忱的欢迎。

260 testily   

adv. 易怒地, 暴躁地

参考例句：

• He reacted testily to reports that he'd opposed military involvement. 有报道称他反对军队参与，对此他很是恼火。 来自柯林斯例句

261 jaunt   

v.短程旅游；n.游览

参考例句：

• They are off for a day's jaunt to the beach.他们出去到海边玩一天。
• They jaunt about quite a lot,especially during the summer.他们常常到处闲逛，夏天更是如此。

262 dubs   

v.给…起绰号( dub的第三人称单数 )；把…称为；配音；复制

参考例句：

263 meddle   

v.干预，干涉，插手

参考例句：

• I hope he doesn't try to meddle in my affairs.我希望他不来干预我的事情。
• Do not meddle in things that do not concern you.别参与和自己无关的事。

264 fangs   

n.（尤指狗和狼的）长而尖的牙( fang的名词复数 )；（蛇的）毒牙；罐座

参考例句：

• The dog fleshed his fangs in the deer's leg. 狗用尖牙咬住了鹿腿。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Dogs came lunging forward with their fangs bared. 狗龇牙咧嘴地扑过来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

265 tusks   

n.（象等动物的）长牙( tusk的名词复数 )；獠牙；尖形物；尖头

参考例句：

• The elephants are poached for their tusks. 为获取象牙而偷猎大象。
• Elephant tusks, monkey tails and salt were used in some parts of Africa. 非洲的一些地区则使用象牙、猴尾和盐。 来自英语晨读30分（高一）

266 tempestuous   

adj.狂暴的

参考例句：

• She burst into a tempestuous fit of anger.她勃然大怒。
• Dark and tempestuous was night.夜色深沉，狂风肆虐，暴雨倾盆。

267 sweeping   

adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的

参考例句：

• The citizens voted for sweeping reforms.公民投票支持全面的改革。
• Can you hear the wind sweeping through the branches?你能听到风掠过树枝的声音吗？

268 foul   

adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规

参考例句：

• Take off those foul clothes and let me wash them.脱下那些脏衣服让我洗一洗。
• What a foul day it is!多么恶劣的天气！

269 fleeting   

adj.短暂的，飞逝的

参考例句：

• The girls caught only a fleeting glimpse of the driver.女孩们只匆匆瞥了一眼司机。
• Knowing the life fleeting,she set herself to enjoy if as best as she could.她知道这种日子转瞬即逝，于是让自已尽情地享受。

270 tack   

n.大头钉；假缝，粗缝

参考例句：

• He is hammering a tack into the wall to hang a picture.他正往墙上钉一枚平头钉用来挂画。
• We are going to tack the map on the wall.我们打算把这张地图钉在墙上。

271 gadding   

n.叮搔症adj.蔓生的v.闲逛( gad的现在分词 )；游荡；找乐子；用铁棒刺

参考例句：

• She likes gadding about while the children are at school. 孩子们在学校里的时候，她喜欢到处逛逛。 来自辞典例句
• We spent the whole day gadding about Paris. 我们一整天都在巴黎游玩。 来自辞典例句

272 wincing   

赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• She switched on the light, wincing at the sudden brightness. 她打开了灯，突如其来的强烈光线刺得她不敢睜眼。
• "I will take anything," he said, relieved, and wincing under reproof. “我什么事都愿意做，"他说，松了一口气，缩着头等着挨骂。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

273 peculiar   

adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的

参考例句：

• He walks in a peculiar fashion.他走路的样子很奇特。
• He looked at me with a very peculiar expression.他用一种很奇怪的表情看着我。

274 bridling   

给…套龙头( bridle的现在分词 )； 控制； 昂首表示轻蔑（或怨忿等）； 动怒，生气

参考例句：

• Suellen, bridling, always asked news of Mr. Kennedy. 苏伦也克制着经常探询肯尼迪先生的情况。
• We noticed sever al men loitering about the bridling last night. 昨天夜里我们看到有几个人在楼附近荡来荡去。

275 wagon   

n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车

参考例句：

• We have to fork the hay into the wagon.我们得把干草用叉子挑进马车里去。
• The muddy road bemired the wagon.马车陷入了泥泞的道路。

276 naught   

n.无，零 [=nought]

参考例句：

• He sets at naught every convention of society.他轻视所有的社会习俗。
• I hope that all your efforts won't go for naught.我希望你的努力不会毫无结果。

277 stinted   

v.限制，节省（stint的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• Penny-pinching landlords stinted their tenants on heat and hot water. 小气的房东在房客的取暖和热水供应上进行克扣。 来自互联网
• She stinted herself of food in order to let the children have enough. 她自己省着吃，好让孩子们吃饱。 来自互联网

278 grumble   

vi.抱怨；咕哝；n.抱怨，牢骚；咕哝，隆隆声

参考例句：

• I don't want to hear another grumble from you.我不愿再听到你的抱怨。
• He could do nothing but grumble over the situation.他除了埋怨局势之外别无他法。

279 lame   

adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的

参考例句：

• The lame man needs a stick when he walks.那跛脚男子走路时需借助拐棍。
• I don't believe his story.It'sounds a bit lame.我不信他讲的那一套。他的话听起来有些靠不住。

280 barges   

驳船( barge的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The tug is towing three barges. 那只拖船正拖着三只驳船。
• There were plenty of barges dropping down with the tide. 有不少驳船顺流而下。

281 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

282 loquacious   

adj.多嘴的，饶舌的

参考例句：

• The normally loquacious Mr O'Reilly has said little.平常话多的奥赖利先生几乎没说什么。
• Kennedy had become almost as loquacious as Joe.肯尼迪变得和乔一样唠叨了。

283 wile   

v.诡计，引诱；n.欺骗，欺诈

参考例句：

• The music wiled him from his study.诱人的音乐使他无心学习下去。
• The sunshine wiled me from my work.阳光引诱我放下了工作。

284 knavish   

adj.无赖（似）的，不正的；刁诈

参考例句：

• There was something quite knavish in the man's attitude. 这个人的态度真有点无赖的味道。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
• That shrewd and knavish sprite call'd Robin Goodfellow (Shakespeare) 那个叫作罗宾好伙计的精明而又顽皮的小妖精。 来自互联网

285 abated   

减少( abate的过去式和过去分词 )； 减去； 降价； 撤消（诉讼）

参考例句：

• The worker's concern about cuts in the welfare funding has not abated. 工人们对削减福利基金的关心并没有减少。
• The heat has abated. 温度降低了。

286 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

287 chuckled   

轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She chuckled at the memory. 想起这件事她就暗自发笑。
• She chuckled softly to herself as she remembered his astonished look. 想起他那惊讶的表情，她就轻轻地暗自发笑。

288 gales   

龙猫

参考例句：

• I could hear gales of laughter coming from downstairs. 我能听到来自楼下的阵阵笑声。
• This was greeted with gales of laughter from the audience. 观众对此报以阵阵笑声。

289 census   

n.(官方的)人口调查，人口普查

参考例句：

• A census of population is taken every ten years.人口普查每10年进行一次。
• The census is taken one time every four years in our country.我国每四年一次人口普查。

290 chapel   

n.小教堂，殡仪馆

参考例句：

• The nimble hero,skipped into a chapel that stood near.敏捷的英雄跳进近旁的一座小教堂里。
• She was on the peak that Sunday afternoon when she played in chapel.那个星期天的下午，她在小教堂的演出，可以说是登峰造极。

291 chapels   

n.小教堂， （医院、监狱等的）附属礼拜堂( chapel的名词复数 )；（在小教堂和附属礼拜堂举行的）礼拜仪式

参考例句：

• Both castles had their own chapels too, which was incredible to see. 两个城堡都有自己的礼拜堂，非常华美。 来自互联网
• It has an ambulatory and seven chapels. 它有一条走廊和七个小教堂。 来自互联网

292 repentance   

n.懊悔

参考例句：

• He shows no repentance for what he has done.他对他的所作所为一点也不懊悔。
• Christ is inviting sinners to repentance.基督正在敦请有罪的人悔悟。

293 mischief   

n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹

参考例句：

• Nobody took notice of the mischief of the matter. 没有人注意到这件事情所带来的危害。
• He seems to intend mischief.看来他想捣蛋。

294 rosy   

adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的

参考例句：

• She got a new job and her life looks rosy.她找到一份新工作，生活看上去很美好。
• She always takes a rosy view of life.她总是对生活持乐观态度。

295 nettled   

v.拿荨麻打，拿荨麻刺（nettle的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• My remarks clearly nettled her. 我的话显然惹恼了她。
• He had been growing nettled before, but now he pulled himself together. 他刚才有些来火，但现在又恢复了常态。 来自英汉文学 - 金银岛

296 skittish   

adj.易激动的，轻佻的

参考例句：

• She gets very skittish when her boy-friend is around.她男朋友在场时，她就显得格外轻佻。
• I won't have my son associating with skittish girls.我不准我的儿子与轻佻的女孩交往。

297 doctrines   

n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 )；教义；学说；（政府政策的）正式声明

参考例句：

• To modern eyes, such doctrines appear harsh, even cruel. 从现代的角度看，这样的教义显得苛刻，甚至残酷。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• His doctrines have seduced many into error. 他的学说把许多人诱入歧途。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

298 doctrine   

n.教义；主义；学说

参考例句：

• He was impelled to proclaim his doctrine.他不得不宣扬他的教义。
• The council met to consider changes to doctrine.宗教议会开会考虑更改教义。

299 shaft   

n.(工具的)柄，杆状物

参考例句：

• He was wounded by a shaft.他被箭击中受伤。
• This is the shaft of a steam engine.这是一个蒸汽机主轴。

300 reassuring   

a.使人消除恐惧和疑虑的，使人放心的

参考例句：

• He gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. 他轻拍了一下她的肩膀让她放心。
• With a reassuring pat on her arm, he left. 他鼓励地拍了拍她的手臂就离开了。

301 asperity   

n.粗鲁，艰苦

参考例句：

• He spoke to the boy with asperity.他严厉地对那男孩讲话。
• The asperity of the winter had everybody yearning for spring.严冬之苦让每个人都渴望春天。

302 kindled   

（使某物）燃烧，着火( kindle的过去式和过去分词 )； 激起（感情等）； 发亮，放光

参考例句：

• We watched as the fire slowly kindled. 我们看着火慢慢地燃烧起来。
• The teacher's praise kindled a spark of hope inside her. 老师的赞扬激起了她内心的希望。

303 scraps   

油渣

参考例句：

• Don't litter up the floor with scraps of paper. 不要在地板上乱扔纸屑。
• A patchwork quilt is a good way of using up scraps of material. 做杂拼花布棉被是利用零碎布料的好办法。

304 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

305 softened   

（使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰

参考例句：

• His smile softened slightly. 他的微笑稍柔和了些。
• The ice cream softened and began to melt. 冰淇淋开始变软并开始融化。

306 crimsoning   

变为深红色（crimson的现在分词形式）

参考例句：

307 placidly   

adv.平稳地，平静地

参考例句：

• Hurstwood stood placidly by, while the car rolled back into the yard. 当车子开回场地时，赫斯渥沉着地站在一边。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
• The water chestnut floated placidly there, where it would grow. 那棵菱角就又安安稳稳浮在水面上生长去了。 来自汉英文学 - 中国现代小说

308 exclamation   

n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词

参考例句：

• He could not restrain an exclamation of approval.他禁不住喝一声采。
• The author used three exclamation marks at the end of the last sentence to wake up the readers.作者在文章的最后一句连用了三个惊叹号，以引起读者的注意。

309 accentuate   

v.着重，强调

参考例句：

• She has beautiful eyes, so we should accentuate them in the makeup.她眼睛很美丽，我们在化妆时应该突出她的眼睛。
• Mrs Obamas speeches rarely accentuate the positive.奥巴马夫人的演讲很少强调美国积极的一面。

310 symbolize   

vt.作为...的象征，用符号代表

参考例句：

• Easter eggs symbolize the renewal of life.复活蛋象征新生。
• Dolphins symbolize the breath of life.海豚象征着生命的气息。

311 bravado   

n.虚张声势，故作勇敢，逞能

参考例句：

• Their behaviour was just sheer bravado. 他们的行为完全是虚张声势。
• He flourished the weapon in an attempt at bravado. 他挥舞武器意在虚张声势。

312 crafty   

adj.狡猾的，诡诈的

参考例句：

• He admired the old man for his crafty plan.他敬佩老者的神机妙算。
• He was an accomplished politician and a crafty autocrat.他是个有造诣的政治家，也是个狡黠的独裁者。

313 collapsed   

adj.倒塌的

参考例句：

• Jack collapsed in agony on the floor. 杰克十分痛苦地瘫倒在地板上。
• The roof collapsed under the weight of snow. 房顶在雪的重压下突然坍塌下来。

314 simultaneously   

adv.同时发生地，同时进行地

参考例句：

• The radar beam can track a number of targets almost simultaneously.雷达波几乎可以同时追着多个目标。
• The Windows allow a computer user to execute multiple programs simultaneously.Windows允许计算机用户同时运行多个程序。

315 hybrid   

n.(动，植）杂种，混合物

参考例句：

• That is a hybrid perpetual rose.那是一株杂交的四季开花的蔷薇。
• The hybrid was tall,handsome,and intelligent.那混血儿高大、英俊、又聪明。

316 pious   

adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的

参考例句：

• Alexander is a pious follower of the faith.亚历山大是个虔诚的信徒。
• Her mother was a pious Christian.她母亲是一个虔诚的基督教徒。

317 eavesdropping   

n. 偷听

参考例句：

• We caught him eavesdropping outside the window. 我们撞见他正在窗外偷听。
• Suddenly the kids,who had been eavesdropping,flew into the room. 突然间，一直在偷听的孩子们飞进屋来。

318 chaos   

n.混乱，无秩序

参考例句：

• After the failure of electricity supply the city was in chaos.停电后，城市一片混乱。
• The typhoon left chaos behind it.台风后一片混乱。

319 creeds   

（尤指宗教）信条，教条( creed的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• people of all races, colours and creeds 各种种族、肤色和宗教信仰的人
• Catholics are agnostic to the Protestant creeds. 天主教徒对于新教教义来说，是不可知论者。

320 furtive   

adj.鬼鬼崇崇的，偷偷摸摸的

参考例句：

• The teacher was suspicious of the student's furtive behaviour during the exam.老师怀疑这个学生在考试时有偷偷摸摸的行为。
• His furtive behaviour aroused our suspicion.他鬼鬼祟祟的行为引起了我们的怀疑。

321 furtively   

adv. 偷偷地, 暗中地

参考例句：

• At this some of the others furtively exchanged significant glances. 听他这样说，有几个人心照不宣地彼此对望了一眼。
• Remembering my presence, he furtively dropped it under his chair. 后来想起我在，他便偷偷地把书丢在椅子下。

322 obtruding   

v.强行向前，强行，强迫( obtrude的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• An old song kept obtruding upon my consciousness. 一首古老的歌不断在我的意识中涌现。 来自辞典例句
• The unwelcome question of cost is obtruding itself upon our plans. 讨厌的费用问题干扰着我们的计划。 来自互联网

323 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

324 peril   

n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物

参考例句：

• The refugees were in peril of death from hunger.难民有饿死的危险。
• The embankment is in great peril.河堤岌岌可危。

325 perturbing   

v.使（某人）烦恼，不安( perturb的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• There had been an incident which was perturbing. 曾经出了一点令人不安的事故。 来自辞典例句

326 gloss   

n.光泽，光滑；虚饰；注释；vt.加光泽于；掩饰

参考例句：

• John tried in vain to gloss over his faults.约翰极力想掩饰自己的缺点，但是没有用。
• She rubbed up the silver plates to a high gloss.她把银盘擦得很亮。

327 mingled   

混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系]

参考例句：

• The sounds of laughter and singing mingled in the evening air. 笑声和歌声交织在夜空中。
• The man and the woman mingled as everyone started to relax. 当大家开始放松的时候，这一男一女就开始交往了。

328 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

329 breach   

n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破

参考例句：

• We won't have any breach of discipline.我们不允许任何破坏纪律的现象。
• He was sued for breach of contract.他因不履行合同而被起诉。

330 plunge   

v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲

参考例句：

• Test pool's water temperature before you plunge in.在你跳入之前你应该测试水温。
• That would plunge them in the broil of the two countries.那将会使他们陷入这两国的争斗之中。

331 confession   

n.自白，供认，承认

参考例句：

• Her confession was simply tantamount to a casual explanation.她的自白简直等于一篇即席说明。
• The police used torture to extort a confession from him.警察对他用刑逼供。

332 sleepless   

adj.不睡眠的，睡不著的，不休息的

参考例句：

• The situation gave her many sleepless nights.这种情况害她一连好多天睡不好觉。
• One evening I heard a tale that rendered me sleepless for nights.一天晚上，我听说了一个传闻，把我搞得一连几夜都不能入睡。

333 defrauded   

v.诈取，骗取( defraud的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He defrauded his employers of thousands of dollars. 他诈取了他的雇主一大笔钱。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He defrauded them of their money. 他骗走了他们的钱。 来自辞典例句

334 unpaid   

adj.未付款的，无报酬的

参考例句：

• Doctors work excessive unpaid overtime.医生过度加班却无报酬。
• He's doing a month's unpaid work experience with an engineering firm.他正在一家工程公司无偿工作一个月以获得工作经验。

335 awe   

n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧

参考例句：

• The sight filled us with awe.这景色使我们大为惊叹。
• The approaching tornado struck awe in our hearts.正在逼近的龙卷风使我们惊恐万分。

336 speck   

n.微粒，小污点，小斑点

参考例句：

• I have not a speck of interest in it.我对它没有任何兴趣。
• The sky is clear and bright without a speck of cloud.天空晴朗，一星星云彩也没有。

337 spurt   

v.喷出；突然进发；突然兴隆

参考例句：

• He put in a spurt at the beginning of the eighth lap.他进入第八圈时便开始冲刺。
• After a silence, Molly let her anger spurt out.沉默了一会儿，莫莉的怒气便迸发了出来。

338 blotted   

涂污( blot的过去式和过去分词 )； （用吸墨纸）吸干

参考例句：

• She blotted water off the table with a towel. 她用毛巾擦干桌上的水。
• The blizzard blotted out the sky and the land. 暴风雪铺天盖地而来。

339 laboriously   

adv.艰苦地；费力地；辛勤地；（文体等）佶屈聱牙地

参考例句：

• She is tracing laboriously now. 她正在费力地写。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She is laboriously copying out an old manuscript. 她正在费劲地抄出一份旧的手稿。 来自辞典例句

340 agitation   

n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动

参考例句：

• Small shopkeepers carried on a long agitation against the big department stores.小店主们长期以来一直在煽动人们反对大型百货商店。
• These materials require constant agitation to keep them in suspension.这些药剂要经常搅动以保持悬浮状态。

341 parody   

n.打油诗文，诙谐的改编诗文，拙劣的模仿；v.拙劣模仿，作模仿诗文

参考例句：

• The parody was just a form of teasing.那个拙劣的模仿只是一种揶揄。
• North Korea looks like a grotesque parody of Mao's centrally controlled China,precisely the sort of system that Beijing has left behind.朝鲜看上去像是毛时代中央集权的中国的怪诞模仿，其体制恰恰是北京方面已经抛弃的。

342 persistently   

ad.坚持地；固执地

参考例句：

• He persistently asserted his right to a share in the heritage. 他始终声称他有分享那笔遗产的权利。
• She persistently asserted her opinions. 她果断地说出了自己的意见。

343 slumber   

n.睡眠，沉睡状态

参考例句：

• All the people in the hotels were wrapped in deep slumber.住在各旅馆里的人都已进入梦乡。
• Don't wake him from his slumber because he needs the rest.不要把他从睡眠中唤醒，因为他需要休息。

344 enviously   

adv.满怀嫉妒地

参考例句：

• Yet again, they were looking for their way home blindly, enviously. 然而，它们又一次盲目地、忌妒地寻找着归途。 来自辞典例句
• Tanya thought enviously, he must go a long way south. 坦妮亚歆羡不置，心里在想，他准是去那遥远的南方的。 来自辞典例句

345 voluptuously   

adv.风骚地，体态丰满地

参考例句：

• He sniffed the perfume voluptuously. 他纵情地闻着香水的味道。 来自互联网

346 perils   

极大危险( peril的名词复数 )； 危险的事（或环境）

参考例句：

• The commander bade his men be undaunted in the face of perils. 指挥员命令他的战士要临危不惧。
• With how many more perils and disasters would he load himself? 他还要再冒多少风险和遭受多少灾难？

347 sloughs   

n.沼泽( slough的名词复数 )；苦难的深渊；难以改变的不良心情；斯劳(Slough)v.使蜕下或脱落( slough的第三人称单数 )；舍弃；除掉；摒弃

参考例句：

• Later, the frozen tissue dies, sloughs off and passes out with the urine. 不久，冷冻的组织会死亡，脱落并随尿排出。 来自辞典例句
• Every spring this snake sloughs off its old skin. 每年春天，蛇蜕去皮。 来自互联网

348 intoxication   

n.wild excitement;drunkenness；poisoning

参考例句：

• He began to drink, drank himself to intoxication, till he slept obliterated. 他一直喝，喝到他快要迷糊地睡着了。
• Predator: Intoxication-Damage over time effect will now stack with other allies. Predator:Intoxication,持续性伤害的效果将会与队友相加。

349 rapture   

n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜

参考例句：

• His speech was received with rapture by his supporters.他的演说受到支持者们的热烈欢迎。
• In the midst of his rapture,he was interrupted by his father.他正欢天喜地，被他父亲打断了。

350 emanate   

v.发自，来自，出自

参考例句：

• Waves emanate from the same atom source.波是由同一原子辐射的。
• These chemicals can emanate certain poisonous gases.这些化学药品会散发出某些有毒的气味。

351 imminent   

adj.即将发生的，临近的，逼近的

参考例句：

• The black clounds show that a storm is imminent.乌云预示暴风雨即将来临。
• The country is in imminent danger.国难当头。

352 impending   

a.imminent, about to come or happen

参考例句：

• Against a background of impending famine, heavy fighting took place. 即将发生饥荒之时，严重的战乱爆发了。
• The king convoke parliament to cope with the impending danger. 国王召开国会以应付迫近眉睫的危险。

353 transparent   

adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的

参考例句：

• The water is so transparent that we can see the fishes swimming.水清澈透明，可以看到鱼儿游来游去。
• The window glass is transparent.窗玻璃是透明的。

354 brass   

n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器

参考例句：

• Many of the workers play in the factory's brass band.许多工人都在工厂铜管乐队中演奏。
• Brass is formed by the fusion of copper and zinc.黄铜是通过铜和锌的熔合而成的。

355 controversy   

n.争论，辩论，争吵

参考例句：

• That is a fact beyond controversy.那是一个无可争论的事实。
• We ran the risk of becoming the butt of every controversy.我们要冒使自己在所有的纷争中都成为众矢之的的风险。

356 subterranean   

adj.地下的，地表下的

参考例句：

• London has 9 miles of such subterranean passages.伦敦像这样的地下通道有9英里长。
• We wandered through subterranean passages.我们漫游地下通道。

357 obstinacy   

n.顽固；（病痛等）难治

参考例句：

• It is a very accountable obstinacy.这是一种完全可以理解的固执态度。
• Cindy's anger usually made him stand firm to the point of obstinacy.辛迪一发怒，常常使他坚持自见，并达到执拗的地步。

358 elucidation   

n.说明，阐明

参考例句：

• The advertising copy is the elucidation text,which must be written according to the formula of AIDA. 文案是说明文，应基本遵照AIDA公式来写作。 来自互联网
• Fourth, a worm hole, elucidation space-time can stretch, compression, rent, also is deduced time-travel this idea. 第四，有了虫洞，就说明时空可以被拉伸、压缩、撕裂，也就推导出了时空旅行这个想法。 来自互联网

359 vindication   

n.洗冤，证实

参考例句：

• There is much to be said in vindication of his claim.有很多理由可以提出来为他的要求作辩护。
• The result was a vindication of all our efforts.这一结果表明我们的一切努力是必要的。

360 wrestle   

vi.摔跤，角力；搏斗；全力对付

参考例句：

• He taught his little brother how to wrestle.他教他小弟弟如何摔跤。
• We have to wrestle with difficulties.我们必须同困难作斗争。

361 meekly   

adv.温顺地，逆来顺受地

参考例句：

• He stood aside meekly when the new policy was proposed. 当有人提出新政策时，他唯唯诺诺地站 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He meekly accepted the rebuke. 他顺从地接受了批评。 来自《简明英汉词典》

362 millennial   

一千年的，千福年的

参考例句：

• Both Russia and America looked to the future to fulfill their millennial expectations. 俄国和美国都把实现他们黄金时代的希望寄托于未来。
• The millennial generation is celebrating the global commons every day, apparently unmindful of Hardin's warning. 千禧一代显然对哈丁的警告不以为然，每天都在颂扬全球“公地”。

363 opaqueness   

[化] 不透明性，不透明度

参考例句：

• Saudi Arabia obscures its vulnerability by opaqueness. 沙特阿拉伯人以其神秘莫测来掩饰其脆弱。 来自辞典例句
• It has exposed the fragility of the foundations of private finance: opaqueness, hazard and sometimes fraud. 它暴露出了私人金融根基的脆弱性——不透明、冒险、甚至有时还有欺诈行为。 来自互联网

364 mused   

v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事）

参考例句：

• \"I wonder if I shall ever see them again, \"he mused. “我不知道是否还可以再见到他们，”他沉思自问。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• \"Where are we going from here?\" mused one of Rutherford's guests. 卢瑟福的一位客人忍不住说道：‘我们这是在干什么？” 来自英汉非文学 - 科学史

365 sneered   

讥笑，冷笑( sneer的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He sneered at people who liked pop music. 他嘲笑喜欢流行音乐的人。
• It's very discouraging to be sneered at all the time. 成天受嘲讽是很令人泄气的。

366 fiery   

adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的

参考例句：

• She has fiery red hair.她有一头火红的头发。
• His fiery speech agitated the crowd.他热情洋溢的讲话激动了群众。

367 kindly   

adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地

参考例句：

• Her neighbours spoke of her as kindly and hospitable.她的邻居都说她和蔼可亲、热情好客。
• A shadow passed over the kindly face of the old woman.一道阴影掠过老太太慈祥的面孔。

368 ooze   

n.软泥，渗出物；vi.渗出，泄漏；vt.慢慢渗出，流露

参考例句：

• Soon layer of oceanic ooze began to accumulate above the old hard layer.不久后海洋软泥层开始在老的硬地层上堆积。
• Drip or ooze systems are common for pot watering.滴灌和渗灌系统一般也用于盆栽灌水。

369 contented   

adj.满意的，安心的，知足的

参考例句：

• He won't be contented until he's upset everyone in the office.不把办公室里的每个人弄得心烦意乱他就不会满足。
• The people are making a good living and are contented,each in his station.人民安居乐业。

370 immersion   

n.沉浸；专心

参考例句：

• The dirt on the bottom of the bath didn't encourage total immersion.浴缸底有污垢，不宜全身浸泡于其中。
• The wood had become swollen from prolonged immersion.因长时间浸泡，木头发胀了。

371 reassure   

v.使放心，使消除疑虑

参考例句：

• This seemed to reassure him and he continued more confidently.这似乎使他放心一点，于是他更有信心地继续说了下去。
• The airline tried to reassure the customers that the planes were safe.航空公司尽力让乘客相信飞机是安全的。

372 shuddered   

v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动

参考例句：

• He slammed on the brakes and the car shuddered to a halt. 他猛踩刹车，车颤抖着停住了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I shuddered at the sight of the dead body. 我一看见那尸体就战栗。 来自《简明英汉词典》

373 adventurous   

adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的　

参考例句：

• I was filled with envy at their adventurous lifestyle.我很羨慕他们敢于冒险的生活方式。
• He was predestined to lead an adventurous life.他注定要过冒险的生活。

374 foisted   

强迫接受，把…强加于( foist的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She resented having the child foisted on her while the parents went travelling abroad. 她对孩子的父母出国旅行卻硬要她来照看孩子这事很反感。
• The author discovered that the translator had foisted several passages into his book. 作者发现译者偷偷在他的原著中插入了几段。

375 realization   

n.实现；认识到，深刻了解

参考例句：

• We shall gladly lend every effort in our power toward its realization.我们将乐意为它的实现而竭尽全力。
• He came to the realization that he would never make a good teacher.他逐渐认识到自己永远不会成为好老师。

376 vindicated   

v.澄清（某人/某事物）受到的责难或嫌疑( vindicate的过去式和过去分词 )；表明或证明（所争辩的事物）属实、正当、有效等；维护

参考例句：

• I have every confidence that this decision will be fully vindicated. 我完全相信这一决定的正确性将得到充分证明。
• Subsequent events vindicated the policy. 后来的事实证明那政策是对的。 来自《简明英汉词典》