??Yet harten’d to his pipe, with all the skill
??His few years could, began to fit his quill1,
Willie he hight. . . .
??Fair was the day, but fairer was the maid
??Who that day’s morn into the green-woods stray’d.
Sweet was the air, but sweeter was her breathing,
Such rare perfumes the roses are bequeathing.
Browne, “Britannia’s Pastorals.”
I
It was the shepherd-cowman, and not Jinny, who delivered the horn to Will. She had “happened of him,” Master Peartree explained tediously, in the remote field to which he had taken the sheep to feed off the winter barley2. “Powerfully trumpeting” for him with it just when he was looking for fly, when indeed in the very act of discovering a maggoty rump, she had besought3 him to convey that “liddle ole horn,” she being so late and Gran’fer likely to be “in a taking.”
Now this “liddle ole horn”—when Will saw Master Peartree and his sheep-dog coming along in the evening light—he took to be the shepherd’s crook4 or his great umbrella folded, so lengthy5 did it loom6, and when he perceived that it was what he was expected to perform on, he was taken aback. It was not that he had not seen coach-horns in plenty, but he had seen them in their proper environment and at their proper altitude, their elemental straightforwardness7 making an exhilarating right-angle with the guard’s mouth, a sort of streaming pennon. But a coach-horn in its bare quiddity, quite as tall as the shrunken old shepherd, and hardly a foot shorter than Will himself, dissociated from jovial8 visions of scarlet9, rum-soused visages and spanking10 steeds, was as ungainly to behold11 and as awkward to handle as it was difficult to explain away. Evidently the jade13 had bought him the largest size on the market; he knew not whether to be flattered or vexed14 at her idea of the appropriately virile15. But to send it by this alien hand—to make a village wonder and scandal of it! How, indeed, was he to explain to the bucolic16 mind his sudden passion for the instrument? Flutes17 and concertinas folks could understand, even tin whistles; but what could a man looking round for a farm want with a colossal18 coach-horn? He was glad at least he had met Master Peartree out of sight of his parents. There was a note attached to the case, and he opened it the more eagerly that it delayed the explanation which Master Peartree seemed to his morbid19 vision to be grimly awaiting.
“Sir,—Mr. Daniel Quarles has pleasure in forwarding per favour of bearer Mr. William Flynt’s esteemed20 order. Bill enclosed. I hope you will find the stature21 agreeable to you—it was only by casualty I got such a protracted22 one, and as the compass protracts23 with the stature you could easily educe24 three octaves from it. Half-tones of course I shall not expect as without holes only a musical Arabian spirit like my granddaughter can evoke25 them, but when you can play the ‘Buy a Broom’ Polka with concinnity, I shall consider the gloves fairly conquered.
“I remain
“Yours obediently,
“Daniel Quarles.
“P.S.—The mouthpiece unscrews being mutable, so I can exchange it for another, if this does not suit Mr. William Flynt’s lips.”
How the deuce was he to play a polka he had never heard, especially “with concinnity” (whatever that might be), was the dominant27 thought in his perturbed28 brain. But as Master Peartree seemed still expectant—was it even of a tune29?—Will stooped down to pat the dog, whose black-tipped tail was hoisted30 like a friendly signal. It was a ragged31 animal just between two coats—a canine32 counterpart of its shabby, straggly-haired master—but Will caressed33 it like a velvety34 lapdog while he inquired carelessly—his horn tucked like a telescope under his arm—how the Carrier had carried herself, what exactly she had said. But he only provoked—after the briefest glimpse of the girl—a rambling37 narrative38 about a sheep that had broken its arm in a “roosh,” in the panicky restlessness of the thundery Sunday: it had fallen down a steep and another had rolled on top of it. And even with this “meldoo” the sheep were so pernickety you could do naught39 with ’em. Doubtless in this cloudy heat they felt the weight of their wool—he should be shearing40 some for the early market as soon as they could get the labour, which was not easy in these migrating days. Even young men who came back lazed about, he added pointedly42, when they might be earning good money. Will hastened to inquire whether the shearers were as merry at their work as he remembered them. He could never forget the beautiful bass43 voice of Master Peartree, but he supposed time had now abated44 its resonancy, or was he mistaken? He was mistaken, he admiringly admitted, for the ancient was soon quavering out in a piping voice:
“There was a sheep went out to reap”
and Will, beating time with the great horn, was solemnly singing the chorus:
“Chrissimus Day, Chrissimus Day”
And now would the famous singer oblige with the “Buy a Broom Polka”? Alas45, he did not know it, with or without “concinnity”! But young Ravens46 might know it, he who was as full of tunes47 as a dog of fleas48, and with his perpetual flow of melody made bread and tea like harvest suppers, and shearing days as jolly as Chrissimus. But where was this musical box? Alas! he had “gone furrin,” being somewhere beyond Southend. But master expected him back for the shearing; he was a rolling stone, was Ravens, but he usually rolled back this time o’ year. No, not rolled with liquor, nor yet like the sheep that broke its arm. Had it been a fat sheep, he would have butchered it, but as it was only store he had set the arm himself. No, he had no need of a vet35. for that, like the degenerate49 young shepherds nowadays; he wouldn’t be beholden to cattle-doctors, not he, keeping for ever o’ salts and gentians and bottles of lotion50 in his hut, although “suspicioning shab”—it might even be rot from the river-marsh—in one of the sheep which he had just been examining for fly, he had taken the opportunity to ask Jinny to send round Elijah Skindle. ’Tis a long talk that has no turning, and Will, when the narrative thus came, by a wide detour51, back to Jinny, ceased fidgeting with the horn, and demanded what she had said to that. It transpired52 that she had refused to order Elijah, despite that Mrs. Flynt had recommended him as cheaper, alleging53, drat her, that Jorrow was the better man. Will, curiously54 forgetting Mr. Flippance and his horse, concurred55 in the view that carriers cannot be choosers. He also started another current of indignation against carriers getting other folks to fetch and carry for them. Would the hard-working shepherd, who was too easily put upon, kindly56 not encourage the girl in future to shirk her job?
Touched by the sense of his own magnanimity and the sixpence slipped into his palm, the good shepherd promised to repress his obligingness in the interests of the higher ethics57, and Will, bidding him farewell, slipped behind the row of stag-headed poplars opposite the gate of Frog Farm, and strove—before entering the house—to adjust his horn down his trousers and up his back. It was no easy process with such a “protracted” object: fortunately it was thin, save at the swelling58 end, but by keeping this bulge59 below, he could avoid humping his back. To walk with such a ramrod up it and adown one leg would, however, have taxed the talents of the most graceful61 damsel training for deportment. He hobbled painfully to the rear of the farmhouse62, designing to hide the horn before entering, but lo! there was his mother filling the food-pot of his neglected ferrets.
“Oh, my poor Will!” she exclaimed. “I told your father you’d have rheumatics—sitting in chapel63 in your damp clothes.” She tried to take him pitifully in her arms but he limped away, fearing she would imagine his backbone64 had come outside.
“It’s only one leg a bit stiff,” he said ungraciously. But she hooked her arm in his and drew her halt offspring towards the back door; a brief but parlous65 journey, for he felt the horn slipping towards his boot.
“Why, your ankle’s swollen66,” said Martha tragically67.
“It’ll soon go down,” he assured her.
A terrible struggle agitated68 the maternal69 heart. Even Will, preoccupied70 with his grotesque71 position, could see her face working.
“You’re sure you wouldn’t like to have the doctor?”
“Oh no, mother. What nonsense!”
Her clouds lifted a little. “But this may be Jinny’s evening for coming—I could tell her to go for him to-morrow.”
“To-morrow it’ll be better—I feel certain, mother.”
She beamed. “I’m so glad you’ve found faith, dearie. I knew when once you began studying the texts you couldn’t miss it. King Asa, too, suffered from his feet. But he sought to the physicians and displeased72 the Lord. Have no confidence in man, dearie. There’s days I get pains in my side as if my ribs73 grated together. But I’d be afraid to put myself out of the Lord’s hands, after I’ve trusted to Him all these years.”
Will winced74. He seemed to himself vaguely75 blasphemous76. As soon as he was alone in his bedroom, the swelling was transferred to the capacious box so miraculously77 carried from Chipstone. He dared not descend78 to supper: so speedy a miracle might have seemed too “Peculiar79.” But next morning (after a family breakfast which was for his elders a veritable feast of faith) he stole out with the horn and his fishing-rod and creel to the river, which in the watches of the night he had decided80 upon as the loneliest spot for practising, while the open ramshackle boat-house, where the rusty81 punt usually nested, was to afford a hiding-place for the instrument.
It was worth while going down that pastoral slope these days, even were one not bent82 on music, solitude83, and the winning of gloves. In weather so prematurely84 sultry, the river was so sweet and still and green, with its shadowy reflections, its blobs of duckweed, the sedges and flags along its banks, and the willows—grey-white or silvery—along its borders: gliding85 so tranquilly87 in its reaches and lapping so lazily round its islands that only at bends did the water seem to flow at all. In the undulating meadows that sloped to it, silted88 with cow-droppings, Master Peartree’s kine lay around chewing, and the sense of brooding heat gave to the landscape a dreamy magic, suffused89 with a sense of water.
It was to this idyllic90 retreat that our Tityrus or Corydon repaired to essay his metallic91 pipe. And, standing92 on the bank like a watchman, his horn to his lips, “Tucker, tucker,” he breathed industriously93 into the unresponsive instrument. In vain did he lip and tongue the notes as instructed, nothing broke the sultry silence. Surely the mouthpiece could not suit Mr. William Flynt’s lips. Suddenly, in his shamed impotence, he had a sense of a breathing presence. In his agitation94 the horn slipped from his nervous fingers and went souse into the water, while the startled beast—for the observer proved to be only one of Master Peartree’s cows—lumbered bouncingly back along the pasture.
Fortunately the instrument had lodged95 in the shallow mud of the bank. Fishing it up—it was his sole catch that week—he found to his joy that it emitted a faint toot, and he rightly divined that a little water was just what it had needed. Encouraged by this intervention96 of Providence97 in his favour, his performance bore henceforwards some proportion to his pains.
It was embarrassing though to return from these painful puffings without a single bite. Every dinner-time he had to sneak99 in as best he could with empty basket after a morning of pertinacious100 tooting, successful enough to frighten off the deafest fish. Once, indeed, going home by a somewhat roundabout route that skirted Blackwater Hall, he chanced on a Chipstone fishmonger serving Long Bradmarsh, and was able to take home some fruits of his rod. But the only time our piscatorial101 swain ever tried for an honest bite was when he saw or heard somebody or something coming along. Then, drawing in his horn like a snail102, he presented the picture of the complete angler. Usually it was only Bidlake’s barge103 that disturbed his strenuous104 solitude, and the transient mockery of the twins was for the futile105 fisher, not for the unsuspected musician. Not even Master Peartree’s cows ever munched106 their way again to the bank while the horn was at its fell exercises, for, like the horn which the fairy Logistilla presented to Astolpho in “Orlando Furioso,” its blast seemed to put all creation to flight. His sole auditors107 were a pair of swans who refused to quit their normal haunt, though they hissed109 him fiercely. Possibly they were accustomed “to hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn,” and so had a standard of musical taste. Is not the swan’s own song, too, celebrated110, though it appears only to perform before it dies, as if to evade111 criticism?
But however soundly the swans might hiss108, Will, after three days of red-faced rehearsal112 on the pleasant bank of the Brad, felt ready to challenge his female critic in all save the polka she had set for examination, and this he determined—after failing to hunt it out—was no fair part of the wager113. A whole evening he had spent reknitting the thread of old acquaintanceship with carolling cottagers, gleaning114 much gratitude115 for his kindly attentions, but not the melody he was after, and being forced politely to abide116 while gaffers piped “Heave away, my Johnny,” or gammers ruthlessly completed “Midsummer Fair” or “Dashing away with the Smoothing Iron.” However, he could now turn out such complicated military flourishes that he excited his own military ardour, and felt like marching in his thousands, and doing such deeds of derring-do that the lips of all the damsels of Essex would vie to change places with that mouthpiece. It was high time then that this particular damsel should understand how vain was her hope that he could be baffled by a tube. Though he might not know that polka, he was sure that whatever “concinnity” might be, he could perform with it, and impatience117 began to steal over him at the delay in the test performance. For if Jinny had fobbed him off with the shepherd on Tuesday, she evaded118 service altogether on Friday. Even Nip might conceivably crop up with some small groceries tied on to him, and he could not try it on the dog. Also, unless he saw her soon, the cattle fair would be upon them, and she still unsaved. He must, with the relics119 of his copybook paper, compose a new note, formally citing her to stand and hear, and deliver the gloves.
But it was not easy to fix the place for deciding the wager. The riverside meadows she could not well get at in her cart, and for her to come specially26 on foot was hardly to be expected, in view of her household labours. To cut her off and perform to her on a high road was to run risks of being publicly ridiculous: even by-ways have ears. Suppose his nerve or his breath failed, suppose some impish accident muffled120 up the horn: there would he be with swollen cheeks, a mountain in labour, producing not even, a mouse-squeak; the mock of man and beast. But there was Steeples Wood—not too far back off the high road, but approached by a tangly121 brake that few ever penetrated122: there—if he could persuade her to it—was the ideal place for the great horn solo. In a postscript124 he would express his willingness to take off her hands the purchase of the Showman’s horse. To convey all this by correspondence involved almost as much effort as the practising, though his renewed call upon the Bible came to Caleb and Martha as the natural sequel of his faith-cure. It was no small feat125 of composition, this particular letter, in face of a people, which, however abundant its horses, appeared to have had neither “wagers” upon them, nor “gloves,” riding or other.
II
That gloves were unknown to the ancient Hebrews, Will could hardly bring himself to believe, even by hours of searching, especially after coming upon a Fashion Catalogue for Ladies, which showed a surprising wardrobe. Bonnets127 they had, it would appear, and headbands and tablets and changeable suits of apparel, and mantles128 and wimples and crisping pins and fine linen129 and hoods130 and vails, and mufflers and girdles and stomachers: as for their jewel-cases, they seemed stuffed not only with rings and ear-rings and charms and bracelets131 and moony tires, but likewise with jewels that dangled132 at the nose or tinkled133 at the feet. How then should so elegant a world have dispensed134 with gloves? But so—after scouring135 the sacred Book from Genesis to Revelation—he must finally fain believe. Not a single patriarch, priest, satrap, shepherd, physician, apostle, publican, or sinner had ever sported gloves, and the Queen of Sheba fared no better in this respect than the Witch of Endor. Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed with even one of these. The Pharisees, it would appear, covered their foreheads with phylacteries—whatever these might be—but left their hands bare. And yet, Will thought wistfully, reading so early in the sacred Book how Rebekah “put the skins of the kids of the goats upon Jacob’s hands,” they might surely in all those centuries have gone on to the idea of gloves, especially for winter wear. But no, thousands of years after Rebekah, the knuckles137 of Dives were apparently138 as raw as those of Lazarus. Oh, why had he not betted something Biblical—a muffler now would have suited either sex: even handkerchiefs were available. Not that he could not risk spelling “gloves” to accord with “loves,” which he found with no great difficulty in the holy text: he felt it romantic to throw himself thus trustfully upon “love,” even should it prove misleading.
Yet the search was not altogether vain, for though he could find no gloves, the prophets, he found, were full of exhortations139 to Jinny, which he carefully dog-eared and committed to memory and kept up his sleeve for contingencies140. “How canst thou contend with horses?” Jeremiah asked her. Ezekiel warned her against the cattle-dealer. “By reason of the abundance of his horses their dust shall cover thee.” As for Isaiah, he remarked plumply: “Woe unto them that draw iniquity141 with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope.”
To himself, on the other hand, the prophets were kind; abounding142 in promises for the prosperity of his horn. And it was Amos who supplied his letter with its opening sentence, abrupt143 but dramatic:
“Can two walk together except they be agreed?”
But the letter written, there was the problem of sending it. The intervention of either Bundock or Daniel was intolerable. He must find an individual way. One verse that he came upon—it was in the Book of Esther—enchanted him with its images, telling how Mordecai wrote an order in the King’s name “and sealed it with the King’s ring and sent letters by post on horseback, riders on mules145, camels, and young dromedaries.” How he would have liked to seal his letter too with a royal ring, and send it “by post on horseback.” He had a vision of the long procession of mules, camels, and dromedaries filing along the grass-grown lane to Blackwater Hall. How old Daniel would rub his eyes at the strange humped beasts—yes, and Jinny too. She would perhaps think that Mr. Flippance had acquired a new show and was paying her a processional visit. Possibly these animal images did lead him to the invention of his postal146 method, or possibly it was his prior apprehension147 of Jinny’s utilizing148 Nip as a package-bearer. At any rate, after having wondered whether Martha’s pigeons could be trained up in the way they should go, he hit on the device of tying his note to Nip’s collar. The creature was friendly, and that Saturday afternoon it would be at home. He would only have to hover149 long enough around Blackwater Hall for his post-dog to fawn150 upon him. Of course there was no certainty the dangling151 missive would escape Daniel’s spectacles, but Nip being providentially of the colour of paper, it was possible heaven had not blanched152 him in vain. Besides, this time the note was carefully addressed to Miss Jinny Quarles, with the “Quarles” scratched out by an afterthought when he remembered that it was not her name.
But, alas! Nip did not play up; that longed-for quadruped did not appear in the purlieus of the Hall. Will, tired of carrying about the note, thought again of sticking it up in the stable and ventured near, but his fear of encountering Daniel Quarles was too lively, and finally he essayed—with some obscure remembrance of Bowery melodrama—to fix it gleamingly in the fork of a tree by which Methusalem stood when harnessing and unharnessing. To his amaze a chaffinch flew out of the fork in violent protest, while her gaily153 coloured consort154 dashed up from another quarter, crying “U-whit” at him like an avine Flippance. Peeping into the hollow of the fork he saw a couple of rather belated youngsters, ugly, bald-headed, and featherless, apparently new-hatched and almost savouring of the egg: yet when he touched them with the note, opening great eyes and yawning with yellow beaks155 and kicking each other with skeleton legs. But before he could bethink himself of a new posting-place, lo! as sudden as the chaffinches but far more welcome, with a yelp156 of joy and a perpendicular157 tail wagging like a mad pendulum158, Nip was upon him; and having succeeded with a desperate bound in licking the tip of his stooping chin, rolled himself on mother-earth with voluptuous159 grunts160. Will profited by this supineness to attach the note by the thread he had passed through it.
The new postal system was a success. For when Will after high tea sneaked161 out to the Common and sounded his horn—with a happy combination of challenge, salute162, and signal—Nip actually appeared with a reply.
It was, however, unsatisfactory. Miss Boldero—the very name, though he divined it denoted the same Jinny, came like a glacial blast—presented her compliments to Mr. William Flynt, but she had no time to be romantic in woods (she said) nor, even at their homes, could she ever pay more than volant visits to anybody, and that strictly163 in the way of Daniel Quarles’s business. He could almost always find her at Blackwater Hall except Tuesdays and Fridays, but she trusted he would not be too turgid and thrasonical about his playing, even if his contumacious164 serenade should be puissant165 enough to extort166 the pair of gloves.
All these strange words came, of course, from “The Universal Spelling-Book.” Will, though he would still have refused to toot before her grandfather, might have felt less crushed had he known that in that ancient authority, “romantic” was defined as “idle.”
III
It is possible that persons of strict ethics—like Miss Gentry167, say—would have lost sympathy with Jinny in these epistolary efforts of hers to stand on tiptoe, so to speak, and write beyond her education. But in thus titivating her style with gems168 of speech she knew not to be false, she was moved by the necessity of countering an overweening, overbearing, interfering169 young man, who was subtly assuming a sort of critical wardenship170 over her and her life: he needed a good vibration171 (“shaking or beating”), she must teach him by her gelidity (“coldness”) to be less conversant172 (“familiar”), and that she was quite his parallel (“equal”). He must be made to feel that her company was not to be had for the rogation (“asking”), in short that she was no housekeeping ignoramus to be ridden over by world-travelled wisdom, however genuine. No, she was not going to incurvate (“bow or bend”) to Mr. William Flynt.
This rigidity173 was the more necessary as, ever since in that thunderstorm his hand had tightened174 on hers—or was it the reverse?—the lightnings seemed to pass through her, the reverberations to shake her, whenever she thought of him, and even when she did not. What there was in him to rend175 her thus elementally she could not understand; doubtless it was the memory of the storm now for ever associated with him. He seemed—it was perhaps his life of adventure—to be in mystic unison176 with tempests and floods and that sea-creek of her childhood, now remembered exclusively as tossing and white-flecked. Even when she was turning over her Spelling-Book to find words to “vibrate” him with, it was the pages that vibrated: when she copied its gelid trisyllables, she felt her hand again in his, and her quill quivered as if the lightning were going through it.
And even Miss Gentry, though she would have derided178 Jinny’s new vocabulary, might have admitted that there was a laudable side to her pursuit of learning: the Spelling-Book itself overflowed179 with commendation of such scholastic180 zeal181. Jinny no longer knitted or sewed in her evening hour of leisure. It was occupied—even after the concoction182 of the grandiose183 letter—in a feverish184 study of the volume neglected since her first scholastic period. She must make herself a greater intellectual power, she felt: she must master all human knowledge. And that all human knowledge lay in the hundred and fifty pages of this little book, our simple village girl, who was not romantic in any sense of that word, who, except for Bible and hymn-book, had never read a book—not even a novel—and who approached life with senses fresh and virginal, sincerely and crudely believed.
Nor was the pose of “The Universal Spelling-Book” calculated to dissipate her delusion186. This wonderful work, which was now destined187 to become Jinny’s guide, philosopher, and friend, had nothing in common with those shallow productions of a later period, concerned mainly with correct combinations of letters. Dating from the age of folios and exhibiting, despite its diminutive188 size, the same solid solemnity, it did really take all knowledge for its province. (You learnt, for example, how to make the very ink you spelled with—and although you may rarely have possessed189 those best blue galls190 of Aleppo which formed the base of black, still you might hope to get the three pints191 of stale beer that were the substratum of red.) And not only all knowledge, but all morals formed the farrago of this book. Well might it ostentate among its “Patronizers” clergymen, private gentlemen, philomaths, writing masters, and heads of academies.
Originally published—as already related—in the year of the Lisbon Earthquake, and creating apparently as great a sensation (in England at least), it constituted an omnium gatherum so peculiar and extensive that there was no earthly (or heavenly) subject you could be certain of not meeting there, though there was one subject you could be certain of never escaping, for it cropped up in the quaintest192 connexions—and that was Virtue193.
As the author—who hailed oddly from the Royal Exchange Assurance Office—justly claimed in his dedication194 to the Right Honourable195 Slingsby Bethell, Esq., Lord Mayor of the City of London, and One of its Representatives in Parliament (an encourager of everything tending to “the Practice of Piety” and “the Good of Mankind”), it was designed to do more than barely teach the young idea how to spell. “To inculcate into the Minds of Youth early Notices of Religion and Virtue, and to point out to them their several Duties in the various Stages of Life” was no less its aim. “And I should be very thankful,” explained His Lordship’s obliged, obedient, and most humble196 servant, “should I prove an instrument in the Hand of Providence in preventing but one of the rising Generation from falling a sacrifice to the pernicious Doctrines197, secret Whispers, and perpetual Insinuations of Popish Emissaries.”
It was a passage that had always swelled198 Jinny’s bosom199 with emotion and the vow200 to ensure the gratification of this saintly aspiration201 by supplying in herself the minimum one member of the rising Generation to baffle these minions202 of the Scarlet Woman. It had been at first a little bemusing to reflect that for her Peculiar friends, the Established Church was little less pernicious: still, fended203 by the double buffer204 of her sect205 and Protestantism, she had thus far resisted the Emissaries she had never encountered (for certainly the Rev136. Mr. Fallow, whatever the Chipstone curate might say of his Puseyite practices, had never tried to pervert206 her even to the Establishment).
With three generations brought up on this pious207 pabulum—the copy from which Sidrach the Owler had educated himself for smuggling208 was already beyond the fiftieth edition—-it seemed strange that the century should have had any declensions from virtue to note; that papistry should have progressed was incredible.
If in her dim, childish way, Jinny had ever felt a jarring note in this treasure-house of virtue and information, it was the assumption that both these existed primarily for little boys. True, among the fascinating woodcuts was one depicting209 little girls at school, but even there the mistress occupied the stiff chair, while the Dominie of the boys’ school, majestic210 in a full-bottomed wig211, sat throned on a chair with arms. “A good child will love God,” she read with humid eyes, only to be pulled up short by “he will put his whole trust in Him.” Everything seemed to be masculine, from God downwards212: there was no place for women even in punishment: to be “well whipt at School and at Home, Day and Night”—a recommendation she found it difficult to reconcile with the definition of “Ferula,” as “a foolish Instrument, used in some Schools”—was a Nemesis213 held out only to the boy who minded not his Church, his School, and his Book. Such a one would live and die a Slave, a Fool, and a Dunce. But as to the fate of bad little girls there was a mysterious silence. Even for their goodness there was no sure reward: for though presumably they were included in the well-behaved who would be clothed in Garments of Gold and have a Crown of Gold set on their Head, while Angels rejoiced to see them, these joys were never definitely attached to an exclusively feminine pronoun. A virtuous214 “woman” appeared once to her relief, but it was only to be a crown to her husband. Even in the foot-notes Jinny could not find a female. “If the young learner has learnt to read these lessons pretty perfectly,” said one note, “let him go over them once more.” As for the Useful Fables215, it was the boy that stole Apples or went into the Water instead of going to School; and when it came to the longest story of all, “Life truly painted in the Natural History of Tommy and Harry”—the story that professed216 to show “Youth the ways of life in General,” and did indeed show how wickedness wrecks217 you on the Coast of Barbary, where you are torn to pieces by wild beasts as per woodcut, while the pattern of Virtue and Goodness still lives happy—it appeared that even a realistic picture of life may be complete without girls.
IV
Behold, however, Jinny—despite her sex—embarked on a learned career, and burning the midnight oil in her fat little lamp instead of curling up in her chest of drawers. Puckering218 her brow she sat on a squat219 wooden arm-chair in that dun papered living-room, imbibing220 virtue and information, till the Dutch clock in the outer box-room startled her with its emphatic221 declaration of the hour, and the cracked mirror revealed eyes heavy-lidded. Far out over the Common streamed the curtained light of that midnight oil, for the shutter222 could not be closed, owing to a pair of blackbirds that had set up house in the eaves. Jinny had found one of the young fallen on the grass: she had fed it with morsels223 of meat which it swallowed with great yellow gulps224, following up the meal with a fluted225 grace. She had restored it to its nest—touched to mark the domestic virtue of its co-incubating parents. It had grown quite big now and flown hoppingly away with short sharp cries, but Jinny still cherished the nest and felt no need of the barring shutter. In the silence the creakings of the cottage often sounded like footsteps outside, but Jinny was not nervous, and a real footstep would rouse Nip, she knew. Sometimes, these warm May nights, she heard the cuckoo keeping hours as late as hers, sometimes the nightingales would sing passionately226 in the lane. There was one, she knew, that niched in a mutilated, ivy-swathed trunk bordering on the Common, and she would hear it answering the faint melancholy227 calls from afar with throbs228 and gushes229 of melody as well as with a series of quick, piercing notes. And sometimes when the air was clear she could hear the distant church clocks. But all these sounds, like Nip’s and the Gaffer’s snoring, were but a restful accompaniment to the acquisition of omniscience230: even the nightingale, in her ignorance of literature, failed to romanticize her thoughts, painfully bent on mastering all there was to know.
Meanings, we have seen, played a great part in these studies: “Dollar—a Dutch coin”; “Engineer—an Artist”; “Gambadoes—a Sort of Boots”; “History—an Account of Things”; “Interview—Mutual Sight”; “Logarithms—Artificial Numbers”; “Mahomet—the Turkish Impostor”; “Replevin—a Writ144 so called”; “Stolidity—Foolishness”; “Tarantula—a Baneful231 Insect”; “Valentine—a Romish Festival”; “Upholsterer—an Undertaker”; “Zodiac—a Circle in the Heavens”: such were the strange vocables she kept muttering and misunderstanding: believing indeed that “Paramour” was merely a grander word for “Lover” and connecting divorce with “Schismatic—one guilty of unlawful separation.” It pained her to meet the “Sadducees—a People that Denies the Being of Angels,” slurring232, as did these unimaginable heretics, the status of her own mother. Surely it was for such that “Damnation—the punishment of Hell Torments” had been designed. Punctuation233 too she studied, growing learned in Apostrophes, Asterisks234, Carets, Crotchets, and Obelisks235; other hours were devoted236 to Grammar, Tenses, Degrees of Comparison (always between good and better Boys), Genitives, and even Scraps237 of Latin. Pronunciation, however, was her great stumbling-block. How was it possible to keep one’s feet in the chaos238, say, of four-syllabled words, each accented on a different syllable177? Antiquary, Ambassador, Affidavit239, Animadvert—it was heart-breaking and head-splitting. Her memory, so marvellous when vivified by realities, broke down before this procession of shadows.
With what relief she turned to the rich riot of “Moral and Satyric Poems”—though her sex was still distressingly241 ignored, and through every loophole the eternal male popped up.
He most improves who studies with Delight
And learns Sound Morals while he learns to write.
Still, where “Swearing, Gaming, and Pride” were rebuked242 in lashing243 lines, she was not sorry to find the petticoat conspicuous244 by its absence. It was a rare joy to come on Queen Anne in a “List of Abbreviations” under the unexpected guise245 of A.R.; in the list of kings, too, she appeared again, together with Mary and Elizabeth; not a large proportion, Jinny thought, rejoicing at the Victoria unforeseen by the learned author, whose “Chronological Account of Remarkable246 Things” stopped, like her friend Commander Dap’s, at the Battle of Trafalgar.
This table was indeed one of her favourite pages—it gave her, she felt, a bird’s-eye view of all history—and with her head for figures she never forgot that the Ten Commandments and the Ten Plagues were given in 1494 B.C., and that the sun stood still at Joshua’s word in 1454, while Daniel was in the Den12 of Lions in 536. She was puzzled, though, at the destruction of Troy which intervened between Joshua’s interference with the sun and Saul’s anointment. Of the twenty-two great events that preceded the Christian248 era, this was the only one that the Bible forbore to mention. Subsequently to Christianity things seemed to her to have moved fast, for up till the year 1600 alone, fourteen “remarkable Things” occurred—two-thirds as many as had happened in the whole previous 4007 years since the world was created—while after 1600, extraordinary events sprouted249 like blackberries, no less than fifty crowding to their grand climacteric in Trafalgar.
In these fifty she was glad to see included the Confutation of Popery by Martin Luther—a personage with whom Miss Gentry had made her familiar—and she thrilled almost with local pride to find “Arts and Sciences first taught at Cambridge, 1119,” for the Cambridge carriers sometimes penetrated eastwards250 as far as Chipstone itself. As a carrier, indeed, she was immensely excited by the “Eleven Days successive Snow” of 1674, the “Frost for thirteen Weeks” of 1684, “The Terrible high Wind of November 26, 1703,” “the great and total Eclipse of the Sun, April 22, 1713,” and the “severe Frost for nine Weeks” beginning on Christmas Eve, 1739. She could vividly251 sympathize with the unfortunate carriers of those days, and she did not wonder that these brumal phenomena252 should form so great a proportion of the few score happenings of Universal History, for frosts and winds must be terrible indeed to be recounted as on a level with the shooting of Admiral Byng, the American Declaration of Independence, the Birth of the Prince of Wales, and the “Attempted Assassination254 of George III at Drury Lane by Hadfield, a lunatic.”
These studious vigils were invariably wound up with a prayer from this same limitless thesaurus: on her knees by the transmogrified chest of drawers, and with her hair hanging down her back, and the lamplight falling on the coarse grey-typed page of the Spelling-Book, Jinny repeated one or other of its masculine supplications, prose or verse, and only a cynic (“Cynic—a Sour, Crabbed255 Fellow”) would have laughed at the solemnity with which she swallowed all those motley lucubrations, whether lay or clerical. An impromptu256 prayer for her grandfather was invariably slipped in, for this holy book of hers finished as terribly as the Old Testament257, and what made it worse was that this awful culmination258 of the Spelling-Book was printed in black-letter. It was a gruesome recital259 of the miseries260 and follies261 of “the Seven Stages of Life”—none of which seemed worth living even with the correctest of spelling, while death seemed worth dying to escape the depravity and decrepitude262 of the final stadium. But although her grandfather, with all his peevish263 humours, could hardly be counted so steeped in sin as the old man of the text, while his infirmities were still rudimentary, yet the physical prognostication was terrifying—“for when we come to those years, that our Eyes grow dim, Ears deaf, Visage pale, Hands shaking, Knees trembling, and Feet faltering264, then it is evident the Dissolution of our mortal Tabernacle is near at Hand.”
Jinny could never read those dreadful words but she would creep anxiously to the foot of the dark, twisting staircase and listen for the reassuring265 sound of the Tabernacle snoring. And if she bore so patiently with his whims266 and crotchets, not none of the credit must be given to this sanctimonious267 Spelling-Book.
V
While Jinny was thus pursuing omniscience and equipping herself to meet the masterful young man, and while the young man in question was adding the mastery of the horn to his conquests, their roads failed to cross. Jinny went to chapel the Sunday following the thunderstorm, but Will was too alarmed by the communal268 expectation of public autobiography269 to venture there again, and his parents were only too glad to ignore his home-staying and to resume their private Christa-peculiar-delphian service, being sufficiently270 fortified271 by his preoccupation with the Bible. What had driven Will to the Book again was the outrageous272 appearance on Saturday night of Uncle Lilliwhyte as parcel-bearer. Recovering from his relief that the parcel did not contain snakes, but the conventional household stores, Will found himself angry on his mother’s behalf. What right had Jinny to foist273 such a fusty ragamuffin upon them, the gay strings274 of whose rotting beaver275 only accentuated276 his griminess? Jinny must know that his mother ranked uncleanliness next to ungodliness. And Uncle Lilliwhyte would be a fixture277 too, unless violently shaken off—he was Jinny’s neighbour; as natural a go-between as Will’s own neighbour, Master Peartree. He had already bribed278 off the shepherd: must he be blackmailed279 by both?
And so, while Essex was at prayer, Will was concocting280 a furious Oriental epistle, demanding a clean envoy281, if Jinny was too lazy to come herself. This was not so difficult to demand, though laziness seemed as unknown to the Hebrews as gloves. He had dallied282, indeed, with his original idea of fetching the household parcels from Chipstone himself, but somehow he could not bring himself to so complete a severance283 of relations with Jinny, especially as after the appearance of Uncle Lilliwhyte in the new r?le of goods-deliverer, his mother had surprisingly suggested that to spare Methusalem’s legs, the old nondescript might always in future bring the weekly parcel for a penny or two. Will had put this suggestion emphatically aside—it would mean exposing his mother to a contact she detested—but he wound up his letter to Jinny by threatening to become his own carrier unless the service was conducted with propriety284. Nip duly returned that same Sunday afternoon with the answer that if he would send his esteemed order in writing, Mr. Daniel Quarles would have pleasure in executing his commission through a scrupulously285 scoured286 ambassador. Will started replying instantly that it was not his order: let her mark that he was not the householder, merely the “scribe.” To write out the order, however, gave him unexpected pause. Who could have realized that “parrafin,” “sope” and “shuggar” were alike unenjoyed by the heathen Jews? A pity that Frog Farm was itself so “flowing with milk and honey”: with what confidence he could have drawn287 on the resources of Palestine! True, one might dodge—lamps and oil were abundant enough in Jud?a, and purification and sweetness could be suggested with airy allusiveness288. But in the end he only wrote grandly, “Household order the same as uzual.”
Before this order had been executed, however, chance brought about a meeting. Not that Miss Gentry, near whose wayside cottage it occurred, would have called it chance. For that deft289 needlewoman, besides believing in her own stained-glass miracle, cherished, as we know, a na?ve faith in “Culpeper’s Complete Herbal”—a faith doubtless sustained by the attacks on the Pope or on infidel physicians that might lurk290 snakelike in its most innocent-seeming herb. Under the stimulus291 of this elementally indelicate work—never permitted to stray from her bedside, though imparted in filtered form to Jinny—she would tie woody nightshade round her neck for her dizziness, and buy watercress from Uncle Lilliwhyte to wash away pimples292 with the juice. And if these herbs were, as Culpeper testified, under the respective governance of Mercury and the Moon, how much more so human life! Miss Gentry had indeed remarked to Will that very afternoon (when he at last brought his mother’s bonnet126 to be “bleached as good as new”) that her own horoscope, cast in infancy293 by her aunt, had shown that the first time she went upon a voyage she would be drowned: a reading whose infallibility her happy survival demonstrated, since she had never been foolish enough to set foot upon a vessel294. “But for the deciphering of this horoscope,” she had pointed41 out, “I should surely now have been drowned, for I am naturally as fond of voyages as you.”
It must be admitted that if Miss Gentry had thus pathetically perished, Will would not have taken his mother’s bonnet to her, nor met Jinny that afternoon. But then would he have met Jinny but for the foolish sheep? Even the ovine fates, it would appear, are interblent with the human.
This sheep suddenly dawned upon Jinny’s vision as Methusalem with his cunning nose was trying to open a gate that led over a private road, on either side of which its fellows grazed. Preoccupied with the task of clasping Nip so that he should not frighten the flock in his passage, she did not at first observe that in the gap between the hinge of the gate and the post, a sheep’s head was jammed, and that Methusalem’s success in lifting the latch295 bade fair to asphyxiate296 it. The silly creature, having escaped from the flock, had evidently tried to jump back again through this gap, at a point just large enough to admit its head, and with the failure of the leap, the head had descended298 into the narrowest portion and there remained in pillory299. In the creature’s terror at the approach of the cart and Nip’s excited barking, its efforts to free itself became more convulsive than ever. Checking Methusalem in the middle of his pet trick, and fastening up Nip, Jinny jumped down and with soothing300 words seized the head of the frantic301 sheep, which was still thrusting itself backward and forward, though without the sense to jump upwards302 towards the broader space. But alas, its spasmodic struggles prevented her from getting a sufficient grip on it to lift the wedged and weighty head. She saw its ear was torn and bleeding, and to her imagination it was going black in the face. She looked round desperately303. On the other side of the gate lay the flock, scattered304 apathetically305 over the pasture they had reaped and manured, chewing a tranquil86 cud, like self-righteous citizens before the writhings of one of their own black sheep: of a good Samaritan or shepherd there was no sign. She climbed over the gate and strove to lift the agonizing306 head from the other side, but she only increased the sufferer’s frenzy307 as well as Nip’s.
“Be quiet, Nip!” she shouted, almost hysteric herself. And as she raised her eyes to admonish308 the yapping terrier, she espied309 to her joy a puffing98 pipe and a stick advancing towards her cart; whether a young man or old she was not aware. He was simply man as saviour310, and he was at the gate and working at the rear of the struggling head before she had quite realized it was Will, and a certain added pleasure at the sight of this man in particular had scarcely time to well up before it was swamped by the far greater pleasure of seeing the sheep deftly311 released. It staggered, however, as Will let it go, and lay sideways on the road, gasping312, and Jinny observed with horror a raw ring round its throat where the wool was cut through as by a cord. But before she could get through the gate to its assistance, it had risen feebly, and as she came towards it, it trotted313 off timidly. Vastly relieved, she tried to coax314 or chevy the truant315 back to its companions. But it refused to go: on the contrary, it retreated, and in solitary316 self-sufficiency began to crop the wayside grass.
“Hasn’t spoiled her appetite!” said Will, with a laugh.
“They don’t seem to feel things as much as us,” agreed Jinny.
“No, indeed.” He knocked the ashes out of his pipe and pocketed it. “Fancy, if you’d got your head nipped like that!”
There seemed something aggressive in the suggestion. “I should have known to lift it up without waiting for a man,” she said.
“All very well, but when one’s head’s caught, one is apt to lose it: one struggles blindly.”
“We’re not all like sheep to go astray,” she said uneasily. “But thank you for your kind help.” She jumped up and drove slowly through the gate. He closed it behind her and ran to open the gate at the opposite end of the private road.
“Thank you again,” she said, passing through.
“But surely you’ll come into the wood now you’re so near,” he cried through the arch of the vanishing tilt317.
The cart unexpectedly slackened, Jinny’s head was turned backwards318. “If you won’t be long,” she said.
He shut the gate briskly and kept pace with her slow progress along the leafy lane towards the wood-path they both knew. Nip, untied319, sprang to fawn at his feet, and then bounded into the hedge after something smelt320, and barking raucously321, wormed his way along like a weasel.
“Why didn’t you come, Will?” said Jinny softly.
“Why didn’t you?” he evaded. “Why did you send Uncle Lilliwhyte?”
“I didn’t come because you didn’t,” she answered simply.
“I—I—your grandfather,” he stammered322. “I couldn’t well play before him.”
“You mean you couldn’t play well,” she flashed.
“That’s all you know about it. I can blow better than Dick Burrage.”
“Then why be nervous of poor old Gran’fer? He might have been umpire.”
He was shocked again. “Good gracious, Jinny! Where did you get those betting words from?”
“That’s my affair.” She pursed her pretty lips. “But never mind—however you blow—you’ve deserved a pair of gloves to-day—in sheepskin.”
He smiled. “I’m not above taking two pairs.”
“If you win!”
“Of course I’ll win.”
“Don’t brag323. Save your breath for your blowing. We shall soon be there.”
“Oh, but I’m not going to blow now,” he pointed out.
“Not now? Then why have you lured324 me here?”
“But how could I guess I should meet you? How could I lure297 you? You could see I hadn’t got my horn.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” Jinny murmured.
“It’s big enough,” he said grimly.
“Then I certainly shan’t go into the wood. I’m much too busy. Good-bye, Will.” She flicked325 her whip, but ere Methusalem could quicken a leg, a terrible yelping326 came from the bushy hedgerow—it was the voice of Nip, but not of Nip the hunter, rather of a hunted, trapped Nip.
“Oh, poor Nip!” And in a moment Jinny had leapt down and was peering and pushing into the hedge. But she could penetrate123 scarcely at all: the wood behind was firmly guarded by a broad chaotic327 belt of thistle and nightshade, burr and bramble, furze and stinging-nettle, a veritable riot of prickliness; and this thorny328 tangle329 had closed upon Nip—trespassers prosecuted330 indeed!—though it was a relief to his mistress to find the trap was natural, not wickedly human. Stuck full of burrs, and looking like a spotted331 pard, her pet was shrieking332 for first aid. But even while she was hesitating to pierce farther, despite her gloved hands, Will brushed by her, thrilling her with the sense that this was his second feat of animal salvation333; while the woodland savours and the rich prodigality334 and ruin of nature—for dead wood lay around as profusely335 as rank vegetation sprouted—seemed to stir in her the same sense of elemental forces as the thunderstorm. She scarcely noticed that Will had the aid of his stick in parting the jungle, and when he restored the whining336 animal to her arms, gratitude and hero-worship mingled337 in her emotion, though for a moment she was too occupied in picking Nip clean to say much, while Will, for his part, was engaged with equal industry in removing thorns from his sleeves and burrs from his trousers.
“Oh, you’ve hurt yourself!” she said at last, catching338 sight of blood and scratches on his hands and wrists.
“It’s nothing.” He tried to pluck out something from a finger.
“Shall I help you?” She pulled off her driving-gloves, took his finger and squeezed at the flesh, perceiving the microscopic339 protrusion340 of the thorn, but her own fingers were shaking and she could not extract it. He said it did not matter, it would work out; then he started sucking it. She somehow would have liked as with a child to kiss the place and make it well—the whole back of his left hand seemed reticulated in red—but instead she carried Nip back to his basket in the cart. He, too, was scored in red, though he did not seem to mind any more than the sheep. As she bent over her scratched pet, Will came up to the tail-board, still sucking at his finger.
“I shall need gloves now,” he said, glancing with comic ruefulness at his scratches.
“You poor hero!” she said, with eyes softly flashing. “I will come into the wood and you shall win them.”
His face lit up; then fell. “But how?” he asked.
“Isn’t there my horn, silly?”
He laughed gleefully. “You’re right to call me that.” She leaped down, the horn dangling at her girdle, and fastened Methusalem to a tree. “Not that he’s likely to move: still his head is homewards.” Methusalem’s head, however, was already grasswards: he was munching341 with gusto, while his great tail swished at the flies.
“But suppose somebody steals the parcels!” said Will with sudden compunction.
“This isn’t Babylon—or America,” said Jinny witheringly. “Besides, there’s Nip.”
Only a few yards farther was the opening they had been making for, but they now found it almost as overgrown as the entry chosen by Nip, and had it not been for the rare fern-leaf elders in the hedge, that marked their memory of the spot, they might have passed it by. “Might be in Canada,” said Will. However, he pioneered with his stick, and, following him closely, she had a sense of safety and protection unknown since the days she was escorted from chapel. It was quite strange—yet not unsweet—to be thus guarded from the venomous vegetation thrusting at her from all sides, and she was not sure she was relieved when the menace and novelty were over, and they were in the wood. The struggle, moreover, had made the humanized part of the wood, on which they emerged, somewhat tame. The grove342 of young ash, beautiful as the slim silver-grey trunks were with their new green livery—too light to cast a shadow—suggested commerce to both of them, and the suggestion was emphasized by the charred343 remains344 of a bonfire of elm-loppings, and by a deserted345 charcoal-burner’s hut in a clearing. But poetry had gathered on the mossy stumps347 of other trees, long since felled, and they came down a wonderful azure348 river of bluebells349 running as between wooded green banks. As they waded351 through the tall thin stalks, they chanced here on a patch of late-lingering primroses352 and there on green advance waves of foxgloves, with their long leaves. Primrose353, bluebell350, foxglove—what a beautiful succession, thought Jinny. How marvellous was earth in its changing loveliness, and Heaven in its unchanging bounty354! On another slope, crowned by Spanish chestnuts355, glittered a stream purling down to lose itself in scrub. Here rosemary was in bloom, humming with bees, and yonder was broom, its yellow blossoms showing against a lighter356 green than the earlier gorse, which flowered in great golden clumps357.
“The gorse looks fine,” said Jinny.
“And smells finer,” said Will. “Let’s sit down.”
“Not here,” said Jinny, coyly shrinking. “There’s nettles358.”
“They’re dead!” he said, grasping their yellow brittleness359. But they walked on.
They came over baby bracken and crisp beechnuts to a sort of ring surrounded by blushing young oaks, and little silver birches with their flat green leaves, and tall aspen-trees, and one lonely mountain-ash with white flowers. Overhead, early as it was, the moon had long been hanging at three-quarters, white and magically diaphanous360: a dream-planet. Unseen wood-pigeons purred, and a tomtit was singing.
“Here!” said Will, beginning to sit down.
“No, no!” She clutched his arm to keep him up. “An ant-heap!” This time her shyness had found sounder cover.
He gave a comical “Oh!” and stood watching the squirm of seething361 life, absolutely black at the central congestion362, where ants walked indifferently under or over one another: they were like the moving grains in an hour-glass, Jinny thought. Will poked363 his stick into the great piazza364.
“Don’t,” said Jinny.
“I’m not hurting them.” The ants were, in fact, already using the rod as a causeway. “Why, they’re like you, Jinny!”
“Like me?”
“All carriers and all busy.”
She laughed, and followed their movements with a new sympathy, though she was rather disgusted by those that carried dead flies or dead ants.
“Those are not carriers—those are undertakers,” she insisted.
They sat down at last on a mound365 of spongy moss346, free from formic activity, and there was a silence. The little purling stream was too far off to break it, but they heard a chaffinch and the peep-bo-playing cuckoo, with that golden human note that floats through the warm, brooding May. And then the irrepressible and unbasketable Nip came rushing and tearing, not making straight for them, but appearing and disappearing like a giant fungus366 in the rich masses of blues367 or greens or yellows.
He made an opening for conversation, and presently when he came snuggling into Jinny’s arms—poor scotched368 creature!—an opportunity for joint369 patting and petting: a process in which hands do not always succeed in partitioning out the pattable and pettable surface rigidly370, but graze and brush each other, and even lie passively in abstracted contact.
“Why shouldn’t I buy this wood?” said Will, after one of these sustained manual juxtapositions371.
“Wouldn’t that be lovely?” said Jinny.
“Yes—I must settle something soon. Those aspens, though, I’d cut ’em down. They’re only a weed. And yonder ashlings weren’t planted quite close enough—you’ve got to make ’em fight for air if you want ’em straight enough to sell.”
Jinny was vaguely disappointed at the turn of this conversation; not following the romantic dream vaguely underlying372 it.
“But could you afford to buy such a big wood?” she murmured.
“Big wood? Why, in Canada you get forever of land for nothing!”
“Then why didn’t you stay there?” she asked.
“This is better than America,” and his hand touched Jinny’s too consciously.
“Why, what was the matter with America?” she murmured, withdrawing the hand from Nip’s flank with a little blush.
Everything was the matter with America, it appeared. He was, indeed, more anxious to explain how nothing was the matter with Essex, but under Jinny’s physical bashfulness and intellectual curiosity he found himself headed off his native county and kept closely to Transatlantic territory. And under the spell of her eager attention he was soon discoursing373 fluently enough, sketching374 a discreetly375 selected picture of his adventures, beginning with the emigrant376 sailing packet in which he had gone out as a stowaway377, but wherein he fared little worse than the emigrants378 proper, who in the first six of the thirty-seven days’ voyage had had none of the stipulated379 provisions served out to them, despite their contract tickets, and no meat during the whole voyage. They had had to be satisfied with their daily water and the right of cooking, and complaints were met with oaths from the officers and doctors, and sometimes even with fists or rope-ends from the sailors. Once or twice the hose had been turned on them, but there were over nine hundred of them, he said, so she might imagine the Babel and confusion, though there were two great passenger decks on which the tallest man could stand, and on whose shelved sides they could all find sleeping-space, with never more than six to a berth380. And then from the moment America had burst upon the vessel in the guise of touts381, runners, and employers, all anxious to mislead or enslave, he had borne through the continent the banner of a steady disapprobation.
In the States, where his first clutches at Fortune had been made, peculiar perils382 awaited the British immigrant. If he gravitated, as was natural, to the cliques383 and boarding-houses of his countrymen, he was likely to be soon “used up” by the gambling384 and drinking sets that feigned385 to make him welcome. And if he escaped this pitfall386 by his resourcefulness, he would strike the native American prejudice against English immigrants, popularly supposed to consist of the paupers387 and wastrels388 whom the parish overseers of Old England, anxious to be quit of the burden of supporting them, bribed with free Atlantic passages and dumped on the struggling New World: a prejudice, Will admitted laughingly, which his own purse had done nothing to diminish.
At first he had got a job as car-driver and fed at the market-houses, but though the food was good and cheap, the company was rough of manner and language. And even when he was earning good money—at a boot-store with the sign of a gigantic boot made of real leather reaching to the first-floor windows—he had disliked the “go-along-steamboat” pressure of existence, and the Mechanics’ Boarding House where gabbling Yankees gobbled at a pace both unhealthy in itself and unchivalrous to the unpunctual. The habit of loading the table with all the courses simultaneously389 took off the edge of his appetite if he was early, and left only universal ruins if he was late. He had no patience with clams390 that were not oysters391, egg-plants that were not eggs, and corn that had to be munched cow-like. Accustomed to the clean linen of the paternal392 farm, he loathed393 the insect-ridden bedrooms one divided with a varying number of strangers. He liked to see pigs, but not perambulating and scavenging the streets; why, in New York they were more numerous than the dogs! Providence had designed tobacco, he opined, for smoking and not for chewing; and saliva394 for swallowing, not for spitting.
It was, in fact, a most unpleasant America that loomed395 up to Jinny’s vision that day, especially in contrast with this lovely wood, overbrooded by the white moon now growing faintly golden: a sort of spittoon of a continent, mitigated396 by dollars and dancing. Even in Canada, for which Will had felt a more personal responsibility—accentuated by the British soldiers to be met at every turn—and in which he gladly picked out points of superiority to the States, a similar sense of massive untidiness had weighed upon him and jarred every home-born instinct.
He tried to convey to Jinny the desolation of zigzag397 rail-fences that took the place of these hedges now glorious with hawthorn398 and fool’s-parsley and the starry399 stitchwort; the raw settlements, the half-built log huts hardly superior to yon derelict charcoal-burner’s hut (their windows stuffed sometimes with old straw hats), the unachieved roads, full of mud or dust, the ubiquitous stumps that were once trees, the piles of logs that were not yet habitations, all that crude civilization arising shoddily out of the virgin185 forest on the sole principle of the cheapest practicable, with nothing whole-hearted but the lust400 for dollars. Caleb Flynt’s slow English conservatism, Caleb’s unworldly standards, spoke401 again through his son. But even Will was too inarticulate to put his feeling precisely402 into words—and when Jinny reminded him that in this very wood trees had been cut down and burned, and that he himself had spoken of cutting down the aspens, he could not quite make clear to her, who had never known any but long-humanized places, the peculiar indecency of a forest at the stage of semi-transformation into a mushroom settlement.
Beautiful enough the backwoods, he laboured to explain, where man’s fight with the forest was only begun, where great beeches403 and maples404, and wild flowers still possessed the black mould the settler was to lay bare for wheat; where his pioneer hut was circled by a green gloom, and the chink of his cow-bells or the laughter of his children alone vied with the ring of the axe60 and the thunderous fall of the giants. But later on—“it’s like that plover’s egg you opened once,” he burst forth405 with a sudden inspiration. “No longer an egg, not yet a bird; only a smell!”
“But it was you who gave it me,” laughed Jinny. There was a great content at her heart, sitting here and seeing her little world open out in forests and seas and emotions still stranger. And he—he for the first time enjoyed the society of woman as spiritual counterpart, had moments in which he forgot Jinny was pretty, in which her hand—now unconsciously nestling in his in her absorption in his narration—was felt as a friendly rather than as a physical glow. Unfortunately in this sense of a sympathetic Jinny lay the serpentine406 temptation which shattered their paradise. For, beguiled407 by her apparent subjugation408, he went on to improve the occasion. “And it’s just the same with women who are neither women nor men. A woman’s place is the home.”
The slipping of Jinny’s hand out of his was the first sign that he had roused her to reality. Her cry, “How late it is!” was the next. And she looked at the sunset glowing in glamorous409 gold through the trees. There was a magic peace in the air, and a rare thrush sang as in a dream. It seemed a tragedy to move.
Will protested vehemently410. “It’s not late at all. You were unusually early this afternoon. No, don’t go—you’ll wake up poor Nip.”
“Did your story send him to sleep? Rude dog! But I must go—a woman’s place is the home!” She got up, smiling, with the snoring dog in her arms, but her mockery was friendly enough: the intimate atmosphere could not be dissipated at a jerk. He was constrained411 to follow her, if only to precede her through that jungly path: the prospect412 of driving home with her still shone rosy413.
“By the way,” he said lightly, “I’ve been talking with Mr. Flippance about getting that horse for him.”
“What!” She stopped and turned on him, her eyes blazing.
“His last animal was faked,” he explained mildly. “He was badly taken in, and you can’t know all the tricks of the trade as well as a man.”
“And isn’t Mr. Flippance a man?”
“Yes, of course. But—but——”
“It all depends on which man, you see—and which woman.”
“But I’m sure no woman knows properly about horses,” he said. “How would you tell the age, for instance?”
“By the teeth, of course.”
“Which teeth?”
Jinny flushed. She really did not know, and that made her only angrier: “If I wanted your help in my affairs, I should have asked you.”
“Well, there’s nothing to be mad about.”
“There is everything to be mad about. How did you know he wanted me to get a horse? Only because I told you. And then you go to him and interfere247 with my business and insinuate414 I’m incapable415.”
“It’s not so much you’re incapable——” he began.
“It’s because a woman’s place isn’t the cattle-market, I know. But why can’t we buy cows as well as butter, and horses as well as horse-collars?”
“Because only men go—and it’s rough.”
“Well then, let women go and it won’t be.”
“And do you want women to be horsemen too, get up at four o’clock and go ploughing?”
“Why not?”
“They haven’t the strength, for one thing. There’s lots of things they can’t do, and never will. Take thatching, for instance—you can’t imagine a woman sprawling416 along a roof.”
“Yes, I can.”
“Of course you can,” he sneered417. “You can imagine her in breeches.”
“If petticoats get in the way.”
“There’ll never be Bloomerites in England,” he said grimly. “You mark my word. If a woman can’t plough or dig without leggings, that’s a proof she wasn’t meant to plough or dig.”
They had reached now the pleached and tangly path back to the road, but she darted418 ahead of him, battling with the branches herself in her revolt from dependence253. He could not regain419 the lead unless he jostled rudely, and every now and then—not with wilful420 malice421, but no less maddeningly—she held back for him the boughs422 she had parted. And all the while the sleeping Nip was protected too: clasped by one hand to her bosom.
Suddenly the circle of her little horn got caught in the bushes like the horn of Isaac’s ram36. “Why, Jinny,” he cried, “we forgot all about the horn! Wait! Wait!”
She disentangled it calmly. “You shan’t blow mine. You must blow your own now.”
He fired up. “You want to get out of the gloves.”
“Now you’re going horn-mad,” she jested icily, emerging on the high road. “Good-bye, Mr. Flynt.”
It was the first time she had withheld423 the Will.
“Good-bye, Miss Boldero,” he said as frigidly424, removing his hat with an exaggerated gallantry. Each felt that the parting was final: never would they even speak to each other again.
But they had yet to reckon with Nip. For that intelligent creature, waking into the distressing240 atmosphere that had been generated while his vigilance was relaxed, would be no party to the breach425. When he perceived that the cart was to go off without Will, he jumped down and tried to chevy him into it, and as the parties went off at a tangent, he ran desperately from one to the other, striving to shepherd them together, barking and pleading and panting like a toy engine. It was only a peremptory426 blast from a distant horn that at last persuaded the distracted animal where his first duty lay.
The dying day still flooded the earth with warmth and radiance: the little coffee-and-cream-coloured calves427 still frisked in the meadows that the buttercups turned into fields of the cloth of gold: the forget-me-nots were still gleaming in the cottage gardens, the lilac was still peeping over manorial428 walls, the laburnum still hanging down its yellow chandeliers, and the horse-chestnut upholding its white candelabras. But for these twain, obstinately429 and against the best canine advice going their separate ways, the colour had been sucked out of the landscape and the clemency430 from the air. Before Will, wandering deviously431, had remembered his evening sausages, these also had grown cold; mist and clouds had turned the moon to a blood-red boat, and the bats were swooping432 and the wood-owls shrilling433 where larks434 had soared and sung.
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1
quill
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| n.羽毛管；v.给（织物或衣服）作皱褶 | |
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barley
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| n.大麦，大麦粒 | |
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besought
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| v.恳求，乞求（某事物）( beseech的过去式和过去分词 )；(beseech的过去式与过去分词) | |
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crook
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| v.使弯曲；n.小偷，骗子，贼；弯曲(处) | |
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lengthy
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| adj.漫长的，冗长的 | |
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loom
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| n.织布机，织机；v.隐现，(危险、忧虑等)迫近 | |
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7
straightforwardness
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| n.坦白，率直 | |
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8
jovial
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| adj.快乐的，好交际的 | |
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scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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10
spanking
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| adj.强烈的，疾行的；n.打屁股 | |
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behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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den
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| n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室 | |
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jade
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| n.玉石；碧玉；翡翠 | |
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14
vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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15
virile
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| adj.男性的；有男性生殖力的；有男子气概的；强有力的 | |
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16
bucolic
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| adj.乡村的；牧羊的 | |
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17
flutes
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| 长笛( flute的名词复数 )； 细长香槟杯（形似长笛） | |
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18
colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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19
morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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20
esteemed
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| 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 | |
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21
stature
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| n.（高度）水平，（高度）境界，身高，身材 | |
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22
protracted
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| adj.拖延的；延长的v.拖延“protract”的过去式和过去分词 | |
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23
protracts
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| v.延长，拖延（某事物）( protract的第三人称单数 ) | |
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24
educe
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| v.引出；演绎 | |
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25
evoke
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| vt.唤起，引起，使人想起 | |
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26
specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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27
dominant
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| adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因 | |
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28
perturbed
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| adj.烦燥不安的v.使（某人）烦恼，不安( perturb的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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29
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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30
hoisted
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| 把…吊起，升起( hoist的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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31
ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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32
canine
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| adj.犬的，犬科的 | |
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33
caressed
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| 爱抚或抚摸…( caress的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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34
velvety
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| adj. 像天鹅绒的, 轻软光滑的, 柔软的 | |
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35
vet
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| n.兽医，退役军人；vt.检查 | |
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36
ram
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| (random access memory)随机存取存储器 | |
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37
rambling
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| adj.[建]凌乱的，杂乱的 | |
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38
narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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39
naught
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| n.无，零 [=nought] | |
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40
shearing
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| n.剪羊毛，剪取的羊毛v.剪羊毛( shear的现在分词 )；切断；剪切 | |
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41
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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42
pointedly
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| adv.尖地，明显地 | |
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43
bass
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| n.男低音(歌手)；低音乐器；低音大提琴 | |
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44
abated
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| 减少( abate的过去式和过去分词 )； 减去； 降价； 撤消（诉讼） | |
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45
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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46
ravens
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| n.低质煤；渡鸦( raven的名词复数 ) | |
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47
tunes
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| n.曲调，曲子( tune的名词复数 )v.调音( tune的第三人称单数 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调 | |
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48
fleas
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| n.跳蚤( flea的名词复数 )；爱财如命；没好气地（拒绝某人的要求） | |
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49
degenerate
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| v.退步，堕落；adj.退步的，堕落的；n.堕落者 | |
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50
lotion
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| n.洗剂 | |
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51
detour
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| n.绕行的路，迂回路；v.迂回，绕道 | |
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52
transpired
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| （事实，秘密等）被人知道( transpire的过去式和过去分词 )； 泄露； 显露； 发生 | |
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53
alleging
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| 断言，宣称，辩解( allege的现在分词 ) | |
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54
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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55
concurred
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| 同意（concur的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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56
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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57
ethics
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| n.伦理学；伦理观，道德标准 | |
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58
swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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59
bulge
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| n.突出，膨胀，激增；vt.突出，膨胀 | |
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60
axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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61
graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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62
farmhouse
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| n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房） | |
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63
chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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64
backbone
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| n.脊骨，脊柱，骨干；刚毅，骨气 | |
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65
parlous
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| adj.危险的，不确定的，难对付的 | |
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66
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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67
tragically
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| adv. 悲剧地，悲惨地 | |
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68
agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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69
maternal
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| adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的 | |
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70
preoccupied
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| adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
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71
grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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72
displeased
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| a.不快的 | |
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73
ribs
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| n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹 | |
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74
winced
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| 赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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75
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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76
blasphemous
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| adj.亵渎神明的，不敬神的 | |
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77
miraculously
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| ad.奇迹般地 | |
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78
descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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79
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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80
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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81
rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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82
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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83
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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84
prematurely
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| adv.过早地，贸然地 | |
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85
gliding
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| v. 滑翔 adj. 滑动的 | |
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86
tranquil
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| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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87
tranquilly
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| adv. 宁静地 | |
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88
silted
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| v.（河流等）为淤泥淤塞( silt的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）淤塞 | |
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89
suffused
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| v.（指颜色、水气等）弥漫于，布满( suffuse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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90
idyllic
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| adj.质朴宜人的，田园风光的 | |
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91
metallic
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| adj.金属的；金属制的；含金属的；产金属的；像金属的 | |
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92
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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93
industriously
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94
agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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95
lodged
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| v.存放( lodge的过去式和过去分词 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属 | |
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96
intervention
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| n.介入，干涉，干预 | |
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97
providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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98
puffing
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| v.使喷出( puff的现在分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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99
sneak
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| vt.潜行(隐藏,填石缝)；偷偷摸摸做；n.潜行；adj.暗中进行 | |
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100
pertinacious
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| adj.顽固的 | |
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101
piscatorial
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| adj.鱼的；渔业的 | |
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102
snail
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| n.蜗牛 | |
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103
barge
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| n.平底载货船，驳船 | |
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104
strenuous
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| adj.奋发的，使劲的；紧张的；热烈的，狂热的 | |
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105
futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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106
munched
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| v.用力咀嚼（某物），大嚼( munch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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107
auditors
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| n.审计员，稽核员( auditor的名词复数 )；（大学课程的）旁听生 | |
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108
hiss
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| v.发出嘶嘶声；发嘘声表示不满 | |
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109
hissed
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| 发嘶嘶声( hiss的过去式和过去分词 )； 发嘘声表示反对 | |
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110
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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111
evade
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| vt.逃避，回避；避开，躲避 | |
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112
rehearsal
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| n.排练，排演；练习 | |
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113
wager
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| n.赌注；vt.押注，打赌 | |
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114
gleaning
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| n.拾落穗，拾遗，落穗v.一点点地收集（资料、事实）( glean的现在分词 )；（收割后）拾穗 | |
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115
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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116
abide
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| vi.遵守；坚持；vt.忍受 | |
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117
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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118
evaded
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| 逃避( evade的过去式和过去分词 )； 避开； 回避； 想不出 | |
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119
relics
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| [pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸 | |
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120
muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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121
tangly
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| 混乱的，乱作一团的 | |
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122
penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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123
penetrate
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| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
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124
postscript
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| n.附言，又及；(正文后的)补充说明 | |
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125
feat
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| n.功绩；武艺，技艺；adj.灵巧的，漂亮的，合适的 | |
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126
bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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127
bonnets
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| n.童帽( bonnet的名词复数 )；（烟囱等的）覆盖物；（苏格兰男子的）无边呢帽；（女子戴的）任何一种帽子 | |
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128
mantles
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| vt.&vi.覆盖（mantle的第三人称单数形式） | |
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129
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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130
hoods
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| n.兜帽( hood的名词复数 )；头巾；（汽车、童车等的）折合式车篷；汽车发动机罩v.兜帽( hood的第三人称单数 )；头巾；（汽车、童车等的）折合式车篷；汽车发动机罩 | |
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131
bracelets
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| n.手镯，臂镯( bracelet的名词复数 ) | |
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132
dangled
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| 悬吊着( dangle的过去式和过去分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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133
tinkled
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| （使）发出丁当声，（使）发铃铃声( tinkle的过去式和过去分词 )； 叮当响着发出，铃铃响着报出 | |
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134
dispensed
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| v.分配( dispense的过去式和过去分词 )；施与；配（药） | |
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135
scouring
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| 擦[洗]净，冲刷，洗涤 | |
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136
rev
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| v.发动机旋转，加快速度 | |
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137
knuckles
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| n.（指人）指关节( knuckle的名词复数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝v.（指人）指关节( knuckle的第三人称单数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝 | |
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138
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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139
exhortations
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| n.敦促( exhortation的名词复数 )；极力推荐；（正式的）演讲；（宗教仪式中的）劝诫 | |
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140
contingencies
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| n.偶然发生的事故，意外事故( contingency的名词复数 )；以备万一 | |
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141
iniquity
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| n.邪恶；不公正 | |
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142
abounding
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| adj.丰富的，大量的v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的现在分词 ) | |
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143
abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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144
writ
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| n.命令状，书面命令 | |
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145
mules
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| 骡( mule的名词复数 )； 拖鞋； 顽固的人； 越境运毒者 | |
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146
postal
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| adj.邮政的，邮局的 | |
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147
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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148
utilizing
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| v.利用，使用( utilize的现在分词 ) | |
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149
hover
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| vi.翱翔，盘旋；徘徊；彷徨，犹豫 | |
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150
fawn
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| n.未满周岁的小鹿；v.巴结，奉承 | |
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151
dangling
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| 悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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152
blanched
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| v.使变白( blanch的过去式 )；使（植物）不见阳光而变白；酸洗（金属）使有光泽；用沸水烫（杏仁等）以便去皮 | |
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153
gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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154
consort
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| v.相伴；结交 | |
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155
beaks
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| n.鸟嘴( beak的名词复数 )；鹰钩嘴；尖鼻子；掌权者 | |
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156
yelp
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| vi.狗吠 | |
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157
perpendicular
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|
| adj.垂直的，直立的；n.垂直线，垂直的位置 | |
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158
pendulum
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| n.摆，钟摆 | |
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159
voluptuous
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| adj.肉欲的，骄奢淫逸的 | |
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160
grunts
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| （猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的第三人称单数 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说； 石鲈 | |
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161
sneaked
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| v.潜行( sneak的过去式和过去分词 )；偷偷溜走；（儿童向成人）打小报告；告状 | |
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162
salute
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| vi.行礼，致意，问候，放礼炮；vt.向…致意，迎接，赞扬；n.招呼，敬礼，礼炮 | |
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163
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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164
contumacious
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| adj.拒不服从的，违抗的 | |
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165
puissant
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| adj.强有力的 | |
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166
extort
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| v.勒索，敲诈，强要 | |
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167
gentry
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| n.绅士阶级，上层阶级 | |
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168
gems
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| growth； economy； management； and customer satisfaction 增长 | |
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169
interfering
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| adj. 妨碍的 动词interfere的现在分词 | |
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170
wardenship
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| n.warden之职权（或职务） | |
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171
vibration
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| n.颤动，振动；摆动 | |
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172
conversant
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| adj.亲近的，有交情的，熟悉的 | |
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173
rigidity
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| adj.钢性，坚硬 | |
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174
tightened
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| 收紧( tighten的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧 | |
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175
rend
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| vt.把…撕开，割裂；把…揪下来，强行夺取 | |
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176
unison
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| n.步调一致，行动一致 | |
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177
syllable
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| n.音节；vt.分音节 | |
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178
derided
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| v.取笑，嘲笑( deride的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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179
overflowed
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| 溢出的 | |
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180
scholastic
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| adj.学校的，学院的，学术上的 | |
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181
zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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182
concoction
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| n.调配(物)；谎言 | |
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183
grandiose
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| adj.宏伟的，宏大的，堂皇的，铺张的 | |
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184
feverish
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| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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185
virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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186
delusion
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| n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑 | |
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187
destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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188
diminutive
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| adj.小巧可爱的，小的 | |
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189
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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190
galls
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| v.使…擦痛( gall的第三人称单数 )；擦伤；烦扰；侮辱 | |
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191
pints
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| n.品脱( pint的名词复数 )；一品脱啤酒 | |
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192
quaintest
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| adj.古色古香的( quaint的最高级 )；少见的，古怪的 | |
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193
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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194
dedication
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| n.奉献，献身，致力，题献，献辞 | |
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195
honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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196
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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197
doctrines
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| n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 )；教义；学说；（政府政策的）正式声明 | |
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198
swelled
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| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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199
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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200
vow
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| n.誓(言)，誓约；v.起誓，立誓 | |
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201
aspiration
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| n.志向，志趣抱负；渴望；(语)送气音；吸出 | |
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202
minions
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| n.奴颜婢膝的仆从( minion的名词复数 )；走狗；宠儿；受人崇拜者 | |
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203
fended
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| v.独立生活，照料自己( fend的过去式和过去分词 )；挡开，避开 | |
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204
buffer
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| n.起缓冲作用的人(或物)，缓冲器；vt.缓冲 | |
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205
sect
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| n.派别，宗教，学派，派系 | |
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206
pervert
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| n.堕落者，反常者；vt.误用，滥用；使人堕落，使入邪路 | |
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207
pious
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| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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208
smuggling
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| n.走私 | |
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209
depicting
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| 描绘，描画( depict的现在分词 )； 描述 | |
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210
majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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211
wig
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| n.假发 | |
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212
downwards
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| adj./adv.向下的（地），下行的（地） | |
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213
nemesis
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| n.给以报应者，复仇者，难以对付的敌手 | |
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214
virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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215
fables
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| n.寓言( fable的名词复数 )；神话，传说 | |
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216
professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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217
wrecks
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| n.沉船( wreck的名词复数 )；（事故中）遭严重毁坏的汽车（或飞机等）；（身体或精神上）受到严重损伤的人；状况非常糟糕的车辆（或建筑物等）v.毁坏[毁灭]某物( wreck的第三人称单数 )；使（船舶）失事，使遇难，使下沉 | |
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218
puckering
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| v.（使某物）起褶子或皱纹( pucker的现在分词 )；小褶纹；小褶皱 | |
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219
squat
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| v.蹲坐，蹲下；n.蹲下；adj.矮胖的，粗矮的 | |
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220
imbibing
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| v.吸收( imbibe的现在分词 )；喝；吸取；吸气 | |
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221
emphatic
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| adj.强调的，着重的；无可置疑的，明显的 | |
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222
shutter
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| n.百叶窗；(照相机)快门；关闭装置 | |
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223
morsels
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| n.一口( morsel的名词复数 )；（尤指食物）小块，碎屑 | |
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224
gulps
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| n.一大口（尤指液体）( gulp的名词复数 )v.狼吞虎咽地吃，吞咽( gulp的第三人称单数 )；大口地吸（气）；哽住 | |
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225
fluted
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| a.有凹槽的 | |
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226
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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227
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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228
throbs
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| 体内的跳动( throb的名词复数 ) | |
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229
gushes
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| n.涌出，迸发( gush的名词复数 )v.喷，涌( gush的第三人称单数 )；滔滔不绝地说话 | |
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230
omniscience
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| n.全知，全知者，上帝 | |
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231
baneful
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| adj.有害的 | |
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232
slurring
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| 含糊地说出( slur的现在分词 )； 含糊地发…的声； 侮辱； 连唱 | |
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233
punctuation
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| n.标点符号，标点法 | |
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234
asterisks
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| n.星号，星状物( asterisk的名词复数 )v.加星号于( asterisk的第三人称单数 ) | |
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235
obelisks
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| n.方尖石塔，短剑号，疑问记号( obelisk的名词复数 ) | |
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236
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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237
scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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238
chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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239
affidavit
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| n.宣誓书 | |
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240
distressing
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| a.使人痛苦的 | |
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241
distressingly
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| adv. 令人苦恼地；悲惨地 | |
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242
rebuked
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| 责难或指责( rebuke的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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243
lashing
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| n.鞭打；痛斥；大量；许多v.鞭打( lash的现在分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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244
conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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245
guise
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| n.外表，伪装的姿态 | |
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246
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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247
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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248
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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249
sprouted
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| v.发芽( sprout的过去式和过去分词 )；抽芽；出现；（使）涌现出 | |
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250
eastwards
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| adj.向东方（的），朝东（的）；n.向东的方向 | |
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251
vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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252
phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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253
dependence
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| n.依靠，依赖；信任，信赖；隶属 | |
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254
assassination
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| n.暗杀；暗杀事件 | |
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255
crabbed
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|
| adj.脾气坏的；易怒的；（指字迹）难辨认的；（字迹等）难辨认的v.捕蟹( crab的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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256
impromptu
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| adj.即席的，即兴的；adv.即兴的(地)，无准备的(地) | |
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257
testament
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| n.遗嘱；证明 | |
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258
culmination
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| n.顶点；最高潮 | |
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259
recital
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| n.朗诵，独奏会，独唱会 | |
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260
miseries
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| n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 )；痛苦的事；穷困；常发牢骚的人 | |
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261
follies
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| 罪恶，时事讽刺剧； 愚蠢，蠢笨，愚蠢的行为、思想或做法( folly的名词复数 ) | |
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262
decrepitude
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| n.衰老；破旧 | |
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263
peevish
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| adj.易怒的，坏脾气的 | |
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264
faltering
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| 犹豫的，支吾的，蹒跚的 | |
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265
reassuring
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| a.使人消除恐惧和疑虑的，使人放心的 | |
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266
WHIMS
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| 虚妄，禅病 | |
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267
sanctimonious
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| adj.假装神圣的，假装虔诚的，假装诚实的 | |
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268
communal
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| adj.公有的，公共的，公社的，公社制的 | |
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269
autobiography
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| n.自传 | |
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270
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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271
fortified
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| adj. 加强的 | |
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272
outrageous
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| adj.无理的，令人不能容忍的 | |
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273
foist
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| vt.把…强塞给，骗卖给 | |
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274
strings
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| n.弦 | |
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275
beaver
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| n.海狸，河狸 | |
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276
accentuated
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| v.重读( accentuate的过去式和过去分词 )；使突出；使恶化；加重音符号于 | |
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277
fixture
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| n.固定设备；预定日期；比赛时间；定期存款 | |
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278
bribed
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| v.贿赂( bribe的过去式和过去分词 )；向（某人）行贿，贿赂 | |
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279
blackmailed
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| 胁迫，尤指以透露他人不体面行为相威胁以勒索钱财( blackmail的过去式 ) | |
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280
concocting
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|
| v.将（尤指通常不相配合的）成分混合成某物( concoct的现在分词 )；调制；编造；捏造 | |
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281
envoy
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| n.使节，使者，代表，公使 | |
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282
dallied
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| v.随随便便地对待( dally的过去式和过去分词 )；不很认真地考虑；浪费时间；调情 | |
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283
severance
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| n.离职金；切断 | |
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284
propriety
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| n.正当行为；正当；适当 | |
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285
scrupulously
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| adv.一丝不苟地；小心翼翼地，多顾虑地 | |
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286
scoured
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| 走遍（某地）搜寻（人或物）( scour的过去式和过去分词 )； （用力）刷； 擦净； 擦亮 | |
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287
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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288
allusiveness
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289
deft
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| adj.灵巧的，熟练的（a deft hand 能手） | |
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290
lurk
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| n.潜伏，潜行；v.潜藏，潜伏，埋伏 | |
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291
stimulus
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| n.刺激，刺激物，促进因素，引起兴奋的事物 | |
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292
pimples
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| n.丘疹，粉刺，小脓疱( pimple的名词复数 ) | |
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293
infancy
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| n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期 | |
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294
vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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295
latch
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| n.门闩，窗闩；弹簧锁 | |
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296
asphyxiate
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| v.无法呼吸，窒息而死 | |
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297
lure
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| n.吸引人的东西，诱惑物；vt.引诱，吸引 | |
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298
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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299
pillory
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| n.嘲弄；v.使受公众嘲笑；将…示众 | |
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300
soothing
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| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
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301
frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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302
upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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303
desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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304
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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305
apathetically
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| adv.不露感情地；无动于衷地；不感兴趣地；冷淡地 | |
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306
agonizing
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| adj.痛苦难忍的；使人苦恼的v.使极度痛苦；折磨(agonize的ing形式) | |
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307
frenzy
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| n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动 | |
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308
admonish
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| v.训戒；警告；劝告 | |
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309
espied
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| v.看到( espy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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310
saviour
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| n.拯救者，救星 | |
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311
deftly
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| adv.灵巧地，熟练地，敏捷地 | |
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312
gasping
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| adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词 | |
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313
trotted
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| 小跑，急走( trot的过去分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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314
coax
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| v.哄诱，劝诱，用诱哄得到，诱取 | |
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315
truant
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| n.懒惰鬼，旷课者；adj.偷懒的，旷课的，游荡的；v.偷懒，旷课 | |
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316
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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317
tilt
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| v.(使)倾侧；(使)倾斜；n.倾侧；倾斜 | |
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318
backwards
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| adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地 | |
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319
untied
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| 松开，解开( untie的过去式和过去分词 )； 解除，使自由； 解决 | |
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320
smelt
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| v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼 | |
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321
raucously
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| adv.粗声地；沙哑地 | |
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322
stammered
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| v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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323
brag
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| v./n.吹牛，自夸；adj.第一流的 | |
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324
lured
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| 吸引，引诱（lure的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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325
flicked
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| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的过去式和过去分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
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326
yelping
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| v.发出短而尖的叫声( yelp的现在分词 ) | |
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327
chaotic
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| adj.混沌的，一片混乱的，一团糟的 | |
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328
thorny
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| adj.多刺的，棘手的 | |
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329
tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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330
prosecuted
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| a.被起诉的 | |
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331
spotted
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| adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的 | |
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332
shrieking
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| v.尖叫( shriek的现在分词 ) | |
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333
salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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334
prodigality
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| n.浪费，挥霍 | |
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335
profusely
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| ad.abundantly | |
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336
whining
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| n. 抱怨，牢骚 v. 哭诉，发牢骚 | |
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337
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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338
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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339
microscopic
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| adj.微小的，细微的，极小的，显微的 | |
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340
protrusion
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| n.伸出，突出 | |
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341
munching
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| v.用力咀嚼（某物），大嚼( munch的现在分词 ) | |
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342
grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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343
charred
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| v.把…烧成炭( char的过去式)；烧焦 | |
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344
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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345
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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346
moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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347
stumps
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| （被砍下的树的）树桩( stump的名词复数 )； 残肢； （板球三柱门的）柱； 残余部分 | |
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348
azure
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| adj.天蓝色的，蔚蓝色的 | |
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349
bluebells
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| n.圆叶风铃草( bluebell的名词复数 ) | |
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350
bluebell
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| n.风铃草 | |
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351
waded
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| （从水、泥等）蹚，走过，跋( wade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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352
primroses
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| n.报春花( primrose的名词复数 )；淡黄色；追求享乐（招至恶果） | |
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353
primrose
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| n.樱草，最佳部分， | |
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354
bounty
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| n.慷慨的赠予物，奖金；慷慨，大方；施与 | |
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355
chestnuts
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| n.栗子( chestnut的名词复数 )；栗色；栗树；栗色马 | |
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356
lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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357
clumps
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| n.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的名词复数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声v.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的第三人称单数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声 | |
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358
nettles
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| n.荨麻( nettle的名词复数 ) | |
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359
brittleness
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| n.脆性，脆度，脆弱性 | |
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360
diaphanous
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| adj.(布)精致的，半透明的 | |
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361
seething
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| 沸腾的，火热的 | |
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362
congestion
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| n.阻塞，消化不良 | |
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363
poked
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| v.伸出( poke的过去式和过去分词 )；戳出；拨弄；与（某人）性交 | |
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364
piazza
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| n.广场；走廊 | |
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365
mound
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| n.土墩，堤，小山；v.筑堤，用土堆防卫 | |
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366
fungus
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| n.真菌，真菌类植物 | |
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367
blues
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| n.抑郁，沮丧；布鲁斯音乐 | |
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368
scotched
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| v.阻止( scotch的过去式和过去分词 )；制止（车轮）转动；弄伤；镇压 | |
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369
joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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370
rigidly
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| adv.刻板地，僵化地 | |
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371
juxtapositions
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| n.并置，并列( juxtaposition的名词复数 ) | |
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372
underlying
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| adj.在下面的，含蓄的，潜在的 | |
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373
discoursing
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| 演说（discourse的现在分词形式） | |
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374
sketching
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| n.草图 | |
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375
discreetly
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| ad.(言行)审慎地，慎重地 | |
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376
emigrant
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| adj.移居的，移民的；n.移居外国的人，移民 | |
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377
stowaway
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| n.（藏于轮船，飞机中的）偷乘者 | |
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378
emigrants
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| n.（从本国移往他国的）移民( emigrant的名词复数 ) | |
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379
stipulated
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| vt.& vi.规定；约定adj.[法]合同规定的 | |
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380
berth
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| n.卧铺，停泊地，锚位；v.使停泊 | |
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381
touts
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| n.招徕( tout的名词复数 )；（音乐会、体育比赛等的）卖高价票的人；侦查者；探听赛马的情报v.兜售( tout的第三人称单数 )；招揽；侦查；探听赛马情报 | |
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382
perils
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| 极大危险( peril的名词复数 )； 危险的事（或环境） | |
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383
cliques
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| n.小集团，小圈子，派系( clique的名词复数 ) | |
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384
gambling
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| n.赌博；投机 | |
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385
feigned
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| a.假装的，不真诚的 | |
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386
pitfall
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| n.隐患，易犯的错误；陷阱，圈套 | |
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387
paupers
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| n.穷人( pauper的名词复数 )；贫民；贫穷 | |
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388
wastrels
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| n.无用的人，废物( wastrel的名词复数 )；浪子 | |
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389
simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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390
clams
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| n.蛤；蚌，蛤( clam的名词复数 )v.（在沙滩上）挖蛤( clam的第三人称单数 ) | |
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391
oysters
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| 牡蛎( oyster的名词复数 ) | |
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392
paternal
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| adj.父亲的，像父亲的，父系的，父方的 | |
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393
loathed
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| v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的过去式和过去分词 )；极不喜欢 | |
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394
saliva
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| n.唾液，口水 | |
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395
loomed
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| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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396
mitigated
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| v.减轻，缓和( mitigate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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397
zigzag
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| n.曲折，之字形；adj.曲折的，锯齿形的；adv.曲折地，成锯齿形地；vt.使曲折；vi.曲折前行 | |
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398
hawthorn
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| 山楂 | |
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399
starry
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| adj.星光照耀的, 闪亮的 | |
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400
lust
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| n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
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401
spoke
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| 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 | |
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402
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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403
beeches
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| n.山毛榉( beech的名词复数 )；山毛榉木材 | |
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404
maples
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| 槭树，枫树( maple的名词复数 )； 槭木 | |
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405
forth
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|
| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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406
serpentine
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|
| adj.蜿蜒的，弯曲的 | |
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407
beguiled
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| v.欺骗( beguile的过去式和过去分词 )；使陶醉；使高兴；消磨（时间等） | |
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408
subjugation
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| n.镇压，平息，征服 | |
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409
glamorous
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| adj.富有魅力的；美丽动人的；令人向往的 | |
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410
vehemently
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| adv. 热烈地 | |
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411
constrained
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| adj.束缚的,节制的 | |
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412
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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413
rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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414
insinuate
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| vt.含沙射影地说，暗示 | |
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415
incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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416
sprawling
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| adj.蔓生的，不规则地伸展的v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的现在分词 )；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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417
sneered
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| 讥笑，冷笑( sneer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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418
darted
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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419
regain
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| vt.重新获得，收复，恢复 | |
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420
wilful
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| adj.任性的，故意的 | |
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421
malice
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| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
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422
boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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423
withheld
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| withhold过去式及过去分词 | |
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424
frigidly
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| adv.寒冷地；冷漠地；冷淡地；呆板地 | |
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425
breach
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| n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破 | |
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426
peremptory
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| adj.紧急的，专横的，断然的 | |
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427
calves
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| n.(calf的复数)笨拙的男子，腓；腿肚子( calf的名词复数 )；牛犊；腓；小腿肚v.生小牛( calve的第三人称单数 )；（冰川）崩解；生（小牛等），产（犊）；使（冰川）崩解 | |
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428
manorial
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| adj.庄园的 | |
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429
obstinately
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| ad.固执地，顽固地 | |
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430
clemency
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| n.温和，仁慈，宽厚 | |
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431
deviously
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| 弯曲地，绕道地 | |
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432
swooping
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| 俯冲，猛冲( swoop的现在分词 ) | |
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433
shrilling
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| （声音）尖锐的，刺耳的，高频率的( shrill的现在分词 )； 凄厉 | |
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434
larks
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| n.百灵科鸟（尤指云雀）( lark的名词复数 )；一大早就起床；鸡鸣即起；（因太费力而不想干时说）算了v.百灵科鸟（尤指云雀）( lark的第三人称单数 )；一大早就起床；鸡鸣即起；（因太费力而不想干时说）算了 | |
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