The moths and butterflies could be no living for Johnny. To begin with, though he was always ready to help in the hatching, killing6, setting, and what not, he was no born insect-hunter, like his grandfather; and then the old man had long realised that the forest was growing a poorer and poorer hunting-ground each year, p. 30and must some day (after he was dead, he hoped) be no longer worth working. People were hard on the hawks7, so that insect-eating birds multiplied apace, and butterflies were fewer. And there was something else, or so it seemed—some subtle influence from the great smoky province that lay to the south-west. For London grew and grew, and washed nearer and still nearer its scummy edge of barren brickbats and clinkers. It had passed Stratford long since, and had nearly reached Leyton. And though Leyton was eight miles off, still the advancing town sent something before it—an odour, a subtle principle—that drove off the butterflies. The old man had once taken the Emperor Moth3 at Stratford, in a place long covered with a row of grimy little houses; now the Emperor was none too easy to find in the thickest of the woodland. And, indeed, when the wind came from the south-west the air seemed less clear, in the old man’s eyes, than was its wont8 a dozen years back. True, many amateurs came with nets—boys from boarding-schools thereabout, chiefly—and did not complain. But he, who by trade had noted9 day by day for many years the forest’s produce in egg, larva, pupa, and imago, saw and knew the change. So that butterflies being beyond possibility as Johnny’s trade, his grandfather naturally bethought him of the one other he himself was familiar with, and spoke10 of the post-office. He knew the postmaster at Loughton, and the p. 31postmasters at other of the villages about the forest. By making a little interest Johnny might take the next vacancy13 as messenger. But the prospect14 did not tempt15 the boy. He protested, and it was almost his sole contribution to the daily discussion, that he wanted to make something; and there was little doubt, if one might judge from the unpleasing ships and figures in coloured chalks wherewith he defaced whatever offered a fair surface, that he would most like to make pictures. He never urged the choice in plain terms, for that were hopeless: but both his mother and his grandfather condemned16 it in all respects as though he did.
“There’s a deal more caterpillar17 than butterfly in this life for the likes of us, my boy,” the old man would say, as he laboured at his setting. “Makin’ pictures an’ such is all very well, but we can’t always choose our own line. I’ve bin18 a lucky man in my time, thank God. The insects was my hobby long ’fore I made any money of ’em. Your poor gran’mother that you never saw, ‘A lot o’ good them moths an’ grubs’ll be to you,’ she used to say. ‘Why not bees, as you can make somethin’ out of?’ An’ Haskins, that took the next round to mine, he kep’ bees. But I began sellin’ a few specimens19 to gentlemen here an’ there, an’ then more, an’ after that I took ’em to London reg’lar, same as now. It ain’t as good as it was, an’ it’s goin’ to be worse, but I’m in hopes it’ll last my time out. It was p. 32because I was carryin’ letters here that I had the chance o’ doin’ it at all. If you was to carry ’em yourself, you’d be able to do something else too—bees p’raps. A good few mends boots, but we’re a bit off the villages here. Here’s the house—yours an’ your mother’s when I’m gone, an’ I’m sixty-nine; an’ it’s healthier an’ cleaner than London. You could put up a little bit o’ glass in the garden an’ grow tomatoes an’ cucumbers. Them—an’ fowls—you could keep fowls—would sell very well to the gentlefolk, an’ they all know the postman. Wages ain’t high, but you live cheap here, with no rent, and there’s a pension, p’raps. That’s your line, depend on it, Johnny.”
“But I should like a trade where I could make something,” the boy would answer wistfully. “I really should, gran’dad.”
“Ah”—with a shake of the head—“make what? I doubt but you’re meanin’ pictures. You must get that notion out of your head, Johnny. Some of them as make ’em may do well, but most’s awful. I see ’em in London often, drorin’ on the pavement; reg’lar clever ones, too, doin’ mackerel an’ bits o’ salmon20 splendid, and likenesses o’ the Queen, an’ sunsets, with the sky shaded beautiful. Beggin’! Reg’lar beggin’, with a cap out for coppers21, an’ ‘Help gifted poverty’ wrote in chalk. That won’t do, ye know, Johnny.”
The boy’s mother felt for him an indefinite ambition p. 33not to be realised by a life of letter-carrying, though picture-making she favoured as little as did the old man. But there was the situation of the cottage—a hindrance22 they could see no way to overcome. This being so, they left it for the time, and betook themselves to smaller difficulties. Putting the letter-carrying aside for the moment, and forgetting distance as an obstacle, what trades were there to choose from? Truly a good many: and that none should be missed, Johnny’s grandfather took paper and a pencil and walked to Woodford, where he begged use of a London Directory and read through all the trades, from Absorbent Cotton Wool Manufacturers to Zincographic Printers, making a laborious23 list as he went, omitting (with some reluctance) such items as Bankers, Brokers—Stock and Share—Merchants, Patentees, and Physicians, and hesitating a little over such as A?ronauts and Shive Turners. The task filled a large part of three days of uncommonly24 hard work, and old David May finished his list in mental bedevilment. What was a Shive Turner? Indeed, for that matter, what was an Ammeter?
The list did but multiply confusion and divide counsel. Nan May sang less at her house-work now, thinking of what she could remember of the trades that began with Absorbent Cotton Wool Manufacture and ended with Zincographic Printing. Little Bess neglected the bookshelf, and pored over the crabbed26 catalogue p. 34with earnest incomprehension. It afflicted27 Johnny himself with a feeling akin12 to terror, for which he found it hard to account. The arena28 of the struggle for bread was so vast, and he so small a combatant to choose a way into the scrimmage! More, it seemed all so unattractive. There could be little to envy in the daily life of a Seed Crusher or a Court Plaster Maker29. But the old man would pin a sheet of the list to the wall and study it while he worked within doors: full of patience and simple courage.
“Bakin’ Powder Maker,” he would call aloud to whomsoever it might reach. “How’s that? That’s makin’ something. . . . ”
Sometimes Bob Smallpiece, the forest keeper, would look in on his way by the cottage and be consulted. Bob was an immense being in much leather and velveteen, with a face like a long-kept pippin. When he first came to the forest, years back, his amiable30 peeps into the house may have been prompted by professional considerations, for it was his habit to keep an eye on solitary31 cottages in his walk: cottages wherein it had once or twice been his luck to spy by surprise some furry32 little heap that a poke11 of his ash stick had separated into dead rabbits. Indeed, had old May’s tastes lain that way, nothing would have been easier for him than to set a snare33 or two at night as he hunted his moths. But soon the keeper found that this one, at p. 35least, of the cottagers thereabouts was no poacher, and then his greetings were as friendly as they seemed. As to Johnny’s trade, he had few ideas beyond one that butchers did very well in London: his sister having married one. And what a Shive Turner or an Ammeter might be he knew no more than his stick. But he knew well enough what a poacher was (as also, perhaps, did the stick, if contact could teach it); and he counselled that the boy be kept away from certain “lots”—as the “Blandy lot,” the “Honeywell lot,” and the “Hayes lot”—who would do him no good. The old butterfly-hunter knew these “lots” very well on his own account; and his perpetual gropings about banks and undergrowth made him no friends among them. They would scarce believe, even after long experience, that grubs alone accounted for his activity; and truly, a man with a government pension, who affected34 scientific tastes, who lived a clean life, who was called “Mr. May” by keepers, and who, moreover, had such uncommon25 opportunities of witnessing what passed in the woods, might well be an object of suspicion. In simple truth, the village loafers had small conception of the old man’s knowledge of their behaviour among the rabbit burrows35. He knew the woods as they knew the inwards of a quart pot, and his eyes, aged36 as they might be, were trained by years of search for things well-nigh invisible amid grass, leaves, and undergrowths. He could have p. 36found their wires blindfold37, and he knew Joe Blandy’s wires from Amos Honeywell’s better than Joe and Amos themselves. But of all this he said nothing, holding himself a strict neutral, and judging it best never to seem too knowing. Still it was the fact that when the “lots” were periodically weeded of members caught with disjoinable guns, wire nooses38, or dead things furred or feathered, those left behind were apt to link circumstances together, and to regard the old man with doubt and ill-favour. Once, indeed, he hung in doubt for days, much tempted39 to carry a hint to Bob Smallpiece of a peculiarly foul40 and barbarous manner of deer-stealing, wherein figured a tied fawn41, an anxious doe, a heavy stone, a broken leg, and a cut throat. But it chanced that the keeper was otherwise aware, and old May’s doubt was determined42 by news that the thief, waled and gory43 (for he had made a fight for it), had been brought to the police-cells, with a dripping doe on a truck behind him. Even now as Bob Smallpiece grinned in at the cottage door one saw the gap where two teeth had gone in that “up-and-downer.”
“No,” said the keeper, “it won’t do the boy no good to let him knock about with nothing to do. ’Bout here, specially44. Boys that knocks about this part mostly gets in wi’ them lots as we bin speakin’ of, or something about as bad. Ain’t there no gentleman hereabout ’ud give him a job?”
p. 37“I’d like him to learn a trade,” the old man said anxiously, “but I don’t see how. It’s always somethin’ to stand by, is a trade, an’ it’s what he wants. Wants to make somethin’—that’s the way he puts it. Else I’d say post-office, same as me.”
“His father was in the engineerin’,” remarked Mrs. May, who had arrived at the door with certain sticks of rhubarb from the garden. “I’d like him to go to that, I think; but he can’t, from here.”
Bob Smallpiece knew nothing of engineering, and little more of any other of the several trades read out from the list pinned to the window-frame near which the old man worked at a setting-stick. And presently he departed on his walk. Bessy at the casement45 above saw him swing away toward the glen, lifting his stick in recognition of Johnny, who bore a bundle of dead sticks homeward.
Johnny’s mother peeled and cut the rhubarb, revolving46 impossible expedients47 for bridging the space between them and London: the space that looked so small on the map, but was so great an obstacle to their purposes, and so wide a division between the two modes of life she knew. Johnny’s grandfather pinned and strapped48 deftly49, deep in thought. Presently, looking up, “It beats me,” he said, fearful of ignoring some good thing in trades, “to guess what a Shive Turner is!”
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1
inmates
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| n.囚犯( inmate的名词复数 ) | |
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2
savings
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| n.存款，储蓄 | |
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3
moth
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| n.蛾，蛀虫 | |
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moths
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| n.蛾( moth的名词复数 ) | |
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5
lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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6
killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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7
hawks
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| 鹰( hawk的名词复数 )； 鹰派人物，主战派人物 | |
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8
wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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9
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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10
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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11
poke
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| n.刺，戳，袋；vt.拨开，刺，戳；vi.戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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12
akin
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| adj.同族的，类似的 | |
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13
vacancy
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| n.（旅馆的）空位，空房，（职务的）空缺 | |
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14
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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15
tempt
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| vt.引诱，勾引，吸引，引起…的兴趣 | |
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16
condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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17
caterpillar
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| n.毛虫，蝴蝶的幼虫 | |
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18
bin
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| n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件 | |
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19
specimens
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| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
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20
salmon
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| n.鲑，大马哈鱼，橙红色的 | |
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21
coppers
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| 铜( copper的名词复数 )； 铜币 | |
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hindrance
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| n.妨碍，障碍 | |
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23
laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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uncommonly
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| adv. 稀罕(极，非常) | |
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uncommon
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| adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的 | |
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26
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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27
afflicted
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| 使受痛苦，折磨( afflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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arena
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| n.竞技场，运动场所；竞争场所，舞台 | |
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maker
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| n.制造者，制造商 | |
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30
amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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32
furry
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| adj.毛皮的；似毛皮的；毛皮制的 | |
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33
snare
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| n.陷阱，诱惑，圈套；（去除息肉或者肿瘤的）勒除器；响弦，小军鼓；vt.以陷阱捕获，诱惑 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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35
burrows
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| n.地洞( burrow的名词复数 )v.挖掘（洞穴），挖洞( burrow的第三人称单数 )；翻寻 | |
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aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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blindfold
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| vt.蒙住…的眼睛；adj.盲目的；adv.盲目地；n.蒙眼的绷带[布等]； 障眼物，蒙蔽人的事物 | |
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38
nooses
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| n.绞索，套索( noose的名词复数 ) | |
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39
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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40
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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41
fawn
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| n.未满周岁的小鹿；v.巴结，奉承 | |
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42
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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43
gory
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| adj.流血的；残酷的 | |
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44
specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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45
casement
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| n.竖铰链窗；窗扉 | |
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46
revolving
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| adj.旋转的，轮转式的；循环的v.（使）旋转( revolve的现在分词 )；细想 | |
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47
expedients
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| n.应急有效的，权宜之计的( expedient的名词复数 ) | |
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48
strapped
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| adj.用皮带捆住的，用皮带装饰的；身无分文的；缺钱；手头紧v.用皮带捆扎(strap的过去式和过去分词)；用皮带抽打；包扎；给…打绷带 | |
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49
deftly
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| adv.灵巧地，熟练地，敏捷地 | |
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