Whatever may have been the cause, whether, as not unlikely, the original squatters brought with them some traditionary skill, or whether their isolated13 and unchequered existence concentrated their energies on their craft, the fact is certain, that the inhabitants of Wodgate early acquired a celebrity14 as skilful15 workmen. This reputation so much increased, and in time spread so far, that for more than a quarter of a century, both in their skill and the economy of their labour, they have been unmatched throughout the country. As manufacturers of ironmongery, they carry the palm from the whole district; as founders16 of brass17 and workers of steel, they fear none; while as nailers and locksmiths, their fame has spread even to the European markets, whither their most skilful workmen have frequently been invited.
Invited in vain! No wages can tempt18 the Wodgate man from his native home, that squatters’ seat which soon assumed the form of a large village, and then in turn soon expanded into a town, and at the present moment numbers its population by swarming19 thousands, lodged20 in the most miserable21 tenements22 in the most hideous23 burgh in the ugliest country in the world.
But it has its enduring spell. Notwithstanding the spread of its civic24 prosperity, it has lost none of the characteristics of its original society; on the contrary it has zealously25 preserved them. There are no landlords, head-lessees, main-masters, or butties in Wodgate. No church there has yet raised its spire26; and as if the jealous spirit of Woden still haunted his ancient temple, even the conventicle scarcely dares show its humble27 front in some obscure corner. There is no municipality, no magistrate28, no local acts, no vestries, no schools of any kind. The streets are never cleaned; every man lights his own house; nor does any one know anything except his business.
More than this, at Wodgate a factory or large establishment of any kind is unknown. Here Labour reigns29 supreme30. Its division indeed is favoured by their manners, but the interference or influence of mere31 capital is instantly resisted. The business of Wodgate is carried on by master workmen in their own houses, each of whom possesses an unlimited32 number of what they call apprentices33, by whom their affairs are principally conducted, and whom they treat as the Mamlouks treated the Egyptians.
These master workmen indeed form a powerful aristocracy, nor is it possible to conceive one apparently34 more oppressive. They are ruthless tyrants35; they habitually36 inflict37 upon their subjects punishments more grievous than the slave population of our colonies were ever visited with; not content with beating them with sticks or flogging them with knotted ropes, they are in the habit of felling them with hammers, or cutting their heads open with a file or lock. The most usual punishment however, or rather stimulus38 to increase exertion39, is to pull an apprentice’s ears till they run with blood. These youths too are worked for sixteen and even twenty hours a day; they are often sold by one master to another; they are fed on carrion40, and they sleep in lofts41 or cellars: yet whether it be that they are hardened by brutality42, and really unconscious of their degradation43 and unusual sufferings, or whether they are supported by the belief that their day to be masters and oppressors will surely arrive, the aristocracy of Wodgate is by no means so unpopular as the aristocracy of most other places.
In the first place it is a real aristocracy; it is privileged, but it does something for its privileges. It is distinguished44 from the main body not merely by name. It is the most knowing class at Wodgate; it possesses indeed in its way complete knowledge; and it imparts in its manner a certain quantity of it to those whom it guides. Thus it is an aristocracy that leads, and therefore a fact. Moreover the social system of Wodgate is not an unvarying course of infinite toil45. Their plan is to work hard, but not always. They seldom exceed four days of labour in the week. On Sunday the masters begin to drink; for the apprentices there is dog-fighting without any stint46. On Monday and Tuesday the whole population of Wodgate is drunk; of all stations, ages, and sexes; even babes, who should be at the breast; for they are drammed with Godfrey’s cordial. Here is relaxation47, excitement; if less vice48 otherwise than might be at first anticipated, we must remember that excesses are checked by poverty of blood and constant exhaustion49. Scanty50 food and hard labour are in their way, if not exactly moralists, a tolerably good police.
There are no others at Wodgate to preach or to control. It is not that the people are immoral51, for immorality52 implies some forethought; or ignorant, for ignorance is relative; but they are animals; unconscious; their minds a blank; and their worst actions only the impulse of a gross or savage54 instinct. There are many in this town who are ignorant of their very names; very few who can spell them. It is rare that you meet with a young person who knows his own age; rarer to find the boy who has seen a book, or the girl who has seen a flower. Ask them the name of their sovereign, and they will give you an unmeaning stare; ask them the name of their religion, and they will laugh: who rules them on earth, or who can save them in heaven, are alike mysteries to them.
Such was the population with whom Morley was about to mingle55. Wodgate had the appearance of a vast squalid suburb. As you advanced, leaving behind you long lines of little dingy56 tenements, with infants lying about the road, you expected every moment to emerge into some streets and encounter buildings bearing some correspondence in their size and comfort to the considerable population swarming and busied around you. Nothing of the kind. There were no public buildings of any sort; no churches, chapels57, town-hall, institute, theatre; and the principal streets in the heart of the town in which were situate the coarse and grimy shops, though formed by houses of a greater elevation59 than the preceding, were equally narrow and if possible more dirty. At every fourth or fifth house, alleys60 seldom above a yard wide and streaming with filth61, opened out of the street. These were crowded with dwellings62 of various size, while from the principal court often branched out a number of smaller alleys or rather narrow passages, than which nothing can be conceived more close and squalid and obscure. Here during the days of business, the sound of the hammer and the file never ceased, amid gutters63 of abomination and piles of foulness64 and stagnant65 pools of filth; reservoirs of leprosy and plague, whose exhalations were sufficient to taint66 the atmosphere of the whole kingdom and fill the country with fever and pestilence67.
A lank53 and haggard youth, ricketty and smoke-dried, and black with his craft, was sitting on the threshold of a miserable hovel and working at the file. Behind him stood a stunted68 and meagre girl, with a back like a grasshopper69; a deformity occasioned by the displacement70 of the bladebone, and prevalent among the girls of Wodgate from the cramping71 posture72 of their usual toil. Her long melancholy73 visage and vacant stare at Morley as he passed, attracted his notice, and it occurring to him that the opportunity was convenient to enquire74 something of the individual of whom he was in search, he stopped and addressed the workman:
“Do you happen to know friend a person here or hereabouts by name Hatton?”
“Hatton!” said the youth looking up with a grin, yet still continuing his labour, “I should think I did!”
“Well, that’s fortunate; you can tell me something about him?”
“Do you see this here?” said the youth still grinning, and letting the file drop from his distorted and knotty75 hand, he pointed76 to a deep scar that crossed his forehead, “he did that.”
“An accident?”
“Very like. An accident that often happened. I should like to have a crown for every time he has cut my head open. He cut it open once with a key and twice with a lock; he knocked the corner of a lock into my head twice, once with a bolt and once with a shut; you know what that is; the thing what runs into the staple77. He hit me on the head with a hammer once. That was a blow! I fell away that time. When I came to, master had stopped the blood with some fur off his hat. I had to go on with my work immediately; master said I should do my stint if I worked till twelve o’clock at night. Many’s the ash stick he has broken on my body; sometimes the weals remained on me for a-week; he cut my eyelid78 open once with a nutstick; cut a regular hole in it, and it bled all over the files I was working at. He has pulled my ears sometimes that I thought they must come off in his hand. But all this was a mere nothin to this here cut; that was serous; and if I hadn’t got thro’ that they do say there must have been a crowner’s quest; though I think that gammon, tor old Tugsford did for one of his prentices, and the body was never found. And now you ask me if I know Hatton? I should think I did!” And the lank, haggard youth laughed merrily, as if he had been recounting a series of the happiest adventures.
“But is there no redress79 for such iniquitous80 oppression,” said Morley, who had listened with astonishment81 to this complacent82 statement. “Is there no magistrate to apply to?”
“No no,” said the filer with an air of obvious pride, “we don’t have no magistrates83 at Wodgate. We’ve got a constable84, and there was a prentice who coz his master laid it on, only with a seat rod, went over to Ramborough and got a warrant. He fetched the summons himself and giv it to the constable, but he never served it. That’s why they has a constable here.”
“You’ll find him a wery hearty86 sort of man,” said the filer, “if he don’t hap58 to be in drink. He’s a little robustious then, but take him all in all for a master, you may go further and fare worse.
“What! this monster!”
“Lord bless you, it’s his way, that’s all, we be a queer set here; but he has his pints88. Give him a lock to make, and you won’t have your box picked; he’s wery lib’ral too in the wittals. Never had horse-flesh the whole time I was with him; they has nothin’ else at Tugsford’s; never had no sick cow except when meat was very dear. He always put his face agin still-born calves89; he used to say he liked his boys to have meat what was born alive and killed alive. By which token there never was any sheep what had bust87 in the head sold in our court. And then sometimes he would give us a treat of fish, when it had been four or five days in town and not sold. No, give the devil his due, say I. There never was no want for anything at meals with the Bishop90, except time to eat them in.”
“And why do you call him the Bishop?”
“That’s his name and authority; for he’s the governor here over all of us. And it has always been so that Wodgate has been governed by a bishop; because as we have no church, we will have as good. And by this token that this day sen’night, the day my time was up, he married me to this here young lady. She is of the Baptist school religion, and wanted us to be tied by her clergyman, but all the lads that served their time with me were married by the Bishop, and many a more, and I saw no call to do no otherwise. So he sprinkled some salt over a gridiron, read ‘Our Father’ backwards91, and wrote our name in a book: and we were spliced92; but I didn’t do it rashly, did I, Suky, by the token that we had kept company for two years, and there isn’t a gal93 in all Wodgate what handles a file, like Sue.”
“And what is your name, my good fellow?”
“They call me Tummas, but I ayn’t got no second name; but now I am married I mean to take my wife’s, for she has been baptised, and so has got two.”
“Yes sir,” said the girl with the vacant face and the back like a grasshopper; “I be a reg’lar born Christian94 and my mother afore me, and that’s what few gals95 in the Yard can say. Thomas will take to it himself when work is slack; and he believes now in our Lord and Saviour96 Pontius Pilate who was crucified to save our sins; and in Moses, Goliath, and the rest of the Apostles.”
“Ah! me,” thought Morley, “and could not they spare one Missionary97 from Tahiti for their fellow countrymen at Wodgate!”
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1
consecrated
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| adj.神圣的，被视为神圣的v.把…奉为神圣，给…祝圣( consecrate的过去式和过去分词 )；奉献 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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squatting
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| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的现在分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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deficient
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| adj.不足的，不充份的，有缺陷的 | |
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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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manorial
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| adj.庄园的 | |
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tithes
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| n.（宗教捐税）什一税，什一的教区税，小部分( tithe的名词复数 ) | |
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meddlesome
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| adj.爱管闲事的 | |
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supervision
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| n.监督，管理 | |
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abounded
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| v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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soften
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| v.(使)变柔软；(使)变柔和 | |
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isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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celebrity
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| n.名人，名流；著名，名声，名望 | |
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skilful
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| (=skillful)adj.灵巧的，熟练的 | |
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founders
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| n.创始人( founder的名词复数 ) | |
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brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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18
tempt
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| vt.引诱，勾引，吸引，引起…的兴趣 | |
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19
swarming
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| 密集( swarm的现在分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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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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21
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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tenements
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| n.房屋，住户，租房子( tenement的名词复数 ) | |
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hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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civic
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| adj.城市的，都市的，市民的，公民的 | |
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zealously
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| adv.热心地；热情地；积极地；狂热地 | |
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spire
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| n.(教堂)尖顶，尖塔，高点 | |
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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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magistrate
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| n.地方行政官，地方法官，治安官 | |
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reigns
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| n.君主的统治( reign的名词复数 )；君主统治时期；任期；当政期 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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unlimited
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| adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的 | |
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apprentices
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| 学徒，徒弟( apprentice的名词复数 ) | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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tyrants
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| 专制统治者( tyrant的名词复数 )； 暴君似的人； （古希腊的）僭主； 严酷的事物 | |
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habitually
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| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
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inflict
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| vt.(on)把…强加给，使遭受，使承担 | |
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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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exertion
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| n.尽力，努力 | |
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carrion
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| n.腐肉 | |
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lofts
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| 阁楼( loft的名词复数 )； （由工厂等改建的）套房； 上层楼面； 房间的越层 | |
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42
brutality
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| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
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degradation
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| n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变 | |
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44
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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45
toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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46
stint
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| v.节省，限制，停止；n.舍不得化，节约，限制；连续不断的一段时间从事某件事 | |
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47
relaxation
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| n.松弛，放松；休息；消遣；娱乐 | |
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48
vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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49
exhaustion
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| n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述 | |
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50
scanty
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| adj.缺乏的，仅有的，节省的，狭小的，不够的 | |
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51
immoral
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| adj.不道德的，淫荡的，荒淫的，有伤风化的 | |
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52
immorality
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| n. 不道德, 无道义 | |
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53
lank
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| adj.瘦削的；稀疏的 | |
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54
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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55
mingle
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| vt.使混合，使相混；vi.混合起来；相交往 | |
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56
dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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57
chapels
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| n.小教堂， （医院、监狱等的）附属礼拜堂( chapel的名词复数 )；（在小教堂和附属礼拜堂举行的）礼拜仪式 | |
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58
hap
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| n.运气；v.偶然发生 | |
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59
elevation
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| n.高度；海拔；高地；上升；提高 | |
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60
alleys
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| 胡同，小巷( alley的名词复数 )； 小径 | |
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61
filth
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| n.肮脏，污物，污秽；淫猥 | |
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62
dwellings
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| n.住处，处所( dwelling的名词复数 ) | |
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63
gutters
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| （路边）排水沟( gutter的名词复数 )； 阴沟； （屋顶的）天沟； 贫贱的境地 | |
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64
foulness
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| n. 纠缠, 卑鄙 | |
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stagnant
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| adj.不流动的，停滞的，不景气的 | |
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66
taint
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| n.污点；感染；腐坏；v.使感染；污染 | |
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pestilence
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| n.瘟疫 | |
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68
stunted
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| adj.矮小的；发育迟缓的 | |
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grasshopper
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| n.蚱蜢，蝗虫，蚂蚱 | |
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displacement
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| n.移置，取代，位移，排水量 | |
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71
cramping
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| 图像压缩 | |
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72
posture
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| n.姿势，姿态，心态，态度；v.作出某种姿势 | |
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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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74
enquire
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| v.打听，询问；调查，查问 | |
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75
knotty
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| adj.有结的，多节的，多瘤的，棘手的 | |
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76
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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77
staple
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| n.主要产物，常用品，主要要素，原料，订书钉，钩环；adj.主要的，重要的；vt.分类 | |
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78
eyelid
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| n.眼睑，眼皮 | |
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redress
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| n.赔偿，救济，矫正；v.纠正，匡正，革除 | |
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iniquitous
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| adj.不公正的；邪恶的；高得出奇的 | |
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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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82
complacent
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| adj.自满的；自鸣得意的 | |
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83
magistrates
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| 地方法官，治安官( magistrate的名词复数 ) | |
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84
constable
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| n.(英国)警察，警官 | |
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85
wretch
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| n.可怜的人，不幸的人；卑鄙的人 | |
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86
hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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87
bust
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| vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部 | |
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pints
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| n.品脱( pint的名词复数 )；一品脱啤酒 | |
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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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bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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backwards
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| adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地 | |
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92
spliced
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| adj.（针织品）加固的n.叠接v.绞接( splice的过去式和过去分词 )；捻接（两段绳子）；胶接；粘接（胶片、磁带等） | |
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gal
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| n.姑娘，少女 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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gals
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| abbr.gallons （复数）加仑（液量单位）n.女孩，少女( gal的名词复数 ) | |
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96
saviour
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| n.拯救者，救星 | |
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missionary
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| adj.教会的，传教(士)的；n.传教士 | |
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