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首页 » 英文短篇小说 » Mary Jane Married » CHAPTER II. THE SQUIRE’S ROOM.
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CHAPTER II. THE SQUIRE’S ROOM.
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 After we got into our new house everything was very strange at first. Harry1 knew something about the business, having been with a relative, who was in the same line, for six months that he didn’t go to sea; but to me it was something quite new.
We took on the people who had been with the late owners, and that was a great help to us—one girl, the barmaid, being a very nice young woman, and a great comfort to me, telling me many things quietly that prevented me looking foolish through not knowing.
She was about four-and-twenty, and rather pretty; Miss Ward2 her name was, and she didn’t mind turning her hand to anything, and would help me about the house, and was quite a companion to me. She said she was very glad we had taken the place, because she hadn’t been comfortable with the people who had left it. The master was all right, but his wife was very stuck up, having been the daughter of a Government clerk, and she wouldn’t have anything to do with the business, saying it was lowering, and only dressed herself up and sat in her own room, and read novels, and wanted everybody about the place to attend on her instead of the customers, and was very proud and haughty3 if any of them said “Good evening, mum,” to her, hardly having a civil word for them, though it was their money she dressed herself up on.
She and her husband were going to have a real hotel instead of an inn, she having come into money, which was why we got the place so cheap.{16}
Certainly it was left beautifully clean, that I will say; and there was an air of gentility about the place that was comforting. When Harry had first talked about going into this sort of business I felt rather nervous. My idea of an inn was a place where there were quarrels and fights, and where you had to put people out, and where wives came crying about ten o’clock to fetch their husbands home.
But I felt quite easy in my mind as soon as we were settled down in the ‘Stretford Arms,’ and very nice and cosy4 it was of an evening in our parlour, with three or four nice respectable people sitting and smoking, and Harry, “the landlord” (dear me, how funny it was to hear him called “landlord” at first!), smoking his pipe with them, and me doing my needlework. Every now and then Harry would have to get up and go into the bar, to help Miss Ward, and say a word or two to the customers, but they were all respectable people; and the light and the warmth and the comfort made a nice dozy5, contented6, sleek7 feeling come over me.
I don’t know what made me think it, but the first night in our little parlour I felt as if I ought to purr, because I felt just as I should think a cat must feel when she settles down comfortably in front of the fire, on that round place that is in the middle of a fender.
I didn’t go into the bar much, having the house to see to, and getting the rooms to look pretty, and fitting them up as bedrooms, we being quite determined8 to make it a little hotel where people could stop.
We made one of the rooms look very pretty, and bought some old volumes of Punch and Fun for it, and a picture or two, and called it the coffee-room; and we kept another room for the local people to have bread and cheese and chops in. As soon as we were quite ready we had “Hotel” put up big, and I wrote nice letters to all my masters and mistresses, and I wrote specially9 to Mr. Saxon, asking for his patronage10.
I was very anxious to get him, because I thought perhaps if we made him comfortable he would put us a nice paragraph in some of the papers he wrote for, and that would be a good advertisement.{17}
I soon began to find out a good deal about our customers and our neighbours, and the people who lived in the village. The most famous people, as I have said before, were the Stretfords, the family whose land our house was on, and whose arms were on our signboard.
We hadn’t anything to do with the Stretfords ourselves, and they didn’t live in the place any longer, the house having passed to a stranger, and all the property being in other people’s hands, but the place was saturated11 with stories of the old Squire12’s goings-on. Poor old Squire! He was dead long before we took his “Arms,” and everything belonging to him had gone except his name; but the old people still spoke13 of him with love and admiration14, and seemed proud of the dreadful things he had done.
When I say dreadful I don’t mean low dreadful, but high dreadful—that is, things a gentleman may do that are not right, but still gentlemanly—or, rather, they were gentlemanly in the Squire’s time, but wouldn’t be thought so nowadays.
I’ve heard old people tell of “the days when they were young,” and the things that were thought nothing of then for a gentleman to do. There is a dear old gentleman with long white hair who uses our house, who lived servant in a great family in London sixty years ago, and his father before him, and the stories he tells about the young “bloods”—that is what he calls them—are really wonderful.
They were a nice lot certainly in those days. If they went on like it now they would be had up before a magistrate15, and not allowed to mix with respectable people. They were great drinkers and great fighters and great gamblers, and thought nothing of staggering about the streets and creating a disturbance16 with the watch or pulling off knockers, and doing just the sort of mischief17 that only very young fellows and little rough boys do in the streets now.
Squire Stretford was one of the good old sort of country gentlemen, with red faces and ruffled18 shirts, who carried snuffboxes and sticks with a tassel19 to them, and didn’t think it any harm to take a little too much to drink of an evening.{18} And he was a great gambler, and would go up to London to his club and gamble, till, bit by bit, he had to part with all his property to pay his debts.
He had a daughter, a fine, handsome girl she was, so I was told, and a lovely rider. Miss Diana her name was, and she was in love with a young fellow who lived at a great house not far from the Hall—a Mr. George Owen. His father was a pawnbroker21 in London, having several shops; but the son had been to Oxford22, and had never had anything to do with taking in people’s watches and blankets and flat-irons. When Miss Diana told her papa that if she couldn’t have George Owen she would never have anybody, he was in a dreadful rage. “Good heavens, Di,” he said, “you must be mad! Marry a fellow who lends money on poor people’s shirts and flannel24 petticoats? Marry the man that’s got our plate, and your poor mother’s jewels; a Jew rascal25, who only lends about a quarter what things are worth, and sells them in a year if you don’t redeem26 them? Why, you’ll be proposing the dashed fellow who serves me with a writ27 for my son-in-law next!”
It was no good for the poor young lady to argue that young Mr. Owen was a private gentleman, and hadn’t anything to do with the business—the old Squire wouldn’t listen to her. “If ever you marry that man, Di,” he said, “you’re no daughter of mine, and I’ll never speak to you again as long as I live.”
Miss Di never said any more, but moped a good deal; and Mr. Owen never came to the Squire to ask for her hand, because, of course, she’d told him that it was no use.
But the Squire went on just as reckless as before, gambling28 and enjoying himself, and being up in London more than ever.
One morning he came down by the first train from London, looking very pale, and he went straight up to the Hall, and got there just as Miss Di had come down to breakfast. “Di,” he said, “I’m going away, and you’ll have to go away too. I’ve lost the Hall.”
It was true; he’d actually played for the Hall, the old place where he was born, and lost it at cards, having parted with everything else long before. They say that altogether he must have gambled away a hundred thousand{19} pounds—at any rate he was ruined, for all his estate and all his property had been lost, and he was in debt.
Miss Di looked at her pa, and said, “What am I to do?”
“Come abroad with me,” he said; “we must live cheaply for a little while somewhere.”
“No, I sha’n’t,” said the girl; “as long as you kept a home for me, I obeyed you as your daughter. As you have gambled my home away, I shall go where there is one for me. I shall marry George Owen.”
And marry him she did very soon after. The Squire wasn’t at the wedding, you may be sure. He went away abroad, and lived there for years—how nobody knew; and strangers took the Hall and the lands; and the name of Stretford, that had been in the place for hundreds of years, died out of it; the village inn, the ‘Stretford Arms,’ being the only thing that kept it alive.
And it was in the best bedroom of that inn—a dear old-fashioned room it is, with a great four-post bedstead, and an old oak chest, and a big fireplace with old brass29 dogs for the logs of wood—that the old Squire lay, years afterwards, dying.
It was years before we came to the place, but the room the old Squire lay in seemed a sacred place to me directly I had heard the story, and over and over again when I’ve had a fire lighted there for a guest who was expected, I’ve stood and watched the firelight flickering30 on the old oak panels, and I’ve seen the old Squire’s handsome face lying on the pillow of the great four-post bedstead.
He had come back from abroad, terribly broken and ill and poor. He said he knew he was dying, and he wanted to die as near the old place as possible. He wouldn’t have anything to do with his daughter, Mrs. Owen, and would never take a penny from her, though she was very rich; and when he came back, and she wanted to see him and get him to consent to be taken to her house, he said, “No, he didn’t want to die in pawn20. He’d as soon have the sheriff’s officer or a Jew money-lender sitting by his death-bed as a pawnbroker or a pawnbroker’s wife.”
It’s wonderful how with some people this family pride will keep up to the last. Of course it isn’t so much nowadays, when ladies of title marry rich tradesmen, and are{20} very glad to get them, and noblemen don’t mind making a marine-store dealer’s daughter a lady, if her pa has enough money to give her a fine dowry.
But the Squire was one of the proud old sort that began to go out when railways began to come in. That’s how Mr. Wilkins, the parish clerk, who uses our parlour regularly of an evening, puts it. It was Mr. Wilkins—quite a character in his way, as you’ll say when you know more about him—who told me the story of the old Squire after whose Arms our house is named.
The people who had our house at the time were the Squire’s butler and his wife, and of course they made their dear old master as comfortable as they could, and made his bill as light as possible, for he would pay for everything with the little bit of money he’d got, and would swear just as he used to do in former days if they didn’t let him have his bill regularly.
One day he said to the doctor, “Doctor, how long do you think I shall live?”
“Why do you ask?” said the doctor.
“Because I must cut my cloth according to my measure,” said the Squire. “I want to know how long I’ve got to spread my money over. My funeral will be all right, because I’ve paid for that beforehand.”
Which he had, as was found out afterwards.
Well, the doctor was in a fix. He knew if he said a long time the poor old gentleman would begin to starve himself and do without his wine, and if he said a short time he thought it would be cruel; so he said that it all depended upon the turn his illness took.
It was in the winter time that the Squire lay ill at the “Arms,” and Christmas was coming.
As it came nearer, the Squire grew weaker and weaker, and everybody saw he was going home. One evening the landlady31 went up to the Squire’s rooms, and found him out of bed with his dressing-gown on, sitting in a chair and looking out of the window. It was a bright, frosty evening and the moon was up, and you could see a long way off.
She went in on tiptoe, fancying he might be asleep, and not wanting to wake him, and she saw he was looking out over the fields right away to the old Hall. It stood out in{21} the moonlight far away, looking very haunted and gloomy, as it often does now when I look at it from that very window.
The tears were running down the old man’s face, and he was quite sobbing32, and the landlady heard him say to himself, “The dear old place! Ah! if I could only have died there I could have died happy.”
Mr. Owen used to come every day to ask after the Squire, and the landlady told him about this, and he set about thinking if something couldn’t be managed. He knew the Squire wouldn’t take charity or be beholden to anybody, or accept a favour; and the thing was—how could he be got back to the Hall believing it was his own?
Mr. Owen told his wife—the Squire’s daughter—and they both put their heads together, as the saying is. Miss Di, as she was always called about here, suddenly had an idea, and Mr. Owen went to London that night.
The next day the Squire was told that an old friend wanted to see him, and when he was told it was a friend of the old wild days he said, “Let him come—let him come.”
The friend was Colonel Rackstraw—that was the name, I think—a great gambler, like the Squire—and it was to him the Squire had lost the Hall.
It was quite a meeting, those two old fellows seeing each other again, they say, and they began to talk about old times and the adventures they had had, and the Squire got quite chirrupy, and chuckled33 at things they remembered.
“Ah, Rackstraw,” says the Squire presently, “I never had your luck; you were always a lucky dog, and you broke me at last. I didn’t mind anything but the old place—that settled me.”
“Well,” says the Colonel, “I haven’t done much good by it. There it stands. The people I let it to have cleared out (which wasn’t true), and I’ll sell it cheap.” (He’d sold it long ago, and the people living in it were big wholesale34 tailors.)
“So the old place is for sale?” says the Squire.
“Yes; will you buy it?”
“I, my dear fellow! I’m a pauper35.”
“Of course, of course; I forgot,” says the old Colonel.{22} “Well, I’ve come to cheer you up a bit. I suppose you never touch the pictures now?”
“No, no,” says the Squire, “not for a long time. I haven’t had any money to lose.”
“I should like to have had a quiet game with you for auld36 lang syne,” says the Colonel. “Shall I ring for a pack?”
“I should like it. I should like to have one more turn with you, old friend, before I die; but—but——”
“Oh, come, it’ll do you good—cheer you up; and as to the stakes—well, we’ll play for silver, just to make the game interesting.”
After a lot of coaxing37 the old Squire consented, and the Colonel got the cards, and pulled a table up to the bed, and they began to play.
The Squire soon forgot everything in playing. The old excitement came back; his cheeks got red, and his eyes grew bright, and he kept making jokes just as they say he used to do.
He had wonderful luck, for he won everything, and he was so excited he must have fancied himself back again at the club by the way he went on. When he had won they made the stakes higher, and he kept winning, till he had won quite a lot. The Colonel had bank-notes in his pocket and he paid them over, and presently he said—
“Look here, Stretford, I’ll play you double or quits the lot.”
The Squire was like a boy now. “All right,” he said; “come on.” He won, and the Colonel had to owe him a lot of money.
When the Squire was quite worked up the Colonel cried out, “A thousand!” He lost it. “Double or quits!” He lost again—and so on till he had lost a fortune: and then he pretended to be awfully38 wild, and brought his fist down on the table and shouted out, “Confound it, I’m not going to be beaten! I’ll play you the Hall against what you’ve won.”
I wish you could hear Mr. Wilkins tell the story as he told it to Harry and me in our bar parlour. He made us quite hot the way he described this game with the Colonel and the dying Squire, and he made it quite real, which I can’t do in writing. We were quite carried away, and I{23} knew when it came to the Hall being staked, and Mr. Wilkins described the Squire sitting up, almost at death’s door, and laughing and shouting, and evidently carried away by “the ruling passion” (that’s what Mr. Wilkins called it), that he must have believed himself back again at his club and the devil-may-care fellow he was in those days.
“Done!” said the Squire.
And then they played for the old Hall that the Squire had lost ten years ago.
And the Squire won it!
As he won the game he flung the cards up in the air, and shouted out so loud that the landlady ran up, thinking he was in a fit or something.
“I’ve won it!” he cried. “Thank God—thank God!” Then he fell back on the bed, and burst out crying like a child.
The doctor came in to him and gave him something, and by-and-by they got him to sleep.
“He’ll rally a bit,” said the doctor; “the excitement’s done him good, but he’ll go back again all the quicker afterwards.”
* * * * *
The next morning it was all over the village that the Squire was better, and was going back to the Hall again; that he’d come into money or something, and had bought it back again. Mr. Owen arranged everything—him and Miss Di—or Mrs. Owen, I should say.
The people came from far and near, and gathered about the old place when they heard that the Squire was coming, and they determined to give him a grand welcome.
The doctor had a long conversation with Mr. and Mrs. Owen that morning, and determined to try the experiment. He got the Squire up and dressed, and, well wrapped up, he was carried down and put in a close carriage, and then they drove away to the Hall.
The people shouted like mad when they saw the Squire coming, and they took the horses out, and dragged the carriage right up to the doors.
The landlord of the “Arms” was there in his old butler’s coat, and he received the Squire, and he was taken{24} into the big room, which had been the justice-room, and the villagers all crowded in; and the Squire, sitting in his old easy-chair by the fire, received them, and, after he had had some stimulant39, made a little speech that brought tears into the people’s eyes, and thanked them, and said he should die happy now, for he should die master of the dear old place.
* * * * *
After that the Squire never left his bed, but he was very happy; he lay in the old room—the room his wife had died in—and all the old things were about him, just as he had left them; and on Christmas Day he told the doctor to send for his daughter and “the pawnbroker.”
They came, and the Squire kissed his daughter, and said he was so happy he couldn’t let anything mar23 his happiness; so he forgave her and kissed her, and then held out his hand and said, “Mr. Owen, they tell me that for a pawnbroker you are a very decent fellow.”
He didn’t live very long after that—only a few weeks; but he saw his daughter every day, and she was holding his hand when he died. It was just in the twilight40 he went—only the firelight let everything in the room be seen.
He had been sinking for days, and hadn’t said much; but he seemed to get a little strength for a moment then. He had had his wife’s portrait brought from Mrs. Owen’s and hung on the wall opposite his bed. He looked at that—a long, loving look—and his lips seemed to move as if he was saying a little prayer.
Then he pressed his daughter’s hand, and she stooped and kissed him, and listened to catch his words, for he spoke in a whisper.
“God bless you, dear,” he said; “I’m at peace with everybody, and I’m so glad to die in the old place. Tell the pawnbroker”—a little smile passed over his face as he whispered the word—“tell the pawnbroker that I forgave——”
Miss Di could catch no more. The lips moved, but no sound came. Then all was quiet. A little gentle breathing, then a deep long sigh—a happy sigh—and then—the end.
{25}
* * * * *
When Mr. Wilkins first told me and Harry that story, the way he told it (oh, if I could only tell it in writing like that!) made me cry, and Harry—he pulled out his handkerchief and had a cold just like he had when the clergyman was reading our marriage service. Several times while that service was on I thought Harry had a dreadful cold, but he said afterwards, “Little woman, it wasn’t a cold; it was the words and the thoughts that came into my heart and made it feel too big for my waistcoat; and I felt once or twice as if I should have liked to put my knuckles41 in my eyes, and boo-hoo, like I used to when I was a boy.”
It came home to us, you see, having the ‘Stretford Arms;’ and it being in our house that it all happened, long, long ago—and that room, the Squire’s room, was my pride after that, and I kept it a perfect picture; but I never dusted it or arranged it without thinking of the poor old gentleman sitting in the big armchair, and looking out in the moonlight at the old home that he had lost—the home his race had lived and died in for hundreds of years.
Of course as soon as we’d got over the first effect of the story, we asked Mr. Wilkins to explain how it had been done, though we guessed a good deal.
He told us that it was all through Mr. George Owen—(“He was a brick,” said Harry, and though I couldn’t call him a brick, because somehow or other “brick” isn’t a woman’s word, I said he was an angel, which Harry says is the feminine of “brick”)—and it was he who had arranged the whole thing.
The wholesale tailors were going away for three months, and Mr. Owen had got them to let him rent the place of them for the time, and longer if he wanted it, and then he had gone off to London and found the Colonel, who was an old bachelor living in Albany something—whether the barracks or the street I forget—and, knowing the whole story from Miss Di, he had begged him to come down and assist in the trick—if trick is the word for such a noble action.
The Colonel had played to lose, the money being Mr. Owen’s, and it had all been arranged, and he was very glad to do it for his old friend, for though a born gambler,{26} the Hall had always stuck in his throat—to use a common saying.
I wrote the story down when Mr. Wilkins had told it us, because I thought if ever I wrote the memoirs42 of our inn, I couldn’t begin with a better one than the story of old Squire Stretford, seeing that the strangest part of it took place in our house, and that our house is the ‘Stretford Arms,’ and the Stretfords are bound up with the history of the place.
Mr. and Mrs. Owen left the neighbourhood soon after that; they sold their house, and went to live in another part of the country, and the wholesale tailors came back again. The eldest43 son of the tailors has the place now, and he sometimes comes in and has a chat with Harry. When he was a boy he ran away to sea, and his people never knew what had become of him for ever so long, and gave him up for dead, till one morning his ma came down to breakfast and found a letter from him, dated from some awful place where cannibals live. It was some island that Harry knew quite well, having been there with his ship, but since cannibalism44 had been done away with, it being many years after the wholesale tailor’s eldest son was in those parts.
Of course he is a middle-aged45 man now, this eldest son, and settled down, and has the business, and is quite reformed; but he likes to come and talk to Harry about that cannibal island, and foreign parts which they have both visited. I think it is likely to be a very good thing for us in business, Harry having been a sailor. People seem to like sailors, and, of course, if they can talk at all, and can remember what they have seen, their conversation is sure to be interesting.
When Harry sometimes begins to spin a yarn46 of an evening, everybody leaves off talking and listens to him, not because he is the landlord, but because he has something to say that is worth listening to, about places and people that nobody else in the company knows anything about. I wish I could use some of his stories here, but I can’t, because I am only going to write about what belongs to our hotel and the village, and the things that I see and hear myself.
When the gentleman who lives at the Hall that was{27} the home of the Stretfords for so many years comes in of an evening, of course we always ask him in the——
* * * * *
The cat asleep in baby’s cradle! Oh, Harry! and I only left you with him for half an hour while I did my writing. Don’t laugh! please don’t laugh! I’ve heard the most terrible things about cats in babies’ cradles. I declare I can’t trust you with baby for a second. Thought they looked so pretty together, did you? A nice thing if I’d found my dear baby with its breath sucked by the cat, and its father looking on laughing!

点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 harry heBxS     
vt.掠夺,蹂躏,使苦恼
参考例句:
  • Today,people feel more hurried and harried.今天,人们感到更加忙碌和苦恼。
  • Obama harried business by Healthcare Reform plan.奥巴马用医改掠夺了商界。
2 ward LhbwY     
n.守卫,监护,病房,行政区,由监护人或法院保护的人(尤指儿童);vt.守护,躲开
参考例句:
  • The hospital has a medical ward and a surgical ward.这家医院有内科病房和外科病房。
  • During the evening picnic,I'll carry a torch to ward off the bugs.傍晚野餐时,我要点根火把,抵挡蚊虫。
3 haughty 4dKzq     
adj.傲慢的,高傲的
参考例句:
  • He gave me a haughty look and walked away.他向我摆出傲慢的表情后走开。
  • They were displeased with her haughty airs.他们讨厌她高傲的派头。
4 cosy dvnzc5     
adj.温暖而舒适的,安逸的
参考例句:
  • We spent a cosy evening chatting by the fire.我们在炉火旁聊天度过了一个舒适的晚上。
  • It was so warm and cosy in bed that Simon didn't want to get out.床上温暖而又舒适,西蒙简直不想下床了。
5 dozy juczHY     
adj.困倦的;愚笨的
参考例句:
  • Maybe I eat too much and that's what makes me dozy.也许我吃得太多了,所以昏昏欲睡。
  • I'm feeling a bit dozy this afternoon.今天下午我觉得有点困。
6 contented Gvxzof     
adj.满意的,安心的,知足的
参考例句:
  • He won't be contented until he's upset everyone in the office.不把办公室里的每个人弄得心烦意乱他就不会满足。
  • The people are making a good living and are contented,each in his station.人民安居乐业。
7 sleek zESzJ     
adj.光滑的,井然有序的;v.使光滑,梳拢
参考例句:
  • Women preferred sleek,shiny hair with little decoration.女士们更喜欢略加修饰的光滑闪亮型秀发。
  • The horse's coat was sleek and glossy.这匹马全身润泽有光。
8 determined duszmP     
adj.坚定的;有决心的
参考例句:
  • I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
  • He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。
9 specially Hviwq     
adv.特定地;特殊地;明确地
参考例句:
  • They are specially packaged so that they stack easily.它们经过特别包装以便于堆放。
  • The machine was designed specially for demolishing old buildings.这种机器是专为拆毁旧楼房而设计的。
10 patronage MSLzq     
n.赞助,支援,援助;光顾,捧场
参考例句:
  • Though it was not yet noon,there was considerable patronage.虽然时间未到中午,店中已有许多顾客惠顾。
  • I am sorry to say that my patronage ends with this.很抱歉,我的赞助只能到此为止。
11 saturated qjEzG3     
a.饱和的,充满的
参考例句:
  • The continuous rain had saturated the soil. 连绵不断的雨把土地淋了个透。
  • a saturated solution of sodium chloride 氯化钠饱和溶液
12 squire 0htzjV     
n.护卫, 侍从, 乡绅
参考例句:
  • I told him the squire was the most liberal of men.我告诉他乡绅是世界上最宽宏大量的人。
  • The squire was hard at work at Bristol.乡绅在布里斯托尔热衷于他的工作。
13 spoke XryyC     
n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说
参考例句:
  • They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
  • The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。
14 admiration afpyA     
n.钦佩,赞美,羡慕
参考例句:
  • He was lost in admiration of the beauty of the scene.他对风景之美赞不绝口。
  • We have a great admiration for the gold medalists.我们对金牌获得者极为敬佩。
15 magistrate e8vzN     
n.地方行政官,地方法官,治安官
参考例句:
  • The magistrate committed him to prison for a month.法官判处他一个月监禁。
  • John was fined 1000 dollars by the magistrate.约翰被地方法官罚款1000美元。
16 disturbance BsNxk     
n.动乱,骚动;打扰,干扰;(身心)失调
参考例句:
  • He is suffering an emotional disturbance.他的情绪受到了困扰。
  • You can work in here without any disturbance.在这儿你可不受任何干扰地工作。
17 mischief jDgxH     
n.损害,伤害,危害;恶作剧,捣蛋,胡闹
参考例句:
  • Nobody took notice of the mischief of the matter. 没有人注意到这件事情所带来的危害。
  • He seems to intend mischief.看来他想捣蛋。
18 ruffled e4a3deb720feef0786be7d86b0004e86     
adj. 有褶饰边的, 起皱的 动词ruffle的过去式和过去分词
参考例句:
  • She ruffled his hair affectionately. 她情意绵绵地拨弄着他的头发。
  • All this talk of a strike has clearly ruffled the management's feathers. 所有这些关于罢工的闲言碎语显然让管理层很不高兴。
19 tassel egKyo     
n.流苏,穗;v.抽穗, (玉米)长穗须
参考例句:
  • The corn has begun to tassel.玉米开始长出穗状雄花。
  • There are blue tassels on my curtains.我的窗帘上有蓝色的流苏。
20 pawn 8ixyq     
n.典当,抵押,小人物,走卒;v.典当,抵押
参考例句:
  • He is contemplating pawning his watch.他正在考虑抵押他的手表。
  • It looks as though he is being used as a political pawn by the President.看起来他似乎被总统当作了政治卒子。
21 pawnbroker SiAys     
n.典当商,当铺老板
参考例句:
  • He redeemed his watch from the pawnbroker's.他从当铺赎回手表。
  • She could get fifty dollars for those if she went to the pawnbroker's.要是她去当铺当了这些东西,她是可以筹出50块钱的。
22 Oxford Wmmz0a     
n.牛津(英国城市)
参考例句:
  • At present he has become a Professor of Chemistry at Oxford.他现在已是牛津大学的化学教授了。
  • This is where the road to Oxford joins the road to London.这是去牛津的路与去伦敦的路的汇合处。
23 mar f7Kzq     
vt.破坏,毁坏,弄糟
参考例句:
  • It was not the custom for elderly people to mar the picnics with their presence.大人们照例不参加这样的野餐以免扫兴。
  • Such a marriage might mar your career.这样的婚姻说不定会毁了你的一生。
24 flannel S7dyQ     
n.法兰绒;法兰绒衣服
参考例句:
  • She always wears a grey flannel trousers.她总是穿一条灰色法兰绒长裤。
  • She was looking luscious in a flannel shirt.她穿着法兰绒裙子,看上去楚楚动人。
25 rascal mAIzd     
n.流氓;不诚实的人
参考例句:
  • If he had done otherwise,I should have thought him a rascal.如果他不这样做,我就认为他是个恶棍。
  • The rascal was frightened into holding his tongue.这坏蛋吓得不敢往下说了。
26 redeem zCbyH     
v.买回,赎回,挽回,恢复,履行(诺言等)
参考例句:
  • He had no way to redeem his furniture out of pawn.他无法赎回典当的家具。
  • The eyes redeem the face from ugliness.这双眼睛弥补了他其貌不扬之缺陷。
27 writ iojyr     
n.命令状,书面命令
参考例句:
  • This is a copy of a writ I received this morning.这是今早我收到的书面命令副本。
  • You shouldn't treat the newspapers as if they were Holy Writ. 你不应该把报上说的话奉若神明。
28 gambling ch4xH     
n.赌博;投机
参考例句:
  • They have won a lot of money through gambling.他们赌博赢了很多钱。
  • The men have been gambling away all night.那些人赌了整整一夜。
29 brass DWbzI     
n.黄铜;黄铜器,铜管乐器
参考例句:
  • Many of the workers play in the factory's brass band.许多工人都在工厂铜管乐队中演奏。
  • Brass is formed by the fusion of copper and zinc.黄铜是通过铜和锌的熔合而成的。
30 flickering wjLxa     
adj.闪烁的,摇曳的,一闪一闪的
参考例句:
  • The crisp autumn wind is flickering away. 清爽的秋风正在吹拂。
  • The lights keep flickering. 灯光忽明忽暗。
31 landlady t2ZxE     
n.女房东,女地主
参考例句:
  • I heard my landlady creeping stealthily up to my door.我听到我的女房东偷偷地来到我的门前。
  • The landlady came over to serve me.女店主过来接待我。
32 sobbing df75b14f92e64fc9e1d7eaf6dcfc083a     
<主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的
参考例句:
  • I heard a child sobbing loudly. 我听见有个孩子在呜呜地哭。
  • Her eyes were red with recent sobbing. 她的眼睛因刚哭过而发红。
33 chuckled 8ce1383c838073977a08258a1f3e30f8     
轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • She chuckled at the memory. 想起这件事她就暗自发笑。
  • She chuckled softly to herself as she remembered his astonished look. 想起他那惊讶的表情,她就轻轻地暗自发笑。
34 wholesale Ig9wL     
n.批发;adv.以批发方式;vt.批发,成批出售
参考例句:
  • The retail dealer buys at wholesale and sells at retail.零售商批发购进货物,以零售价卖出。
  • Such shoes usually wholesale for much less.这种鞋批发出售通常要便宜得多。
35 pauper iLwxF     
n.贫民,被救济者,穷人
参考例句:
  • You lived like a pauper when you had plenty of money.你有大把钱的时候,也活得像个乞丐。
  • If you work conscientiously you'll only die a pauper.你按部就班地干,做到老也是穷死。
36 auld Fuxzt     
adj.老的,旧的
参考例句:
  • Should auld acquaintance be forgot,and never brought to mind?怎能忘记旧日朋友,心中能不怀念?
  • The party ended up with the singing of Auld Lang Sync.宴会以《友谊地久天长》的歌声而告终。
37 coaxing 444e70224820a50b0202cb5bb05f1c2e     
v.哄,用好话劝说( coax的现在分词 );巧言骗取;哄劝,劝诱;“锻炼”效应
参考例句:
  • No amount of coaxing will make me change my mind. 任你费尽口舌也不会说服我改变主意。
  • It took a lot of coaxing before he agreed. 劝说了很久他才同意。 来自辞典例句
38 awfully MPkym     
adv.可怕地,非常地,极端地
参考例句:
  • Agriculture was awfully neglected in the past.过去农业遭到严重忽视。
  • I've been feeling awfully bad about it.对这我一直感到很难受。
39 stimulant fFKy4     
n.刺激物,兴奋剂
参考例句:
  • It is used in medicine for its stimulant quality.由于它有兴奋剂的特性而被应用于医学。
  • Musk is used for perfume and stimulant.麝香可以用作香料和兴奋剂。
40 twilight gKizf     
n.暮光,黄昏;暮年,晚期,衰落时期
参考例句:
  • Twilight merged into darkness.夕阳的光辉融于黑暗中。
  • Twilight was sweet with the smell of lilac and freshly turned earth.薄暮充满紫丁香和新翻耕的泥土的香味。
41 knuckles c726698620762d88f738be4a294fae79     
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
参考例句:
  • He gripped the wheel until his knuckles whitened. 他紧紧握住方向盘,握得指关节都变白了。
  • Her thin hands were twisted by swollen knuckles. 她那双纤手因肿大的指关节而变了形。 来自《简明英汉词典》
42 memoirs f752e432fe1fefb99ab15f6983cd506c     
n.回忆录;回忆录传( mem,自oir的名词复数)
参考例句:
  • Her memoirs were ghostwritten. 她的回忆录是由别人代写的。
  • I watched a trailer for the screenplay of his memoirs. 我看过以他的回忆录改编成电影的预告片。 来自《简明英汉词典》
43 eldest bqkx6     
adj.最年长的,最年老的
参考例句:
  • The King's eldest son is the heir to the throne.国王的长子是王位的继承人。
  • The castle and the land are entailed on the eldest son.城堡和土地限定由长子继承。
44 cannibalism ZTGye     
n.同类相食;吃人肉
参考例句:
  • The war is just like the cannibalism of animals.战争就如同动物之间的互相残。
  • They were forced to practise cannibalism in order to survive.他们被迫人吃人以求活下去。
45 middle-aged UopzSS     
adj.中年的
参考例句:
  • I noticed two middle-aged passengers.我注意到两个中年乘客。
  • The new skin balm was welcome by middle-aged women.这种新护肤香膏受到了中年妇女的欢迎。
46 yarn LMpzM     
n.纱,纱线,纺线;奇闻漫谈,旅行轶事
参考例句:
  • I stopped to have a yarn with him.我停下来跟他聊天。
  • The basic structural unit of yarn is the fiber.纤维是纱的基本结构单元。


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