Chapter V
Greyfriars
It was Queen Mary who threw open the gardens of the Grey Friars: a new and semi-rural cemetery1 in those days, although it has grown an antiquity2 in its turn and been superseded4 by half-a-dozen others. The Friars must have had a pleasant time on summer evenings; for their gardens were situated5 to a wish, with the tall castle and the tallest of the castle crags in front. Even now, it is one of our famous Edinburgh points of view; and strangers are led thither6 to see, by yet another instance, how strangely the city lies upon her hills. The enclosure is of an irregular shape; the double church of Old and New Greyfriars stands on the level at the top; a few thorns are dotted here and there, and the ground falls by terrace and steep slope towards the north. The open shows many slabs7 and table tombstones; and all round the margin8, the place is girt by an array of aristocratic mausoleums appallingly9 adorned10.
Setting aside the tombs of Roubiliac, which belong to the heroic order of graveyard11 art, we Scotch12 stand, to my fancy, highest among nations in the matter of grimly illustrating13 death. We seem to love for their own sake the emblems14 of time and the great change; and even around country churches you will find a wonderful exhibition of skulls15, and crossbones, and noseless angels, and trumpets16 pealing17 for the Judgment18 Day. Every mason was a pedestrian Holbein: he had a deep consciousness of death, and loved to put its terrors pithily19 before the churchyard loiterer; he was brimful of rough hints upon mortality, and any dead farmer was seized upon to be a text. The classical examples of this art are in Greyfriars. In their time, these were doubtless costly20 monuments, and reckoned of a very elegant proportion by contemporaries; and now, when the elegance21 is not so apparent, the significance remains22. You may perhaps look with a smile on the profusion23 of Latin mottoes — some crawling endwise up the shaft24 of a pillar, some issuing on a scroll25 from angels’ trumpets — on the emblematic26 horrors, the figures rising headless from the grave, and all the traditional ingenuities27 in which it pleased our fathers to set forth28 their sorrow for the dead and their sense of earthly mutability. But it is not a hearty29 sort of mirth. Each ornament30 may have been executed by the merriest apprentice31, whistling as he plied32 the mallet33; but the original meaning of each, and the combined effect of so many of them in this quiet enclosure, is serious to the point of melancholy34.
Round a great part of the circuit, houses of a low class present their backs to the churchyard. Only a few inches separate the living from the dead. Here, a window is partly blocked up by the pediment of a tomb; there, where the street falls far below the level of the graves, a chimney has been trained up the back of a monument, and a red pot looks vulgarly over from behind. A damp smell of the graveyard finds its way into houses where workmen sit at meat. Domestic life on a small scale goes forward visibly at the windows. The very solitude35 and stillness of the enclosure, which lies apart from the town’s traffic, serves to accentuate36 the contrast. As you walk upon the graves, you see children scattering37 crumbs38 to feed the sparrows; you hear people singing or washing dishes, or the sound of tears and castigation39; the linen40 on a clothes-pole flaps against funereal41 sculpture; or perhaps the cat slips over the lintel and descends42 on a memorial urn3. And as there is nothing else astir, these incongruous sights and noises take hold on the attention and exaggerate the sadness of the place.
Greyfriars is continually overrun by cats. I have seen one afternoon, as many as thirteen of them seated on the grass beside old Milne, the Master Builder, all sleek43 and fat, and complacently44 blinking, as if they had fed upon strange meats. Old Milne was chaunting with the saints, as we may hope, and cared little for the company about his grave; but I confess the spectacle had an ugly side for me; and I was glad to step forward and raise my eyes to where the Castle and the roofs of the Old Town, and the spire45 of the Assembly Hall, stood deployed46 against the sky with the colourless precision of engraving47. An open outlook is to be desired from a churchyard, and a sight of the sky and some of the world’s beauty relieves a mind from morbid48 thoughts.
I shall never forget one visit. It was a grey, dropping day; the grass was strung with rain-drops; and the people in the houses kept hanging out their shirts and petticoats and angrily taking them in again, as the weather turned from wet to fair and back again. A grave-digger, and a friend of his, a gardener from the country, accompanied me into one after another of the cells and little courtyards in which it gratified the wealthy of old days to enclose their old bones from neighbourhood. In one, under a sort of shrine49, we found a forlorn human effigy50, very realistically executed down to the detail of his ribbed stockings, and holding in his hand a ticket with the date of his demise51. He looked most pitiful and ridiculous, shut up by himself in his aristocratic precinct, like a bad old boy or an inferior forgotten deity52 under a new dispensation; the burdocks grew familiarly about his feet, the rain dripped all round him; and the world maintained the most entire indifference53 as to who he was or whither he had gone. In another, a vaulted54 tomb, handsome externally but horrible inside with damp and cobwebs, there were three mounds55 of black earth and an uncovered thigh56 bone. This was the place of interment, it appeared, of a family with whom the gardener had been long in service. He was among old acquaintances. ‘This’ll be Miss Marg’et’s,’ said he, giving the bone a friendly kick. ‘The auld57 —!’ I have always an uncomfortable feeling in a graveyard, at sight of so many tombs to perpetuate58 memories best forgotten; but I never had the impression so strongly as that day. People had been at some expense in both these cases: to provoke a melancholy feeling of derision in the one, and an insulting epithet59 in the other. The proper inscription60 for the most part of mankind, I began to think, is the cynical61 jeer62, Cras Tibi. That, if anything, will stop the mouth of a carper; since it both admits the worst and carries the war triumphantly63 into the enemy’s camp.
Greyfriars is a place of many associations. There was one window in a house at the lower end, now demolished64, which was pointed65 out to me by the gravedigger as a spot of legendary66 interest. Burke, the resurrection man, infamous67 for so many murders at five shillings a-head, used to sit thereat, with pipe and nightcap, to watch burials going forward on the green. In a tomb higher up, which must then have been but newly finished, John Knox, according to the same informant, had taken refuge in a turmoil68 of the Reformation. Behind the church is the haunted mausoleum of Sir George Mackenzie: Bloody69 Mackenzie, Lord Advocate in the Covenanting71 troubles and author of some pleasing sentiments on toleration. Here, in the last century, an old Heriot’s Hospital boy once harboured from the pursuit of the police. The Hospital is next door to Greyfriars — a courtly building among lawns, where, on Founder’s Day, you may see a multitude of children playing Kiss-inthe-Ring and Round the Mulberry-bush. Thus, when the fugitive72 had managed to conceal73 himself in the tomb, his old schoolmates had a hundred opportunities to bring him food; and there he lay in safety till a ship was found to smuggle74 him abroad. But his must have been indeed a heart of brass75, to lie all day and night alone with the dead persecutor76; and other lads were far from emulating77 him in courage. When a man’s soul is certainly in hell, his body will scarce lie quiet in a tomb however costly; some time or other the door must open, and the reprobate78 come forth in the abhorred79 garments of the grave. It was thought a high piece of prowess to knock at the Lord Advocate’s mausoleum and challenge him to appear. ‘Bluidy Mackingie, come oot if ye dar’!’ sang the fool-hardy urchins80. But Sir George had other affairs on hand; and the author of an essay on toleration continues to sleep peacefully among the many whom he so intolerantly helped to slay81.
For this Infelix Campus, as it is dubbed82 in one of its own inscriptions83 — an inscription over which Dr. Johnson passed a critical eye — is in many ways sacred to the memory of the men whom Mackenzie persecuted84. It was here, on the flat tombstones, that the Covenant70 was signed by an enthusiastic people. In the long arm of the church-yard that extends to Lauriston, the prisoners from Bothwell Bridge — fed on bread and water and guarded, life for life, by vigilant85 marksmen — lay five months looking for the scaffold or the plantations86. And while the good work was going forward in the Grassmarket, idlers in Greyfriars might have heard the throb87 of the military drums that drowned the voices of the martyrs88. Nor is this all: for down in the corner farthest from Sir George, there stands a monument dedicated89, in uncouth90 Covenanting verse, to all who lost their lives in that contention91. There is no moorsman shot in a snow shower beside Irongray or Co’monell; there is not one of the two hundred who were drowned off the Orkneys; nor so much as a poor, over-driven, Covenanting slave in the American plantations; but can lay claim to a share in that memorial, and, if such things interest just men among the shades, can boast he has a monument on earth as well as Julius Caesar or the Pharaohs. Where they may all lie, I know not. Far-scattered bones, indeed! But if the reader cares to learn how some of them — or some part of some of them — found their way at length to such honourable92 sepulture, let him listen to the words of one who was their comrade in life and their apologist when they were dead. Some of the insane controversial matter I omit, as well as some digressions, but leave the rest in Patrick Walker’s language and orthography:-
‘The never to be forgotten Mr. James Renwick Told me, that he was Witness to their Public Murder at the Gallowlee, between Leith and Edinburgh, when he saw the Hangman hash and hagg off all their Five Heads, with Patrick Foreman’s Right Hand: Their Bodies were all buried at the Gallows93 Foot; their Heads, with Patrick’s Hand, were brought and put upon five Pikes on the Pleasaunce-Port. . . . Mr. Renwick told me also that it was the first public Action that his Hand was at, to conveen Friends, and lift their murthered Bodies, and carried them to the West Churchyard of Edinburgh,’ — not Greyfriars, this time, — ‘and buried them there. Then they came about the City . . . . and took down these Five Heads and that Hand; and Day being come, they went quickly up the Pleasaunce; and when they came to Lauristoun Yards, upon the South-side of the City, they durst not venture, being so light, to go and bury their Heads with their Bodies, which they designed; it being present Death, if any of them had been found. Alexander Tweedie, a Friend, being with them, who at that Time was Gardner in these Yards, concluded to bury them in his Yard, being in a Box (wrapped in Linen), where they lay 45 Years except 3 Days, being executed upon the 10th of October 1681, and found the 7th Day of OCTOBER 1726. That Piece of Ground lay for some Years unlaboured; and trenching it, the Gardner found them, which affrighted him the Box was consumed. Mr. Schaw, the Owner of these Yards, caused lift them, and lay them upon a Table in his Summer-house: Mr. Schaw’s mother was so kind, as to cut out a Linen-cloth, and cover them. They lay Twelve Days there, where all had Access to see them. Alexander Tweedie, the foresaid Gardner, said, when dying, There was a Treasure hid in his Yard, but neither Gold nor Silver. Daniel Tweedie, his Son, came along with me to that Yard, and told me that his Father planted a white Rose-bush above them, and farther down the Yard a red Rose-bush, which were more fruitful than any other Bush in the Yard. . . . Many came’ — to see the heads — ‘out of Curiosity; yet I rejoiced to see so many concerned grave Men and Women favouring the Dust of our Martyrs. There were Six of us concluded to bury them upon the Nineteenth Day of October 1726, and every One of us to acquaint Friends of the Day and Hour, being Wednesday, the Day of the Week on which most of them were executed, and at 4 of the Clock at Night, being the Hour that most of them went to their resting Graves. We caused make a compleat Coffin94 for them in Black, with four Yards of fine Linen, the way that our Martyrs Corps95 were managed. . . . Accordingly we kept the aforesaid Day and Hour, and doubled the Linen, and laid the Half of it below them, their nether96 jaws97 being parted from their Heads; but being young Men, their Teeth remained. All were Witness to the Holes in each of their Heads, which the Hangman broke with his Hammer; and according to the Bigness of their Sculls, we laid the Jaws to them, and drew the other Half of the Linen above them, and stufft the Coffin with Shavings. Some prest hard to go thorow the chief Parts of the City as was done at the Revolution; but this we refused, considering that it looked airy and frothy, to make such Show of them, and inconsistent with the solid serious Observing of such an affecting, surprizing unheard-of Dispensation: But took the ordinary Way of other Burials from that Place, to wit, we went east the Back of the Wall, and in at Bristo-Port, and down the Way to the Head of the Cowgate, and turned up to the Church-yard, where they were interred98 closs to the Martyrs Tomb, with the greatest Multitude of People Old and Young, Men and Women, Ministers and others, that ever I saw together.’
And so there they were at last, in ‘their resting graves.’ So long as men do their duty, even if it be greatly in a misapprehension, they will be leading pattern lives; and whether or not they come to lie beside a martyrs’ monument, we may be sure they will find a safe haven99 somewhere in the providence100 of God. It is not well to think of death, unless we temper the thought with that of heroes who despised it. Upon what ground, is of small account; if it be only the bishop101 who was burned for his faith in the antipodes, his memory lightens the heart and makes us walk undisturbed among graves. And so the martyrs’ monument is a wholesome102, heartsome spot in the field of the dead; and as we look upon it, a brave influence comes to us from the land of those who have won their discharge and, in another phrase of Patrick Walker’s, got ‘cleanly off the stage.’
1 cemetery | |
n.坟墓,墓地,坟场 | |
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2 antiquity | |
n.古老;高龄;古物,古迹 | |
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3 urn | |
n.(有座脚的)瓮;坟墓;骨灰瓮 | |
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4 superseded | |
[医]被代替的,废弃的 | |
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5 situated | |
adj.坐落在...的,处于某种境地的 | |
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6 thither | |
adv.向那里;adj.在那边的,对岸的 | |
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7 slabs | |
n.厚板,平板,厚片( slab的名词复数 );厚胶片 | |
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8 margin | |
n.页边空白;差额;余地,余裕;边,边缘 | |
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9 appallingly | |
毛骨悚然地 | |
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10 adorned | |
[计]被修饰的 | |
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11 graveyard | |
n.坟场 | |
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12 scotch | |
n.伤口,刻痕;苏格兰威士忌酒;v.粉碎,消灭,阻止;adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
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13 illustrating | |
给…加插图( illustrate的现在分词 ); 说明; 表明; (用示例、图画等)说明 | |
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14 emblems | |
n.象征,标记( emblem的名词复数 ) | |
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15 skulls | |
颅骨( skull的名词复数 ); 脑袋; 脑子; 脑瓜 | |
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16 trumpets | |
喇叭( trumpet的名词复数 ); 小号; 喇叭形物; (尤指)绽开的水仙花 | |
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17 pealing | |
v.(使)(钟等)鸣响,(雷等)发出隆隆声( peal的现在分词 ) | |
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18 judgment | |
n.审判;判断力,识别力,看法,意见 | |
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19 pithily | |
adv.有力地,简洁地 | |
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20 costly | |
adj.昂贵的,价值高的,豪华的 | |
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21 elegance | |
n.优雅;优美,雅致;精致,巧妙 | |
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22 remains | |
n.剩余物,残留物;遗体,遗迹 | |
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23 profusion | |
n.挥霍;丰富 | |
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24 shaft | |
n.(工具的)柄,杆状物 | |
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25 scroll | |
n.卷轴,纸卷;(石刻上的)漩涡 | |
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26 emblematic | |
adj.象征的,可当标志的;象征性 | |
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27 ingenuities | |
足智多谋,心灵手巧( ingenuity的名词复数 ) | |
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28 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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29 hearty | |
adj.热情友好的;衷心的;尽情的,纵情的 | |
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30 ornament | |
v.装饰,美化;n.装饰,装饰物 | |
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31 apprentice | |
n.学徒,徒弟 | |
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32 plied | |
v.使用(工具)( ply的过去式和过去分词 );经常供应(食物、饮料);固定往来;经营生意 | |
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33 mallet | |
n.槌棒 | |
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34 melancholy | |
n.忧郁,愁思;adj.令人感伤(沮丧)的,忧郁的 | |
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35 solitude | |
n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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36 accentuate | |
v.着重,强调 | |
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37 scattering | |
n.[物]散射;散乱,分散;在媒介质中的散播adj.散乱的;分散在不同范围的;广泛扩散的;(选票)数量分散的v.散射(scatter的ing形式);散布;驱散 | |
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38 crumbs | |
int. (表示惊讶)哎呀 n. 碎屑 名词crumb的复数形式 | |
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39 castigation | |
n.申斥,强烈反对 | |
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40 linen | |
n.亚麻布,亚麻线,亚麻制品;adj.亚麻布制的,亚麻的 | |
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41 funereal | |
adj.悲哀的;送葬的 | |
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42 descends | |
v.下来( descend的第三人称单数 );下去;下降;下斜 | |
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43 sleek | |
adj.光滑的,井然有序的;v.使光滑,梳拢 | |
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44 complacently | |
adv. 满足地, 自满地, 沾沾自喜地 | |
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45 spire | |
n.(教堂)尖顶,尖塔,高点 | |
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46 deployed | |
(尤指军事行动)使展开( deploy的过去式和过去分词 ); 施展; 部署; 有效地利用 | |
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47 engraving | |
n.版画;雕刻(作品);雕刻艺术;镌版术v.在(硬物)上雕刻(字,画等)( engrave的现在分词 );将某事物深深印在(记忆或头脑中) | |
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48 morbid | |
adj.病的;致病的;病态的;可怕的 | |
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49 shrine | |
n.圣地,神龛,庙;v.将...置于神龛内,把...奉为神圣 | |
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50 effigy | |
n.肖像 | |
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51 demise | |
n.死亡;v.让渡,遗赠,转让 | |
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52 deity | |
n.神,神性;被奉若神明的人(或物) | |
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53 indifference | |
n.不感兴趣,不关心,冷淡,不在乎 | |
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54 vaulted | |
adj.拱状的 | |
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55 mounds | |
土堆,土丘( mound的名词复数 ); 一大堆 | |
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56 thigh | |
n.大腿;股骨 | |
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57 auld | |
adj.老的,旧的 | |
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58 perpetuate | |
v.使永存,使永记不忘 | |
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59 epithet | |
n.(用于褒贬人物等的)表述形容词,修饰语 | |
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60 inscription | |
n.(尤指石块上的)刻印文字,铭文,碑文 | |
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61 cynical | |
adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的,不信世道向善的 | |
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62 jeer | |
vi.嘲弄,揶揄;vt.奚落;n.嘲笑,讥评 | |
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63 triumphantly | |
ad.得意洋洋地;得胜地;成功地 | |
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64 demolished | |
v.摧毁( demolish的过去式和过去分词 );推翻;拆毁(尤指大建筑物);吃光 | |
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65 pointed | |
adj.尖的,直截了当的 | |
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66 legendary | |
adj.传奇(中)的,闻名遐迩的;n.传奇(文学) | |
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67 infamous | |
adj.声名狼藉的,臭名昭著的,邪恶的 | |
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68 turmoil | |
n.骚乱,混乱,动乱 | |
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69 bloody | |
adj.非常的的;流血的;残忍的;adv.很;vt.血染 | |
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70 covenant | |
n.盟约,契约;v.订盟约 | |
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71 covenanting | |
v.立约,立誓( covenant的现在分词 ) | |
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72 fugitive | |
adj.逃亡的,易逝的;n.逃犯,逃亡者 | |
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73 conceal | |
v.隐藏,隐瞒,隐蔽 | |
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74 smuggle | |
vt.私运;vi.走私 | |
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75 brass | |
n.黄铜;黄铜器,铜管乐器 | |
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76 persecutor | |
n. 迫害者 | |
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77 emulating | |
v.与…竞争( emulate的现在分词 );努力赶上;计算机程序等仿真;模仿 | |
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78 reprobate | |
n.无赖汉;堕落的人 | |
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79 abhorred | |
v.憎恶( abhor的过去式和过去分词 );(厌恶地)回避;拒绝;淘汰 | |
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80 urchins | |
n.顽童( urchin的名词复数 );淘气鬼;猬;海胆 | |
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81 slay | |
v.杀死,宰杀,杀戮 | |
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82 dubbed | |
v.给…起绰号( dub的过去式和过去分词 );把…称为;配音;复制 | |
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83 inscriptions | |
(作者)题词( inscription的名词复数 ); 献词; 碑文; 证劵持有人的登记 | |
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84 persecuted | |
(尤指宗教或政治信仰的)迫害(~sb. for sth.)( persecute的过去式和过去分词 ); 烦扰,困扰或骚扰某人 | |
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85 vigilant | |
adj.警觉的,警戒的,警惕的 | |
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86 plantations | |
n.种植园,大农场( plantation的名词复数 ) | |
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87 throb | |
v.震颤,颤动;(急速强烈地)跳动,搏动 | |
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88 martyrs | |
n.martyr的复数形式;烈士( martyr的名词复数 );殉道者;殉教者;乞怜者(向人诉苦以博取同情) | |
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89 dedicated | |
adj.一心一意的;献身的;热诚的 | |
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90 uncouth | |
adj.无教养的,粗鲁的 | |
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91 contention | |
n.争论,争辩,论战;论点,主张 | |
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92 honourable | |
adj.可敬的;荣誉的,光荣的 | |
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93 gallows | |
n.绞刑架,绞台 | |
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94 coffin | |
n.棺材,灵柩 | |
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95 corps | |
n.(通信等兵种的)部队;(同类作的)一组 | |
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96 nether | |
adj.下部的,下面的;n.阴间;下层社会 | |
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97 jaws | |
n.口部;嘴 | |
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98 interred | |
v.埋,葬( inter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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99 haven | |
n.安全的地方,避难所,庇护所 | |
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100 providence | |
n.深谋远虑,天道,天意;远见;节约;上帝 | |
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101 bishop | |
n.主教,(国际象棋)象 | |
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102 wholesome | |
adj.适合;卫生的;有益健康的;显示身心健康的 | |
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