Jan found favor with his new friends. The master’s sharp eyes noted3 that the prescribed ablutions seemed both pleasant and familiar to the new boy, and the superintendent4 of the wood-chopping department expressed his opinion that Jan’s intelligence and dexterity5 were wasted among the fagots, and that his vocation1 was to be a brushmaker at least, if not a joiner.
Of such trades as were open to him in the Home Jan inclined to cabinet-making. It must be amusing to dab6 little bunches of bristles7 so deftly8 into little holes with hot pitch as to produce a hearth-brush, but as a life-work it does not satisfy ambition. For boot-making he felt no fancy, and the tailor’s shop had a dash of corduroy and closeness in the atmosphere not grateful to nostrils9 so long refreshed by the breezes of the plains. But, when an elder boy led him into the airy room of the cabinet-maker, Jan found a subject of interest. The man was making a piece of furniture to order; the boys had done the rough work, and he was finishing it. It was a combination of shelves and cupboard, and was something like an old oak cabinet which stood in Master Chuter’s parlor10, and which, in Jan’s opinion, was both handsomer and more convenient than this. When the joiner, amused by the keen gaze of Jan’s black eyes, asked him good-naturedly “how he liked it,” Jan expressed his opinion, to illustrate11 which he involuntarily took up the fat pencil lying on the bench, and made a sketch12 of Master Chuter’s cabinet upon a bit of wood.
News spreads with mysterious swiftness in all communities, large and small. Before dinner-time, it was known throughout the Home that the master joiner had applied13 for the new boy as a pupil, and that he could draw with a black-lead pencil, and set his betters to rights.
The master had passed through several phases of feeling over Jan during that morning. His first impression had been dispelled14 by Jan’s orderly ways, and the absence of any vagrant15 restlessness about him. The joiner’s report awoke a hope that he would become a star of the institution, but as his acquirements came to the light, and he proved not merely to have a good voice, but to have been in a choir16, the master’s generous hopes received a check, and as the day passed on he became more and more convinced that it was a case to be “restored to his friends.”
When two o’clock came, and the boys were all out for “recreation,” Jan had to endure some chaff17 on the subject of his accomplishments18. But the banter19 of London street boys was familiar to him, and he took it in good part. When they found him good-tempered, he was soon popular, and they asked his history with friendly curiosity.
“And vot sort of a mansion20 did you hang out in ven you wos at home?” inquired a little lad, whose rosy21 cheeks and dancing eyes would have qualified22 him to sit as a model for the hero of some little tale of rustic23 life and simplicity24, but who had graduated in the lowest lore25 of the streets so much before he was properly able to walk that he was bandy-legged in consequence. There must have been some blood in him that was domestic and not vagrant in its currents, for he was as a rule one of the steadiest and best-behaved boys in the establishment. Only from time to time he burst out into street slang of the strongest description, apparently26 as a relief to his feelings. Happily for the cause it had at heart, the Boys’ Home was guided by large-minded counsels, and if the eyes of the master were as the eyes of Argus, they could also wink27 on occasion. “Hout with it!” said the bow-legged boy, straddling before Jan. “If it wos Buckingham Palace as you resided in, make a clean breast of it, and hease your mind.”
“Thee knows more of palaces than the likes of me. Thee manners be so fine,” said Jan; and the repartee28 drew a roar of laughter, in which the bandy-legged boy joined. “But I’ve lived in a windmill,” Jan added, “and that be more than thee’ve done, I fancy.”
Some of the boys had seen windmills, and some had not; and there was a strong tendency among the boys who had to give exaggerated, not to say totally fictitious29, descriptions of those buildings to the boys who had not. There was a quick, prevailing30 impression, however, that Jan’s word could be trusted, and he was appealed to. “Take it off in a picter,” said the bandy-legged boy. “We heered as you took off a sweet of furnitur in the Master’s face. Take off the windmill, if you lived in it.”
There was a bit of chalk in Jan’s pocket, and the courtyard was paved. He knelt down, and the boys gathered round him. They were sharp enough to be sympathetic, and when he begged them to be quiet they kept a breathless silence, which was broken only by the distant roar of London outside, and by the Master’s voice speaking in an adjoining passage.
“I can hardly say, sir, that I fear, but I think you’ll find most of them look too hearty31 and comfortable for your purpose.”
About Jan the silence was breathless. The bow-legged boy literally32 laid his hand upon his mouth, and he had better have laid it over his eyes, for they seemed in danger of falling out of their sockets33.
Jan covered his for a moment, and then looked upwards34. Back upon his sensitive memory rolled the past, like a returning tide which sweeps every thing before it. Much clearer than those roofs and chimney-stacks the windmill stood against the sky, with arms outstretched as if to recall its truant35 son. If he had needed it to draw from, it was there, plain enough. But how should he need to see it, on whose heart every line of it was written? He could have laid his hand in the dark upon the bricks that were weather-stained into fanciful landscapes upon its walls, and planted his feet on the spot where the grass was most worn down about its base.
He drew with such power and rapidity that only some awe36 of the look upon his face could have kept silence in the little crowd whom he had forgotten. And when the last scrap37 of chalk had crumbled38, and he dragged his blackened finger over the foreground till it bled, the voice which broke the silence was the voice of a stranger, who stood with the master on the threshold of the court-yard.
Never perhaps was more conveyed in one word than in that which he spoke39, though its meaning was known to himself alone,—
“Giotto!”
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
vocation
|
|
| n.职业，行业 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
vocations
|
|
| n.（认为特别适合自己的）职业( vocation的名词复数 )；使命；神召；（认为某种工作或生活方式特别适合自己的）信心 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
noted
|
|
| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
superintendent
|
|
| n.监督人，主管，总监；(英国)警务长 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
dexterity
|
|
| n.(手的)灵巧，灵活 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
dab
|
|
| v.轻触，轻拍，轻涂；n.(颜料等的)轻涂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
bristles
|
|
| 短而硬的毛发，刷子毛( bristle的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
deftly
|
|
| adv.灵巧地，熟练地，敏捷地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
nostrils
|
|
| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
parlor
|
|
| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
illustrate
|
|
| v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
sketch
|
|
| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
applied
|
|
| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
dispelled
|
|
| v.驱散，赶跑( dispel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
vagrant
|
|
| n.流浪者，游民；adj.流浪的，漂泊不定的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
choir
|
|
| n.唱诗班，唱诗班的席位，合唱团，舞蹈团；v.合唱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
chaff
|
|
| v.取笑，嘲笑；n.谷壳 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
accomplishments
|
|
| n.造诣；完成( accomplishment的名词复数 )；技能；成绩；成就 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
banter
|
|
| n.嘲弄，戏谑；v.取笑，逗弄，开玩笑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
mansion
|
|
| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
rosy
|
|
| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
qualified
|
|
| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
rustic
|
|
| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
simplicity
|
|
| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
lore
|
|
| n.传说；学问，经验，知识 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
apparently
|
|
| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
wink
|
|
| n.眨眼，使眼色，瞬间；v.眨眼，使眼色，闪烁 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
repartee
|
|
| n.机敏的应答 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
fictitious
|
|
| adj.虚构的，假设的；空头的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
prevailing
|
|
| adj.盛行的；占优势的；主要的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
hearty
|
|
| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
literally
|
|
| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
sockets
|
|
| n.套接字，使应用程序能够读写与收发通讯协定(protocol)与资料的程序( Socket的名词复数 )；孔( socket的名词复数 )；（电器上的）插口；托座；凹穴 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
upwards
|
|
| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
truant
|
|
| n.懒惰鬼，旷课者；adj.偷懒的，旷课的，游荡的；v.偷懒，旷课 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
awe
|
|
| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
scrap
|
|
| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
crumbled
|
|
| （把…）弄碎， （使）碎成细屑( crumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 衰落； 坍塌； 损坏 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
spoke
|
|
| 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： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |