Captain Jorgan had to look high to look at it, for the village was built sheer up the face of a steep and lofty cliff. There was no road in it, there was no wheeled vehicle in it, there was not a level yard in it. From the sea-beach to the cliff-top two irregular rows of white houses, placed opposite to one another, and twisting here and there, and there and here, rose, like the sides of a long succession of stages of crooked2 ladders, and you climbed up the village or climbed down the village by the staves between, some six feet wide or so, and made of sharp irregular stones. The old pack- saddle, long laid aside in most parts of England as one of the appendages3 of its infancy4, flourished here intact. Strings5 of pack- horses and pack-donkeys toiled6 slowly up the staves of the ladders, bearing fish, and coal, and such other cargo7 as was unshipping at the pier8 from the dancing fleet of village boats, and from two or three little coasting traders. As the beasts of burden ascended9 laden10, or descended11 light, they got so lost at intervals12 in the floating clouds of village smoke, that they seemed to dive down some of the village chimneys, and come to the surface again far off, high above others. No two houses in the village were alike, in chimney, size, shape, door, window, gable, roof-tree, anything. The sides of the ladders were musical with water, running clear and bright. The staves were musical with the clattering13 feet of the pack-horses and pack-donkeys, and the voices of the fishermen urging them up, mingled14 with the voices of the fishermen’s wives and their many children. The pier was musical with the wash of the sea, the creaking of capstans and windlasses, and the airy fluttering of little vanes and sails. The rough, sea-bleached boulders15 of which the pier was made, and the whiter boulders of the shore, were brown with drying nets. The red-brown cliffs, richly wooded to their extremest verge16, had their softened17 and beautiful forms reflected in the bluest water, under the clear North Devonshire sky of a November day without a cloud. The village itself was so steeped in autumnal foliage18, from the houses lying on the pier to the topmost round of the topmost ladder, that one might have fancied it was out a bird’s- nesting, and was (as indeed it was) a wonderful climber. And mentioning birds, the place was not without some music from them too; for the rook was very busy on the higher levels, and the gull19 with his flapping wings was fishing in the bay, and the lusty little robin20 was hopping21 among the great stone blocks and iron rings of the breakwater, fearless in the faith of his ancestors, and the Children in the Wood.
Thus it came to pass that Captain Jorgan, sitting balancing himself on the pier-wall, struck his leg with his open hand, as some men do when they are pleased — and as he always did when he was pleased — and said —
“A mighty sing’lar and pretty place it is, as ever I saw in all the days of my life!”
Captain Jorgan had not been through the village, but had come down to the pier by a winding22 side-road, to have a preliminary look at it from the level of his own natural element. He had seen many things and places, and had stowed them all away in a shrewd intellect and a vigorous memory. He was an American born, was Captain Jorgan — a New-Englander — but he was a citizen of the world, and a combination of most of the best qualities of most of its best countries.
For Captain Jorgan to sit anywhere in his long-skirted blue coat and blue trousers, without holding converse23 with everybody within speaking distance, was a sheer impossibility. So the captain fell to talking with the fishermen, and to asking them knowing questions about the fishery, and the tides, and the currents, and the race of water off that point yonder, and what you kept in your eye, and got into a line with what else when you ran into the little harbour; and other nautical24 profundities25. Among the men who exchanged ideas with the captain was a young fellow, who exactly hit his fancy — a young fisherman of two or three and twenty, in the rough sea-dress of his craft, with a brown face, dark curling hair, and bright, modest eyes under his Sou’wester hat, and with a frank, but simple and retiring manner, which the captain found uncommonly26 taking. “I’d bet a thousand dollars,” said the captain to himself, “that your father was an honest man!”
“Might you be married now?” asked the captain, when he had had some talk with this new acquaintance.
“Not yet.”
“Going to be?” said the captain.
“I hope so.”
The captain’s keen glance followed the slightest possible turn of the dark eye, and the slightest possible tilt28 of the Sou’wester hat. The captain then slapped both his legs, and said to himself —
“Never knew such a good thing in all my life! There’s his sweetheart looking over the wall!”
There was a very pretty girl looking over the wall, from a little platform of cottage, vine, and fuchsia; and she certainly dig not look as if the presence of this young fisherman in the landscape made it any the less sunny and hopeful for her.
Captain Jorgan, having doubled himself up to laugh with that hearty29 good-nature which is quite exultant30 in the innocent happiness of other people, had undoubted himself, and was going to start a new subject, when there appeared coming down the lower ladders of stones, a man whom he hailed as “Tom Pettifer, Ho!” Tom Pettifer, Ho, responded with alacrity31, and in speedy course descended on the pier.
“Afraid of a sun-stroke in England in November, Tom, that you wear your tropical hat, strongly paid outside and paper-lined inside, here?” said the captain, eyeing it.
“It’s as well to be on the safe side, sir,” replied Tom.
“Safe side!” repeated the captain, laughing. “You’d guard against a sun-stroke, with that old hat, in an Ice Pack. Wa’al! What have you made out at the Post-office?”
“It is the Post-office, sir.”
“What’s the Post-office?” said the captain.
“The name, sir. The name keeps the Post-office.”
“A coincidence!” said the captain. “A lucky bit! Show me where it is. Good-bye, shipmates, for the present! I shall come and have another look at you, afore I leave, this afternoon.”
This was addressed to all there, but especially the young fisherman; so all there acknowledged it, but especially the young fisherman. “He’s a sailor!” said one to another, as they looked after the captain moving away. That he was; and so outspeaking was the sailor in him, that although his dress had nothing nautical about it, with the single exception of its colour, but was a suit of a shore-going shape and form, too long in the sleeves and too short in the legs, and too unaccommodating everywhere, terminating earthward in a pair of Wellington boots, and surmounted32 by a tall, stiff hat, which no mortal could have worn at sea in any wind under heaven; nevertheless, a glimpse of his sagacious, weather-beaten face, or his strong, brown hand, would have established the captain’s calling. Whereas Mr. Pettifer — a man of a certain plump neatness, with a curly whisker, and elaborately nautical in a jacket, and shoes, and all things correspondent — looked no more like a seaman33, beside Captain Jorgan, than he looked like a sea-serpent.
The two climbed high up the village — which had the most arbitrary turns and twists in it, so that the cobbler’s house came dead across the ladder, and to have held a reasonable course, you must have gone through his house, and through him too, as he sat at his work between two little windows — with one eye microscopically34 on the geological formation of that part of Devonshire, and the other telescopically on the open sea — the two climbed high up the village, and stopped before a quaint27 little house, on which was painted, “MRS. RAYBROCK, DRAPER;” and also “POST-OFFICE.” Before it, ran a rill of murmuring water, and access to it was gained by a little plank-bridge.
“Here’s the name,” said Captain Jorgan, “sure enough. You can come in if you like, Tom.”
The captain opened the door, and passed into an odd little shop, about six feet high, with a great variety of beams and bumps in the ceiling, and, besides the principal window giving on the ladder of stones, a purblind35 little window of a single pane36 of glass, peeping out of an abutting37 corner at the sun-lighted ocean, and winking38 at its brightness.
“How do you do, ma’am?” said the captain. “I am very glad to see you. I have come a long way to see you.”
“Have you, sir? Then I am sure I am very glad to see you, though I don’t know you from Adam.”
Thus a comely39 elderly woman, short of stature40, plump of form, sparkling and dark of eye, who, perfectly41 clean and neat herself, stood in the midst of her perfectly clean and neat arrangements, and surveyed Captain Jorgan with smiling curiosity. “Ah! but you are a sailor, sir,” she added, almost immediately, and with a slight movement of her hands, that was not very unlike wringing42 them; “then you are heartily43 welcome.”
“Thank’ee, ma’am,” said the captain, “I don’t know what it is, I am sure; that brings out the salt in me, but everybody seems to see it on the crown of my hat and the collar of my coat. Yes, ma’am, I am in that way of life.”
“And the other gentleman, too,” said Mrs. Raybrock.
“Well now, ma’am,” said the captain, glancing shrewdly at the other gentleman, “you are that nigh right, that he goes to sea — if that makes him a sailor. This is my steward44, ma’am, Tom Pettifer; he’s been a’most all trades you could name, in the course of his life — would have bought all your chairs and tables once, if you had wished to sell ’em — but now he’s my steward. My name’s Jorgan, and I’m a ship-owner, and I sail my own and my partners’ ships, and have done so this five-and-twenty year. According to custom I am called Captain Jorgan, but I am no more a captain, bless your heart, than you are.”
“Perhaps you’ll come into my parlour, sir, and take a chair?” said Mrs. Raybrock.
“Ex-actly what I was going to propose myself, ma’am. After you.”
Thus replying, and enjoining45 Tom to give an eye to the shop, Captain Jorgan followed Mrs. Raybrock into the little, low back-room — decorated with divers46 plants in pots, tea-trays, old china teapots, and punch-bowls — which was at once the private sitting-room47 of the Raybrock family and the inner cabinet of the post-office of the village of Steepways.
“Now, ma’am,” said the captain, “it don’t signify a cent to you where I was born, except —” But here the shadow of some one entering fell upon the captain’s figure, and he broke off to double himself up, slap both his legs, and ejaculate, “Never knew such a thing in all my life! Here he is again! How are you?”
These words referred to the young fellow who had so taken Captain Jorgan’s fancy down at the pier. To make it all quite complete he came in accompanied by the sweetheart whom the captain had detected looking over the wall. A prettier sweetheart the sun could not have shone upon that shining day. As she stood before the captain, with her rosy48 lips just parted in surprise, her brown eyes a little wider open than was usual from the same cause, and her breathing a little quickened by the ascent49 (and possibly by some mysterious hurry and flurry at the parlour door, in which the captain had observed her face to be for a moment totally eclipsed by the Sou’wester hat), she looked so charming, that the captain felt himself under a moral obligation to slap both his legs again. She was very simply dressed, with no other ornament50 than an autumnal flower in her bosom51. She wore neither hat nor bonnet52, but merely a scarf or kerchief, folded squarely back over the head, to keep the sun off — according to a fashion that may be sometimes seen in the more genial53 parts of England as well as of Italy, and which is probably the first fashion of head-dress that came into the world when grasses and leaves went out.
“In my country,” said the captain, rising to give her his chair, and dexterously54 sliding it close to another chair on which the young fisherman must necessarily establish himself — “in my country we should call Devonshire beauty first-rate!”
Whenever a frank manner is offensive, it is because it is strained or feigned55; for there may be quite as much intolerable affectation in plainness as in mincing56 nicety. All that the captain said and did was honestly according to his nature; and his nature was open nature and good nature; therefore, when he paid this little compliment, and expressed with a sparkle or two of his knowing eye, “I see how it is, and nothing could be better,” he had established a delicate confidence on that subject with the family.
“I was saying to your worthy57 mother,” said the captain to the young man, after again introducing himself by name and occupation — “I was saying to your mother (and you’re very like her) that it didn’t signify where I was born, except that I was raised on question- asking ground, where the babies as soon as ever they come into the world, inquire of their mothers, ‘Neow, how old may you be, and wa’at air you a goin’ to name me?’— which is a fact.” Here he slapped his leg. “Such being the case, I may be excused for asking you if your name’s Alfred?”
“Yes, sir, my name is Alfred,” returned the young man.
“I am not a conjurer,” pursued the captain, “and don’t think me so, or I shall right soon undeceive you. Likewise don’t think, if you please, though I do come from that country of the babies, that I am asking questions for question-asking’s sake, for I am not. Somebody belonging to you went to sea?”
“My elder brother, Hugh,” returned the young man. He said it in an altered and lower voice, and glanced at his mother, who raised her hands hurriedly, and put them together across her black gown, and looked eagerly at the visitor.
“No! For God’s sake, don’t think that!” said the captain, in a solemn way; “I bring no good tidings of him.”
There was a silence, and the mother turned her face to the fire and put her hand between it and her eyes. The young fisherman slightly motioned toward the window, and the captain, looking in that direction, saw a young widow, sitting at a neighbouring window across a little garden, engaged in needlework, with a young child sleeping on her bosom. The silence continued until the captain asked of Alfred —
“How long is it since it happened?”
“He shipped for his last voyage better than three years ago.”
“Ship struck upon some reef or rock, as I take it,” said the captain, “and all hands lost?”
“Yes.”
“Wa’al!” said the captain, after a shorter silence, “Here I sit who may come to the same end, like enough. He holds the seas in the hollow of His hand. We must all strike somewhere and go down. Our comfort, then, for ourselves and one another is to have done our duty. I’d wager58 your brother did his!”
“He did!” answered the young fisherman. “If ever man strove faithfully on all occasions to do his duty, my brother did. My brother was not a quick man (anything but that), but he was a faithful, true, and just man. We were the sons of only a small tradesman in this county, sir; yet our father was as watchful59 of his good name as if he had been a king.”
“A precious sight more so, I hope — bearing in mind the general run of that class of crittur,” said the captain. “But I interrupt.”
“My brother considered that our father left the good name to us, to keep clear and true.”
“Your brother considered right,” said the captain; “and you couldn’t take care of a better legacy60. But again I interrupt.”
“No; for I have nothing more to say. We know that Hugh lived well for the good name, and we feel certain that he died well for the good name. And now it has come into my keeping. And that’s all.”
“Well spoken!” cried the captain. “Well spoken, young man! Concerning the manner of your brother’s death,”— by this time the captain had released the hand he had shaken, and sat with his own broad, brown hands spread out on his knees, and spoke61 aside — “concerning the manner of your brother’s death, it may be that I have some information to give you; though it may not be, for I am far from sure. Can we have a little talk alone?”
The young man rose; but not before the captain’s quick eye had noticed that, on the pretty sweetheart’s turning to the window to greet the young widow with a nod and a wave of the hand, the young widow had held up to her the needlework on which she was engaged, with a patient and pleasant smile. So the captain said, being on his legs —
“What might she be making now?”
“What is Margaret making, Kitty?” asked the young fisherman — with one of his arms apparently62 mislaid somewhere.
As Kitty only blushed in reply, the captain doubled himself up as far as he could, standing63, and said, with a slap of his leg, —
“In my country we should call it wedding-clothes. Fact! We should, I do assure you.”
But it seemed to strike the captain in another light too; for his laugh was not a long one, and he added, in quite a gentle tone, —
“And it’s very pretty, my dear, to see her — poor young thing, with her fatherless child upon her bosom — giving up her thoughts to your home and your happiness. It’s very pretty, my dear, and it’s very good. May your marriage be more prosperous than hers, and be a comfort to her too. May the blessed sun see you all happy together, in possession of the good name, long after I have done ploughing the great salt field that is never sown!”
Kitty answered very earnestly, “O! Thank you, sir, with all my heart!” And, in her loving little way, kissed her hand to him, and possibly by implication to the young fisherman, too, as the latter held the parlour-door open for the captain to pass out.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
mighty
|
|
| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
crooked
|
|
| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
appendages
|
|
| n.附属物( appendage的名词复数 )；依附的人；附属器官；附属肢体（如臂、腿、尾等） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
infancy
|
|
| n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
strings
|
|
| n.弦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
toiled
|
|
| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的过去式和过去分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
cargo
|
|
| n.(一只船或一架飞机运载的)货物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
pier
|
|
| n.码头；桥墩，桥柱；[建]窗间壁，支柱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
ascended
|
|
| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
laden
|
|
| adj.装满了的；充满了的；负了重担的；苦恼的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
descended
|
|
| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
intervals
|
|
| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
clattering
|
|
| 发出咔哒声（clatter的现在分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
mingled
|
|
| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
boulders
|
|
| n.卵石( boulder的名词复数 )；巨砾；（受水或天气侵蚀而成的）巨石；漂砾 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
verge
|
|
| n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
softened
|
|
| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
foliage
|
|
| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
gull
|
|
| n.鸥；受骗的人；v.欺诈 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
robin
|
|
| n.知更鸟，红襟鸟 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
hopping
|
|
| n. 跳跃 动词hop的现在分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
winding
|
|
| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
converse
|
|
| vi.谈话，谈天，闲聊；adv.相反的，相反 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
nautical
|
|
| adj.海上的，航海的，船员的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
profundities
|
|
| n.深奥，深刻，深厚( profundity的名词复数 )；堂奥 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
uncommonly
|
|
| adv. 稀罕(极，非常) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
quaint
|
|
| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
tilt
|
|
| v.(使)倾侧；(使)倾斜；n.倾侧；倾斜 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
hearty
|
|
| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
exultant
|
|
| adj.欢腾的，狂欢的，大喜的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
alacrity
|
|
| n.敏捷，轻快，乐意 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
surmounted
|
|
| 战胜( surmount的过去式和过去分词 )； 克服（困难）； 居于…之上； 在…顶上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
seaman
|
|
| n.海员，水手，水兵 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
microscopically
|
|
| 显微镜下 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
purblind
|
|
| adj.半盲的；愚笨的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
pane
|
|
| n.窗格玻璃，长方块 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
abutting
|
|
| adj.邻接的v.（与…）邻接( abut的现在分词 )；（与…）毗连；接触；倚靠 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
winking
|
|
| n.瞬眼，目语v.使眼色( wink的现在分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
comely
|
|
| adj.漂亮的，合宜的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
stature
|
|
| n.（高度）水平，（高度）境界，身高，身材 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
perfectly
|
|
| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
wringing
|
|
| 淋湿的，湿透的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
heartily
|
|
| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
steward
|
|
| n.乘务员，服务员；看管人；膳食管理员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
enjoining
|
|
| v.命令( enjoin的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
divers
|
|
| adj.不同的；种种的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
sitting-room
|
|
| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
rosy
|
|
| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
ascent
|
|
| n.(声望或地位)提高；上升，升高；登高 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
ornament
|
|
| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
bosom
|
|
| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
bonnet
|
|
| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
genial
|
|
| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
dexterously
|
|
| adv.巧妙地，敏捷地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
feigned
|
|
| a.假装的，不真诚的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
mincing
|
|
| adj.矫饰的；v.切碎；切碎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
worthy
|
|
| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
wager
|
|
| n.赌注；vt.押注，打赌 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
watchful
|
|
| adj.注意的，警惕的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
legacy
|
|
| n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
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： |
|
|
|
|
62
apparently
|
|
| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |