The choir15 stamped severally on the door-stone to shake from their boots any fragment of earth or leaf adhering thereto, then entered the house and looked around to survey the condition of things. Through the open doorway of a small inner room on the right hand, of a character between pantry and cellar, was Dick Dewy’s father Reuben, by vocation16 a “tranter,” or irregular carrier. He was a stout17 florid man about forty years of age, who surveyed people up and down when first making their acquaintance, and generally smiled at the horizon or other distant object during conversations with friends, walking about with a steady sway, and turning out his toes very considerably18. Being now occupied in bending over a hogshead, that stood in the pantry ready horsed for the process of broaching19, he did not take the trouble to turn or raise his eyes at the entry of his visitors, well knowing by their footsteps that they were the expected old comrades.
The main room, on the left, was decked with bunches of holly20 and other evergreens21, and from the middle of the beam bisecting the ceiling hung the mistletoe, of a size out of all proportion to the room, and extending so low that it became necessary for a full-grown person to walk round it in passing, or run the risk of entangling22 his hair. This apartment contained Mrs. Dewy the tranter’s wife, and the four remaining children, Susan, Jim, Bessy, and Charley, graduating uniformly though at wide stages from the age of sixteen to that of four years — the eldest23 of the series being separated from Dick the firstborn by a nearly equal interval24.
Some circumstance had apparently25 caused much grief to Charley just previous to the entry of the choir, and he had absently taken down a small looking-glass, holding it before his face to learn how the human countenance26 appeared when engaged in crying, which survey led him to pause at the various points in each wail27 that were more than ordinarily striking, for a thorough appreciation28 of the general effect. Bessy was leaning against a chair, and glancing under the plaits about the waist of the plaid frock she wore, to notice the original unfaded pattern of the material as there preserved, her face bearing an expression of regret that the brightness had passed away from the visible portions. Mrs. Dewy sat in a brown settle by the side of the glowing wood fire — so glowing that with a heedful compression of the lips she would now and then rise and put her hand upon the hams and flitches of bacon lining29 the chimney, to reassure30 herself that they were not being broiled31 instead of smoked — a misfortune that had been known to happen now and then at Christmas-time.
“Hullo, my sonnies, here you be, then!” said Reuben Dewy at length, standing up and blowing forth a vehement32 gust33 of breath. “How the blood do puff34 up in anybody’s head, to be sure, a-stooping like that! I was just going out to gate to hark for ye.” He then carefully began to wind a strip of brown paper round a brass36 tap he held in his hand. “This in the cask here is a drop o’ the right sort” (tapping the cask); “’tis a real drop o’ cordial from the best picked apples — Sansoms, Stubbards, Five-corners, and such-like — you d’mind the sort, Michael?” (Michael nodded.) “And there’s a sprinkling of they that grow down by the orchard-rails — streaked37 ones — rail apples we d’call ’em, as ’tis by the rails they grow, and not knowing the right name. The water-cider from ’em is as good as most people’s best cider is.”
“Ay, and of the same make too,” said Bowman. “‘It rained when we wrung38 it out, and the water got into it,’ folk will say. But ’tis on’y an excuse. Watered cider is too common among us.”
“Yes, yes; too common it is!” said Spinks with an inward sigh, whilst his eyes seemed to be looking at the case in an abstract form rather than at the scene before him. “Such poor liquor do make a man’s throat feel very melancholy39 — and is a disgrace to the name of stimmilent.”
“Come in, come in, and draw up to the fire; never mind your shoes,” said Mrs. Dewy, seeing that all except Dick had paused to wipe them upon the door-mat. “I am glad that you’ve stepped up-along at last; and, Susan, you run down to Grammer Kaytes’s and see if you can borrow some larger candles than these fourteens. Tommy Leaf, don’t ye be afeard! Come and sit here in the settle.”
This was addressed to the young man before mentioned, consisting chiefly of a human skeleton and a smock-frock, who was very awkward in his movements, apparently on account of having grown so very fast that before he had had time to get used to his height he was higher.
“Hee — hee — ay!” replied Leaf, letting his mouth continue to smile for some time after his mind had done smiling, so that his teeth remained in view as the most conspicuous41 members of his body.
“Here, Mr. Penny,” resumed Mrs. Dewy, “you sit in this chair. And how’s your daughter, Mrs. Brownjohn?”
“Well, I suppose I must say pretty fair.” He adjusted his spectacles a quarter of an inch to the right. “But she’ll be worse before she’s better, ‘a b’lieve.”
“Indeed — poor soul! And how many will that make in all, four or five?”
“Five; they’ve buried three. Yes, five; and she not much more than a maid yet. She do know the multiplication42 table onmistakable well. However, ’twas to be, and none can gainsay43 it.”
Mrs. Dewy resigned Mr. Penny. “Wonder where your grandfather James is?” she inquired of one of the children. “He said he’d drop in to-night.”
“Out in fuel-house with grandfather William,” said Jimmy.
“Now let’s see what we can do,” was heard spoken about this time by the tranter in a private voice to the barrel, beside which he had again established himself, and was stooping to cut away the cork44.
“Reuben, don’t make such a mess o’ tapping that barrel as is mostly made in this house,” Mrs. Dewy cried from the fireplace. “I’d tap a hundred without wasting more than you do in one. Such a squizzling and squirting job as ’tis in your hands! There, he always was such a clumsy man indoors.”
“Ay, ay; I know you’d tap a hundred beautiful, Ann — I know you would; two hundred, perhaps. But I can’t promise. This is a’ old cask, and the wood’s rotted away about the tap-hole. The husbird of a feller Sam Lawson — that ever I should call’n such, now he’s dead and gone, poor heart! — took me in completely upon the feat10 of buying this cask. ‘Reub,’ says he —‘a always used to call me plain Reub, poor old heart! —‘Reub,’ he said, says he, ‘that there cask, Reub, is as good as new; yes, good as new. ’Tis a wine-hogshead; the best port-wine in the commonwealth45 have been in that there cask; and you shall have en for ten shillens, Reub,’—‘a said, says he —‘he’s worth twenty, ay, five-and-twenty, if he’s worth one; and an iron hoop46 or two put round en among the wood ones will make en worth thirty shillens of any man’s money, if —’”
“I think I should have used the eyes that Providence47 gave me to use afore I paid any ten shillens for a jimcrack wine-barrel; a saint is sinner enough not to be cheated. But ’tis like all your family was, so easy to be deceived.”
“That’s as true as gospel of this member,” said Reuben.
Mrs. Dewy began a smile at the answer, then altering her lips and refolding them so that it was not a smile, commenced smoothing little Bessy’s hair; the tranter having meanwhile suddenly become oblivious48 to conversation, occupying himself in a deliberate cutting and arrangement of some more brown paper for the broaching operation.
“Ah, who can believe sellers!” said old Michael Mail in a carefully-cautious voice, by way of tiding-over this critical point of affairs.
“No one at all,” said Joseph Bowman, in the tone of a man fully35 agreeing with everybody.
“Ay,” said Mail, in the tone of a man who did not agree with everybody as a rule, though he did now; “I knowed a’ auctioneering feller once — a very friendly feller ‘a was too. And so one hot day as I was walking down the front street o’ Casterbridge, jist below the King’s Arms, I passed a’ open winder and see him inside, stuck upon his perch49, a-selling off. I jist nodded to en in a friendly way as I passed, and went my way, and thought no more about it. Well, next day, as I was oilen my boots by fuel-house door, if a letter didn’t come wi’ a bill charging me with a feather-bed, bolster50, and pillers, that I had bid for at Mr. Taylor’s sale. The slim-faced martel had knocked ’em down to me because I nodded to en in my friendly way; and I had to pay for ’em too. Now, I hold that that was coming it very close, Reuben?”
“’Twas close, there’s no denying,” said the general voice.
“Too close, ’twas,” said Reuben, in the rear of the rest. “And as to Sam Lawson — poor heart! now he’s dead and gone too! — I’ll warrant, that if so be I’ve spent one hour in making hoops51 for that barrel, I’ve spent fifty, first and last. That’s one of my hoops”— touching52 it with his elbow —“that’s one of mine, and that, and that, and all these.”
“Ah, Sam was a man,” said Mr. Penny, contemplatively.
“Sam was!” said Bowman.
“Especially for a drap o’ drink,” said the tranter.
“Good, but not religious-good,” suggested Mr. Penny.
The tranter nodded. Having at last made the tap and hole quite ready, “Now then, Suze, bring a mug,” he said. “Here’s luck to us, my sonnies!”
The tap went in, and the cider immediately squirted out in a horizontal shower over Reuben’s hands, knees, and leggings, and into the eyes and neck of Charley, who, having temporarily put off his grief under pressure of more interesting proceedings53, was squatting54 down and blinking near his father.
“There ’tis again!” said Mrs. Dewy.
“Devil take the hole, the cask, and Sam Lawson too, that good cider should be wasted like this!” exclaimed the tranter. “Your thumb! Lend me your thumb, Michael! Ram40 it in here, Michael! I must get a bigger tap, my sonnies.”
“Idd it cold inthide te hole?” inquired Charley of Michael, as he continued in a stooping posture55 with his thumb in the cork-hole.
“What wonderful odds56 and ends that chiel has in his head to be sure!” Mrs. Dewy admiringly exclaimed from the distance. “I lay a wager57 that he thinks more about how ’tis inside that barrel than in all the other parts of the world put together.”
All persons present put on a speaking countenance of admiration58 for the cleverness alluded59 to, in the midst of which Reuben returned. The operation was then satisfactorily performed; when Michael arose and stretched his head to the extremest fraction of height that his body would allow of, to re-straighten his back and shoulders — thrusting out his arms and twisting his features to a mass of wrinkles to emphasize the relief aquired. A quart or two of the beverage60 was then brought to table, at which all the new arrivals reseated themselves with wide-spread knees, their eyes meditatively61 seeking out any speck62 or knot in the board upon which the gaze might precipitate63 itself.
“Whatever is father a-biding out in fuel-house so long for?” said the tranter. “Never such a man as father for two things — cleaving64 up old dead apple-tree wood and playing the bass-viol. ‘A’d pass his life between the two, that ‘a would.” He stepped to the door and opened it.
“Father!”
“Ay!” rang thinly from round the corner.
“Here’s the barrel tapped, and we all a-waiting!”
A series of dull thuds, that had been heard without for some time past, now ceased; and after the light of a lantern had passed the window and made wheeling rays upon the ceiling inside the eldest of the Dewy family appeared.
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1
hipped
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| adj.着迷的，忧郁的 | |
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thatch
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| vt.用茅草覆盖…的顶部；n.茅草(屋) | |
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3
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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clumps
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| n.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的名词复数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声v.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的第三人称单数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声 | |
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7
boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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8
dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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feat
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| n.功绩；武艺，技艺；adj.灵巧的，漂亮的，合适的 | |
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11
joints
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| 接头( joint的名词复数 )； 关节； 公共场所（尤指价格低廉的饮食和娱乐场所） （非正式）； 一块烤肉 （英式英语） | |
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12
beetle
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| n.甲虫，近视眼的人 | |
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13
munching
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| v.用力咀嚼（某物），大嚼( munch的现在分词 ) | |
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14
betokened
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| v.预示，表示( betoken的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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15
choir
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| n.唱诗班，唱诗班的席位，合唱团，舞蹈团；v.合唱 | |
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16
vocation
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| n.职业，行业 | |
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18
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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19
broaching
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| n.拉削；推削；铰孔；扩孔v.谈起( broach的现在分词 )；打开并开始用；用凿子扩大（或修光）；（在桶上）钻孔取液体 | |
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20
holly
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| n.[植]冬青属灌木 | |
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21
evergreens
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| n.常青树，常绿植物，万年青( evergreen的名词复数 ) | |
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22
entangling
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| v.使某人（某物/自己）缠绕，纠缠于（某物中），使某人（自己）陷入（困难或复杂的环境中）( entangle的现在分词 ) | |
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23
eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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24
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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25
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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27
wail
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| vt./vi.大声哀号，恸哭；呼啸，尖啸 | |
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28
appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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lining
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| n.衬里，衬料 | |
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reassure
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| v.使放心，使消除疑虑 | |
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31
broiled
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| a.烤过的 | |
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32
vehement
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| adj.感情强烈的；热烈的；(人)有强烈感情的 | |
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33
gust
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| n.阵风，突然一阵（雨、烟等），（感情的）迸发 | |
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34
puff
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| n.一口(气)；一阵(风)；v.喷气，喘气 | |
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35
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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36
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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37
streaked
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| adj.有条斑纹的，不安的v.快速移动( streak的过去式和过去分词 )；使布满条纹 | |
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38
wrung
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| 绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 )； 握紧（尤指别人的手）； 把（湿衣服）拧干； 绞掉（水） | |
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39
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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40
ram
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| (random access memory)随机存取存储器 | |
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41
conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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42
multiplication
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| n.增加，增多，倍增；增殖，繁殖；乘法 | |
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43
gainsay
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| v.否认，反驳 | |
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44
cork
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| n.软木，软木塞 | |
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45
commonwealth
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| n.共和国，联邦，共同体 | |
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46
hoop
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| n.（篮球）篮圈，篮 | |
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47
providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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48
oblivious
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| adj.易忘的，遗忘的，忘却的，健忘的 | |
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49
perch
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| n.栖木，高位，杆；v.栖息，就位，位于 | |
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50
bolster
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| n.枕垫；v.支持，鼓励 | |
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51
hoops
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| n.箍( hoop的名词复数 )；（篮球）篮圈；（旧时儿童玩的）大环子；（两端埋在地里的）小铁弓 | |
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52
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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53
proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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54
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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55
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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56
odds
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| n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别 | |
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57
wager
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| n.赌注；vt.押注，打赌 | |
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58
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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59
alluded
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| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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60
beverage
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| n.(水，酒等之外的)饮料 | |
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61
meditatively
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| adv.冥想地 | |
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62
speck
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| n.微粒，小污点，小斑点 | |
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63
precipitate
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| adj.突如其来的；vt.使突然发生；n.沉淀物 | |
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64
cleaving
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| v.劈开，剁开，割开( cleave的现在分词 ) | |
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