‘That’s a devilish fine girl,’ said Mark Wylder.
He was sitting at this moment on the billiard table, with his coat off and his cue in his hand, and had lighted a cigar. He and I had just had a game, and were tired of it.
‘Who?’ I asked. He was looking on me from the corners of his eyes, and smiling in a sly, rakish way, that no man likes in another.
‘Radie Lake — she’s a splendid girl, by Jove! Don’t you think so? and she liked me once devilish well, I can tell you. She was thin then, but she has plumped out a bit, and improved every way.’
Whatever else he was, Mark was certainly no beauty; — a little short he was, and rather square — one shoulder a thought higher than the other — and a slight, energetic hitch1 in it when he walked. His features in profile had something of a Grecian character, but his face was too broad — very brown, rather a bloodless brown — and he had a pair of great, dense2, vulgar, black whiskers. He was very vain of his teeth — his only really good point — for his eyes were a small cunning, gray pair; and this, perhaps, was the reason why he had contracted his habit of laughing and grinning a good deal more than the fun of the dialogue always warranted.
This sea-monster smoked here as unceremoniously as he would have done in ‘Rees’s Divan,’ and I only wonder he did not call for brandy-and-water. He had either grown coarser a great deal, or I more decent, during our separation. He talked of his fiancée as he might of an opera-girl almost, and was now discussing Miss Lake in the same style.
‘Yes, she is — she’s very well; but hang it, Wylder, you’re a married man now, and must give up talking that way. People won’t like it, you know; they’ll take it to mean more than it does, and you oughtn’t. Let us have another game.’
‘By-and-by; what do you think of Larkin?’ asked Wylder, with a sly glance from the corners of his eyes. ‘I think he prays rather more than is good for his clients; mind I spell it with an ‘a,’ not with an ‘e;’ but hang it, for an attorney, you know, and such a sharp chap, it does seem to me rather a — a joke, eh?’
‘He bears a good character among the townspeople, doesn’t he? And I don’t see that it can do him any harm, remembering that he has a soul to be saved.’
‘Or the other thing, eh?’ laughed Wylder. ‘But I think he comes it a little too strong — two sermons last Sunday, and a prayer-meeting at nine o’clock?’
‘Well, it won’t do him any harm,’ I repeated.
‘Harm! O, let Jos. Larkin alone for that. It gets him all the religious business of the county; and there are nice pickings among the charities, and endowments, and purchases of building sites, and trust deeds; I dare say it brings him in two or three hundred a year, eh?’ And Wylder laughed again. ‘It has broken up his hard, proud heart,’ he says; ‘but it left him a devilish hard head, I told him, and I think it sharpens his wits.’
‘I rather think you’ll find him a useful man; and to be so in his line of business he must have his wits about him, I can tell you.’
‘He amused me devilishly,’ said Wylder, ‘with a sort of exhortation3 he treated me to; he’s a delightfully4 impudent5 chap, and gave me to understand I was a limb of the Devil, and he a saint. I told him I was better than he, in my humble6 opinion, and so I am, by chalks. I know very well I’m a miserable7 sinner, but there’s mercy above, and I don’t hide my faults. I don’t set up for a light or a saint; I’m just what the Prayer-book says — neither more nor less — a miserable sinner. There’s only one good thing I can safely say for myself — I am no Pharisee; that’s all; I air no religious prig, puffing8 myself, and trusting to forms, making long prayers in the market-place’ (Mark’s quotations9 were paraphrastic), ‘and thinking of nothing but the uppermost seats in the synagogue, and broad borders, and the praise of men — hang them, I hate those fellows.’
So Mark, like other men we meet with, was proud of being a Publican; and his prayer was —‘I thank Thee that I am not as other men are, spiritually proud, formalists, hypocrites, or even as this Pharisee.’
‘Do you wish another game?’ I asked.
‘Just now,’ said Wylder, emitting first a thin stream of smoke, and watching its ascent10. ‘Dorcas is the belle11 of the county; and she likes me, though she’s odd, and don’t show it the way other girls would. But a fellow knows pretty well when a girl likes him, and you know the marriage is a sensible sort of thing, and I’m determined12, of course, to carry it through; but, hang it, a fellow can’t help thinking sometimes there are other things besides money, and Dorcas is not my style. Rachel’s more that way; she’s a tremendious fine girl, by Jove! and a spirited minx, too; and I think,’ he added, with an oath, having first taken two puffs13 at his cigar, ‘if I had seen her first, I’d have thought twice before I’d have got myself into this business.’
I only smiled and shook my head. I did not believe a word of it. Yet, perhaps, I was wrong. He knew very well how to take care of his money; in fact, compared with other young fellows, he was a bit of a screw. But he could do a handsome and generous thing for himself. His selfishness would expand nobly, and rise above his prudential considerations, and drown them sometimes; and he was the sort of person, who, if the fancy were strong enough, might marry in haste, and repent14 — and make his wife, too, repent — at leisure.
‘What do you laugh at, Charlie?’ said Wylder, grinning himself.
‘At your confounded grumbling15, Mark. The luckiest dog in England! Will nothing content you?’
‘Why, I grumble16 very little, I think, considering how well off I am,’ rejoined he, with a laugh.
‘Grumble! If you had a particle of gratitude17, you’d build a temple to Fortune — you’re pagan enough for it, Mark.’
‘Fortune has nothing to do with it,’ says Mark, laughing again.
‘Well, certainly, neither had you.’
‘It was all the Devil. I’m not joking, Charlie, upon my word, though I’m laughing.’ (Mark swore now and then, but I take leave to soften18 his oaths). ‘It was the Persian Magician.’
‘Come, Mark, say what you mean.’
‘I mean what I say. When we were in the Persian Gulf19, near six years ago, I was in command of the ship. The captain, you see, was below, with a hurt in his leg. We had very rough weather — a gale20 for two days and a night almost — and a heavy swell21 after. In the night time we picked up three poor devils in an open boat —. One was a Persian merchant, with a grand beard. We called him the magician, he was so like the pictures of Aladdin’s uncle.’
‘Why he was an African,’ I interposed, my sense of accuracy offended.
‘I don’t care a curse what he was,’ rejoined Mark; ‘he was exactly like the picture in the story-books. And as we were lying off — I forget the cursed name of it — he begged me to put him ashore22. He could not speak a word of English, but one of the fellows with him interpreted, and they were all anxious to get ashore. Poor devils, they had a notion, I believe, we were going to sell them for slaves, and he made me a present of a ring, and told me a long yarn23 about it. It was a talisman24, it seems, and no one who wore it could ever be lost. So I took it for a keepsake; here it is,’ and he extended his stumpy, brown little finger, and showed a thick, coarsely-made ring of gold, with an uncut red stone, of the size of a large cherry stone, set in it.
‘The stone is a humbug,’ said Wylder. ‘It’s not real. I showed it to Platten and Foyle. It’s some sort of glass. But I would not part with it. I got a fancy into my head that luck would come with it, and maybe that glass stuff was the thing that had the virtue25 in it. Now look at these Persian letters on the inside, for that’s the oddest thing about it. Hang it, I can’t pull it off — I’m growing as fat as a pig — but they are like a queer little string of flowers; and I showed it to a clever fellow at Malta — a missionary26 chap — and he read it off slick, and what do you think it means: “I will come up again;”’ and he swore a great oath. ‘It’s as true as you stand there — our motto. Is not it odd? So I got the “resurgam” you see there engraved27 round it, and by Jove! it did bring me up. I was near lost, and did rise again. Eh?’
Well, it certainly was a curious accident. Mark had plenty of odd and not unamusing lore28. Men who beat about the world in ships usually have; and these ‘yarns,’ furnished, after the pattern of Othello’s tales of Anthropophagites and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders, one of the many varieties of fascination29 which he practised on the fair sex. Only in justice to Mark, I must say that he was by no means so shameless a drawer of the long-bow as the Venetian gentleman and officer.
‘When I got this ring, Charlie, three hundred a year and a London life would have been Peru and Paradise to poor Pill Garlick, and see what it has done for me.’
‘Aye, and better than Aladdin’s, for you need not rub it and bring up that confounded ugly genii; the slave of your ring works unseen.’
‘So he does,’ laughed Wylder, in a state of elation30, ‘and he’s not done working yet, I can tell you. When the estates are joined in one, they’ll be good eleven thousand a year; and Larkin says, with smart management, I shall have a rental31 of thirteen thousand before three years! And that’s only the beginning, by George! Sir Henry Twisden can’t hold his seat — he’s all but broke — as poor as Job, and the gentry32 hate him, and he lives abroad. He has had a hint or two already, and he’ll never fight the next election. D’ye see — hey?’
And Wylder winked33 and grinned, with a wag of his head.
‘M.P. — eh? You did not see that before. I look a-head a bit, eh? and can take my turn at the wheel — eh?’
And he laughed with cunning exultation34.
‘Miss Rachel will find I’m not quite such a lubber as she fancies. But even then it is only begun. Come, Charlie, you used to like a bet. What do you say? I’ll buy you that twenty-five guinea book of pictures — what’s its name? — if you give me three hundred guineas one month after I’m a peer of Parliament. Hey? There’s a sporting offer for you. Well! what do you say — eh?’
‘You mean to come out as an orator35, then?’
‘Orator be diddled! Do you take me for a fool? No, Charlie; but I’ll come out strong as a voter — that’s the stuff they like — at the right side, of course, and that is the way to manage it. Thirteen thousand a year — the oldest family in the county — and a steady thick and thin supporter of the minister. Strong points, eh, Charlie? Well, do you take my offer?’
I laughed and declined, to his great elation, and just then the gong sounded and we were away to our toilets.
While making my toilet for dinner, I amused myself by conjecturing36 whether there could be any foundation in fact for Mark’s boast, that Miss Brandon liked him. Women are so enigmatical — some in everything — all in matters of the heart. Don’t they sometimes actually admire what is repulsive37? Does not brutality38 in our sex, and even rascality39, interest them sometimes? Don’t they often affect indifference40, and occasionally even aversion, where there is a different sort of feeling?
As I went down I heard Miss Lake chatting with her queen-like cousin near an open door on the lobby. Rachel Lake was, indeed, a very constant guest at the Hall, and the servants paid her much respect, which I look upon as a sign that the young heiress liked her and treated her with consideration; and indeed there was an insubordinate and fiery41 spirit in that young lady which would have brooked42 nothing less and dreamed of nothing but equality.
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1
hitch
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| v.免费搭(车旅行)；系住；急提；n.故障；急拉 | |
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2
dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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3
exhortation
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| n.劝告，规劝 | |
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4
delightfully
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| 大喜，欣然 | |
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5
impudent
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| adj.鲁莽的，卑鄙的，厚颜无耻的 | |
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6
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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7
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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8
puffing
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| v.使喷出( puff的现在分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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9
quotations
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| n.引用( quotation的名词复数 )；[商业]行情（报告）；（货物或股票的）市价；时价 | |
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10
ascent
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| n.(声望或地位)提高；上升，升高；登高 | |
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11
belle
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| n.靓女 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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13
puffs
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| n.吸( puff的名词复数 )；（烟斗或香烟的）一吸；一缕（烟、蒸汽等）；（呼吸或风的）呼v.使喷出( puff的第三人称单数 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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14
repent
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| v.悔悟，悔改，忏悔，后悔 | |
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15
grumbling
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| adj. 喃喃鸣不平的, 出怨言的 | |
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16
grumble
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| vi.抱怨；咕哝；n.抱怨，牢骚；咕哝，隆隆声 | |
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17
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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18
soften
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| v.(使)变柔软；(使)变柔和 | |
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19
gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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20
gale
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| n.大风，强风，一阵闹声（尤指笑声等） | |
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21
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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22
ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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23
yarn
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| n.纱，纱线，纺线；奇闻漫谈，旅行轶事 | |
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24
talisman
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| n.避邪物，护身符 | |
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25
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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26
missionary
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| adj.教会的，传教(士)的；n.传教士 | |
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27
engraved
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| v.在（硬物）上雕刻（字，画等）( engrave的过去式和过去分词 )；将某事物深深印在（记忆或头脑中） | |
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28
lore
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| n.传说；学问，经验，知识 | |
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29
fascination
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| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
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30
elation
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| n.兴高采烈，洋洋得意 | |
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31
rental
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| n.租赁，出租，出租业 | |
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32
gentry
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| n.绅士阶级，上层阶级 | |
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33
winked
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| v.使眼色( wink的过去式和过去分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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34
exultation
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| n.狂喜，得意 | |
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35
orator
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| n.演说者，演讲者，雄辩家 | |
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36
conjecturing
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| v. & n. 推测，臆测 | |
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37
repulsive
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| adj.排斥的，使人反感的 | |
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38
brutality
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| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
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39
rascality
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| 流氓性，流氓集团 | |
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40
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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41
fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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42
brooked
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| 容忍，忍受（brook的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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