Murchison swung open the gate, and in three strides stood at the blistered5 door of No. 9 Prospect Row. A painted board hung beside the door bearing a smoking chimney “proper,” and for supporters two bundles of sweep’s brushes that looked wondrous6 like Roman fasces. The letter-press advertised Mr. William Bains as a sweeper of chimneys, soot7 merchant, and extinguisher of fires. The little front garden was neat as a good housewife’s linen8 cupboard, with double daisies along the borders, and nasturtiums, claret, crimson9, and gold, scrambling10 up pea-sticks below the window.
A stout11 woman, who smelled of soup, opened the door to Murchison and welcomed him with the most robust12 good-will.
“Good-morning, doctor; hope I ’aven’t kept you waiting. Step in, sir, if you please.”
Murchison stepped in, bending his head by force of habit, as though accustomed to cottage doorways13. Mrs. Bains in a starched14 apron15 made way for him like a ship in sail. She was a very capable woman, so said her neighbors, black-eyed, sturdy, with a nose of the retroussé type, and patches of color over her rather prominent cheek-bones.
“You’re looking better, doctor, excuse me saying it. I can tell you you gave us a bit of a shock when you went off in that there dead faint on Tuesday.”
Mrs. Bains was a woman with a sanguine16 temper, a temper that made her an aggressive enemy, but a very loyal and active friend. Her black eyes twinkled with motherly concern as she watched Murchison pull off his gloves and stuff them into his hat.
“They tell me that I have been working too hard,” he said, with a smile.
“Lor’, sir, you do work; you don’t do your cooking with no pepper. I was taking it to myself, sir, the power of worry we’ve give you over the child.”
“A good fight is worth winning, Mrs. Bains. I am proud of the victory.”
“And I reckon none else would ’a’ done it, and so says the neighbors. Will you step up-stairs, sir? Don’t mind my man, he’s just scrubbing the soot off ’im.”
A pair of huge fore-arms, a gray flannel17 shirt, and a red face covered with soap-suds saluted18 Murchison from the steaming copper19 in the scullery.
“Good-mornin’, sir; ’ope you’re well.”
“Better, Bains, thanks. Washing the war-paint off, eh?”
“That’s it, sir,” and the sweep grinned good-will and sturdy admiration20; “the kid’s doing fine, I hear.”
“Could not be better, Bains.”
“I reckon you’ve done us a rare good turn, sir.”
Murchison’s eyes smiled at the man’s words.
“I’m glad we won,” he said; “a child’s life is worth fighting for.”
“It be, sir, it be,” and the sweep swished the soap-suds from his face till it shone like the sun brightening from behind a cloud.
Murchison climbed the stairs to the front bedroom, a room liberally decorated with cheap china and colored texts. The patient, a little girl, christened Pretoria by her patriotic21 parents, lay on the bed beneath the window. The satiny whiteness of the child’s skin contrasted with the cherry-pink night-gown that she wore. It had been a case of diphtheria, a case that would probably have ended in disaster before the days of serum22. Murchison had sat up half one night, doubtful whether he would not have to tracheotomize the child.
“Hallo, Babs, how’s that naughty throat?”
He sat down on the edge of the bed and chatted boyishly to Pretoria, whose shy eyes surveyed him with a species of delighted adoration23. The hero worship that children give to men is pathetic in its ideal trustfulness.
“I’m better, thank you, sir.”
“That’s right; you are beginning to know all about it, eh? Tongue fine and red. She’ll be a talker, Mrs. Bains. Taking her milk well, yes. Keep her lying down.”
Mrs. Bains’s big, red hands were fidgeting under her white apron.
“Begging your pardon, doctor, but the child’s been a-bothering me since you called last, to know whether she mayn’t give you some flowers.”
Mrs. Bains reached across the bed to where a cheap mug on the window-sill held a posy of pink daisies.
“They’re just common things,” said the sweep’s wife, with an apologetic smile.
The child’s hand went out, and there was a slight quivering of the bloodless lips.
“For the doctor, with Pretoria’s love.”
Murchison took the flowers tenderly in his strong, deft24 hand.
“Who’s spoiling me, I should like to know? Aren’t they beauties? Supposing I put two in my button-hole? Thank you, little one,” and he bent25 and kissed the child’s forehead.
“You won’t drop ’em in the street, sir?”
The pathetic touch of unconscious cynicism went to the man’s heart.
“What, lose my flowers! You wait, miss, to see whether I don’t wear some of them to-morrow.”
The little white face beamed.
“You’re that kind to humor the kid, sir,” quoth Mrs. Bains, with feeling, as she followed Murchison down the stairs.
An hour later Mr. William Bains was hanging his clean face over the garden fence as an example to the neighbors, when a smart victoria stopped at the upper end of Mill Lane. A dapper gentleman sprang out, and came quickly down the footway as though the reek26 of the tannery disgusted his polite nostrils27. He glanced right and left with stiff-necked dissatisfaction, his sleek28, fashionable figure reminding one of some aristocratic fragment of Sheraton plumped down amid battered29 oddments in some dealer’s shop.
Mr. William Bains scanned him, and grunted30, noting the effeminate sag31 of the shoulders and the glint of the patent-leather boots. There was a certain insolent32 gentility in the dapper figure that made the man of the brawny34 fore-arms feel an instinctive35 and workman-like contempt.
“Can you inform me where a Mrs. Randle lives?”
The sweep caught the white of Dr. Steel’s left eye, and jerked his pipe-stem laconically36 at the next cottage down the lane.
“No. 10.”
“Obliged,” and Parker Steel passed on.
Five minutes later the door of No. 10 Prospect Row was clapped snappishly on the doctor’s heels. It opened again when the smart physician had regained37 his carriage and driven off. A thin woman, with an old cloth cap perched on her mud-colored hair, came out bare-elbowed. Her face warned Mr. Bains of the fact that she was the possessor of a grievance38.
“See the gent come along?”
The sweep nodded.
“Sort of kid-gloved gentleman that makes a respectable woman think of this ’ere charity as an insult. Mrs. Gibbins sent him to see my Tom. I’m thinking she might as well mind ’er business.”
Mr. Bains cocked his pipe and chuckled39.
“Dr. Steel’s one of the smart ’uns,” he said.
“Toff! I’d like to give ’im toffee! Comes into my ’ouse with ’is ’at on, and looks round ’im as though ’e was afraid to touch the floor with ’is boots. Sh’ld ’ear ’im talk, just as though ’is voice ’adn’t any stomach in it. I told ’im we had Murchison, Mrs. Gibbins or no Mrs. Gibbins. ’E looked me over as though I was a savage40, and said, ‘Haw, yes, Dr. Murchison ’as all the parish cases, I believe.’ ‘And a good job, sir,’ says I. Lor’, I wouldn’t as much as scrub ’is dirty linen.”
Mr. Bains fingered his chin and sucked peacefully at his pipe.
“I likes brawn33 in a man,” he said, “and a big voice, and a bit of spark in th’ eye.”
“Don’t give me any of yer ‘trousers stretchers’ or yer fancy weskits—Murchison’s my man.”
“Grit41, blessed grit to the bone of ’im.”
“And a real gentleman. Takes ’is ’at off in a ’ouse. T’other chap ’ain’t no manners.”
It is a cheap age, and cheap sentiment satisfies the masses, a mere42 matter of melodrama43 in which the villain44 is hissed45 and the “stage child” applauded when she points to heaven and invokes46 “Gawd” through her cockney nose. Sentiment in the more delicate phases may be either the refinement47 of hypocrisy48 or the shining out of the godliness in man. The trivial incidents of life may betray the true character more finely than the throes of a moral crisis. The average male might have dropped Miss Pretoria’s flowers round the nearest corner, or thrown them into his study grate to wither49 amid cigar ends and burned matches. James Murchison kept the flowers and gave them to his wife.
“Put them in water, dear, for me.”
“From a lady, sir?” and Catherine’s eyes searched the lines upon his face. She was jealous for his health, but her eyes were smiling. Dearest of all virtues50 in a woman are a brave cheerfulness and a tactful tongue.
Her husband kissed her, and it was a lover’s kiss.
“A thank-offering, dear, from the Bains child.”
“How sweet! Somehow I always treasure a child’s gift; it seems so fresh and real.”
“Poor little beggar,” and he smiled as he spoke52. “I wouldn’t have lost that life, Kate, for a very great deal. It was something to feel that fellow Bains’s hand-grip when I told him we had won.”
Catherine was settling the flowers in a glass bowl.
“It was just a bit of life, dear,” she said.
“Yes, it is life that tells. I think I would rather have saved that child, Kate, than have written the most brilliant book.”
She turned to him and put her arms about his neck.
“That is the true man in you,” and her eyes honored him.
“You dear one.”
“Kiss me.”
Marriage had been no problem play for these two.
Catherine lay thinking that night, with her hair in tawny53 waves upon the pillow, waiting for her husband to come to bed. She was happier and less troubled at heart than she had been for many weeks. The strain had lessened54 for her husband with the summer, and he seemed his more breezy, strenuous55 self, a great child with his children, a man who appeared to have no dark comers in the house of life. Wilful56 optimist57 that she was, she could not conceive it possible that a mere “inherited lust” could bear down the man whose strength and honor were bound up for her in her religion. Where great love exists, great faith lives also. Catherine was too ready, perhaps, to forget her fears, to regard them as mere thunder-clouds, black for the hour, but destitute58 of heavier dread59. She ascribed his momentary60 weakness to the brain strain of the winter’s work. The words that had terrified her in Porteus Carmagee’s garden had proved but a fantasy, for a trick of the heart had explained the incident and given the denial to Mrs. Betty’s insinuations. The ordeal61 need never be repeated, so she told herself. Murchison could be saved from overwork. The assistant he had engaged was a youngster of tact51 and education.
Love will stand trustfully through the storm, under a tree, braving the lightning; nor had Catherine realized how vivid his own frailty62 appeared to the man she loved. He was sitting alone in his study while she comforted herself with dreams in the room above, his head between his hands, his heart heavy in him for the moment. An inherited habit is never to be despised. The gods of old were prone63 to mortal weakness in the flesh, and no man is so masterful that he can command his own destiny unshaken. We are what the world and our ancestors have made us. The individual hand is there to hold the tiller, but even a Ulysses must meet the storm.
Murchison turned his tired face towards the light, heaved back his shoulders, and sighed like a man in pain. He rose, put out the lamp, locked the study door, and taking his candle went up to his dressing-room that looked out on the garden. The blind was up, the window open, the darkness of space afire with many stars. He stood awhile at the open window in deep thought, letting the night breeze play upon his face. He was glad of his home life, glad that a woman’s arms were waiting for him, ready to shelter him from himself. He thanked God, as a strong man thanks God, for blessings64 given. The breath of his home was sweet to him, its life full of tenderness and good.
His wife’s bedroom had an air of delicacy65 and refinement with its cherished antique furniture, its linen curtains flowered with red, the paper and carpet a rich green. Candles in brass66 sticks were burning on the dressing-table, where a silver toilet-set—brushes, mirror, combs, and pin-boxes—recalled to the wife her marriage day. There were books—red, green, and white—on a copper-bound book-shelf over the mantel-piece. The room suggested that those who slept in it had kept the romance of life untarnished and unbedraggled. There was no slovenly67 realism to hint at apathy68 or the materialism69 of desire.
“Have you been reading, dear?”
“Yes, reading.”
Murchison was not a man who could act what he did not feel. He looked at his wife’s face on the pillow, and wondered at the beauty of her hair.
“It is good to see you there, Kate,” he said.
The unrestrainable wistfulness of his look made her arms flash out to him. He knelt down beside the bed and let her fondle him with her hands.
“You regret nothing, dear?”
“Regret!”
“It is always in my mind—this curse. I am not a coward, Kate, but I go in deadly fear at times of my own flesh.”
“Always—this!”
“Would to God I could bear it all myself.”
“Come,” and she hung over him; “I understand, I am not afraid. You must rest; we will go away together to the cottage—a little honeymoon70. You are not yourself as yet. Oh, my beloved, I want you here, here—at my heart!”
Darkness enveloped71 them, and she pillowed her husband’s head upon her shoulder. He heard her heart beating, heard the drawing of her breath. In a little while he fell asleep, but Catherine lay awake for many hours, her love hovering72 like some sacred flame of fire over the tired man at her side.
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1
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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stank
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| n. (英)坝，堰，池塘 动词stink的过去式 | |
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alley
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| n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路 | |
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foam
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| v./n.泡沫，起泡沫 | |
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blistered
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| adj.水疮状的，泡状的v.（使）起水泡( blister的过去式和过去分词 )；（使表皮等）涨破，爆裂 | |
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wondrous
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| adj.令人惊奇的，奇妙的；adv.惊人地；异乎寻常地；令人惊叹地 | |
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soot
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| n.煤烟，烟尘；vt.熏以煤烟 | |
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linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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scrambling
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的现在分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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robust
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| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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doorways
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| n.门口，门道( doorway的名词复数 ) | |
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starched
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| adj.浆硬的，硬挺的，拘泥刻板的v.把（衣服、床单等）浆一浆( starch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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sanguine
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| adj.充满希望的，乐观的，血红色的 | |
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flannel
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| n.法兰绒；法兰绒衣服 | |
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saluted
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| v.欢迎，致敬( salute的过去式和过去分词 )；赞扬，赞颂 | |
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copper
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| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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patriotic
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| adj.爱国的，有爱国心的 | |
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serum
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| n.浆液，血清，乳浆 | |
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adoration
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| n.爱慕，崇拜 | |
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deft
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| adj.灵巧的，熟练的（a deft hand 能手） | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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reek
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| v.发出臭气；n.恶臭 | |
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nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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sleek
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| adj.光滑的，井然有序的；v.使光滑，梳拢 | |
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battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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grunted
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| （猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的过去式和过去分词 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说 | |
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sag
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| v.下垂，下跌，消沉；n.下垂，下跌，凹陷，[航海]随风漂流 | |
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insolent
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| adj.傲慢的，无理的 | |
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brawn
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| n.体力 | |
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brawny
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| adj.强壮的 | |
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instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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laconically
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| adv.简短地，简洁地 | |
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regained
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| 复得( regain的过去式和过去分词 )； 赢回； 重回； 复至某地 | |
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grievance
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| n.怨愤，气恼，委屈 | |
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chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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grit
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| n.沙粒，决心，勇气；v.下定决心，咬紧牙关 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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melodrama
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| n.音乐剧；情节剧 | |
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villain
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| n.反派演员，反面人物；恶棍；问题的起因 | |
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hissed
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| 发嘶嘶声( hiss的过去式和过去分词 )； 发嘘声表示反对 | |
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invokes
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| v.援引( invoke的第三人称单数 )；行使（权利等）；祈求救助；恳求 | |
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refinement
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| n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼 | |
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hypocrisy
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| n.伪善，虚伪 | |
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wither
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| vt.使凋谢，使衰退，(用眼神气势等)使畏缩；vi.枯萎，衰退，消亡 | |
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virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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spoke
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| 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 | |
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tawny
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| adj.茶色的，黄褐色的；n.黄褐色 | |
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lessened
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| 减少的，减弱的 | |
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strenuous
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| adj.奋发的，使劲的；紧张的；热烈的，狂热的 | |
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wilful
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| adj.任性的，故意的 | |
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optimist
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| n.乐观的人，乐观主义者 | |
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destitute
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| adj.缺乏的；穷困的 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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frailty
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| n.脆弱；意志薄弱 | |
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prone
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| adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的 | |
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blessings
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| n.（上帝的）祝福( blessing的名词复数 )；好事；福分；因祸得福 | |
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delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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slovenly
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| adj.懒散的，不整齐的，邋遢的 | |
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apathy
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| n.漠不关心，无动于衷；冷淡 | |
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materialism
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| n.［哲］唯物主义，唯物论；物质至上 | |
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honeymoon
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| n.蜜月（假期）；vi.度蜜月 | |
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enveloped
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
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hovering
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| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
参考例句： |
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