I might greatly move the reader by some account of the innumerable places I have not been to, the innumerable people I have not called upon or received, the innumerable social evasions1 I have been guilty of, solely2 because I am by original constitution and character a bashful man. But I will leave the reader unmoved, and proceed with the object before me.
That object is to give a plain account of my travels and discoveries in the Holly-Tree Inn; in which place of good entertainment for man and beast I was once snowed up.
It happened in the memorable3 year when I parted for ever from Angela Leath, whom I was shortly to have married, on making the discovery that she preferred my bosom4 friend. From our school-days I had freely admitted Edwin, in my own mind, to be far superior to myself; and, though I was grievously wounded at heart, I felt the preference to be natural, and tried to forgive them both. It was under these circumstances that I resolved to go to America—on my way to the Devil.
Communicating my discovery neither to Angela nor to Edwin, but resolving to write each of them an affecting letter conveying my blessing5 and forgiveness, which the steam-tender for shore should carry to the post when I myself should be bound for the New World, far beyond recall,—I say, locking up my grief in my own breast, and consoling myself as I could with the prospect6 of being generous, I quietly left all I held dear, and started on the desolate7 journey I have mentioned.
The dead winter-time was in full dreariness8 when I left my chambers9 for ever, at five o’clock in the morning. I had shaved by candle-light, of course, and was miserably10 cold, and experienced that general all-pervading sensation of getting up to be hanged which I have usually found inseparable from untimely rising under such circumstances.
How well I remember the forlorn aspect of Fleet Street when I came out of the Temple! The street-lamps flickering11 in the gusty12 north-east wind, as if the very gas were contorted with cold; the white-topped houses; the bleak14, star-lighted sky; the market people and other early stragglers, trotting15 to circulate their almost frozen blood; the hospitable16 light and warmth of the few coffee-shops and public-houses that were open for such customers; the hard, dry, frosty rime17 with which the air was charged (the wind had already beaten it into every crevice), and which lashed19 my face like a steel whip.
It wanted nine days to the end of the month, and end of the year. The Post-office packet for the United States was to depart from Liverpool, weather permitting, on the first of the ensuing month, and I had the intervening time on my hands. I had taken this into consideration, and had resolved to make a visit to a certain spot (which I need not name) on the farther borders of Yorkshire. It was endeared to me by my having first seen Angela at a farmhouse20 in that place, and my melancholy21 was gratified by the idea of taking a wintry leave of it before my expatriation. I ought to explain, that, to avoid being sought out before my resolution should have been rendered irrevocable by being carried into full effect, I had written to Angela overnight, in my usual manner, lamenting22 that urgent business, of which she should know all particulars by-and-by—took me unexpectedly away from her for a week or ten days.
There was no Northern Railway at that time, and in its place there were stage-coaches; which I occasionally find myself, in common with some other people, affecting to lament23 now, but which everybody dreaded24 as a very serious penance25 then. I had secured the box-seat on the fastest of these, and my business in Fleet Street was to get into a cab with my portmanteau, so to make the best of my way to the Peacock at Islington, where I was to join this coach. But when one of our Temple watchmen, who carried my portmanteau into Fleet Street for me, told me about the huge blocks of ice that had for some days past been floating in the river, having closed up in the night, and made a walk from the Temple Gardens over to the Surrey shore, I began to ask myself the question, whether the box-seat would not be likely to put a sudden and a frosty end to my unhappiness. I was heart-broken, it is true, and yet I was not quite so far gone as to wish to be frozen to death.
When I got up to the Peacock,—where I found everybody drinking hot purl, in self-preservation,—I asked if there were an inside seat to spare. I then discovered that, inside or out, I was the only passenger. This gave me a still livelier idea of the great inclemency27 of the weather, since that coach always loaded particularly well. However, I took a little purl (which I found uncommonly28 good), and got into the coach. When I was seated, they built me up with straw to the waist, and, conscious of making a rather ridiculous appearance, I began my journey.
It was still dark when we left the Peacock. For a little while, pale, uncertain ghosts of houses and trees appeared and vanished, and then it was hard, black, frozen day. People were lighting29 their fires; smoke was mounting straight up high into the rarified air; and we were rattling30 for Highgate Archway over the hardest ground I have ever heard the ring of iron shoes on. As we got into the country, everything seemed to have grown old and gray. The roads, the trees, thatched roofs of cottages and homesteads, the ricks in farmers’ yards. Out-door work was abandoned, horse-troughs at roadside inns were frozen hard, no stragglers lounged about, doors were close shut, little turnpike houses had blazing fires inside, and children (even turnpike people have children, and seem to like them) rubbed the frost from the little panes31 of glass with their chubby32 arms, that their bright eyes might catch a glimpse of the solitary33 coach going by. I don’t know when the snow begin to set in; but I know that we were changing horses somewhere when I heard the guard remark, “That the old lady up in the sky was picking her geese pretty hard to-day.” Then, indeed, I found the white down falling fast and thick.
The lonely day wore on, and I dozed34 it out, as a lonely traveller does. I was warm and valiant35 after eating and drinking,—particularly after dinner; cold and depressed36 at all other times. I was always bewildered as to time and place, and always more or less out of my senses. The coach and horses seemed to execute in chorus Auld37 Lang Syne38, without a moment’s intermission. They kept the time and tune39 with the greatest regularity40, and rose into the swell41 at the beginning of the Refrain, with a precision that worried me to death. While we changed horses, the guard and coachman went stumping42 up and down the road, printing off their shoes in the snow, and poured so much liquid consolation43 into themselves without being any the worse for it, that I began to confound them, as it darkened again, with two great white casks standing44 on end. Our horses tumbled down in solitary places, and we got them up,—which was the pleasantest variety I had, for it warmed me. And it snowed and snowed, and still it snowed, and never left off snowing. All night long we went on in this manner. Thus we came round the clock, upon the Great North Road, to the performance of Auld Lang Syne by day again. And it snowed and snowed, and still it snowed, and never left off snowing.
I forget now where we were at noon on the second day, and where we ought to have been; but I know that we were scores of miles behindhand, and that our case was growing worse every hour. The drift was becoming prodigiously46 deep; landmarks47 were getting snowed out; the road and the fields were all one; instead of having fences and hedge-rows to guide us, we went crunching48 on over an unbroken surface of ghastly white that might sink beneath us at any moment and drop us down a whole hillside. Still the coachman and guard—who kept together on the box, always in council, and looking well about them—made out the track with astonishing sagacity.
When we came in sight of a town, it looked, to my fancy, like a large drawing on a slate49, with abundance of slate-pencil expended50 on the churches and houses where the snow lay thickest. When we came within a town, and found the church clocks all stopped, the dial-faces choked with snow, and the inn-signs blotted51 out, it seemed as if the whole place were overgrown with white moss52. As to the coach, it was a mere53 snowball; similarly, the men and boys who ran along beside us to the town’s end, turning our clogged54 wheels and encouraging our horses, were men and boys of snow; and the bleak wild solitude55 to which they at last dismissed us was a snowy Sahara. One would have thought this enough: notwithstanding which, I pledge my word that it snowed and snowed, and still it snowed, and never left off snowing.
We performed Auld Lang Syne the whole day; seeing nothing, out of towns and villages, but the track of stoats, hares, and foxes, and sometimes of birds. At nine o’clock at night, on a Yorkshire moor56, a cheerful burst from our horn, and a welcome sound of talking, with a glimmering57 and moving about of lanterns, roused me from my drowsy58 state. I found that we were going to change.
They helped me out, and I said to a waiter, whose bare head became as white as King Lear’s in a single minute, “What Inn is this?”
“The Holly-Tree, sir,” said he.
“Upon my word, I believe,” said I, apologetically, to the guard and coachman, “that I must stop here.”
Now the landlord, and the landlady59, and the ostler, and the post-boy, and all the stable authorities, had already asked the coachman, to the wide-eyed interest of all the rest of the establishment, if he meant to go on. The coachman had already replied, “Yes, he’d take her through it,”—meaning by Her the coach,—“if so be as George would stand by him.” George was the guard, and he had already sworn that he would stand by him. So the helpers were already getting the horses out.
My declaring myself beaten, after this parley60, was not an announcement without preparation. Indeed, but for the way to the announcement being smoothed by the parley, I more than doubt whether, as an innately61 bashful man, I should have had the confidence to make it. As it was, it received the approval even of the guard and coachman. Therefore, with many confirmations62 of my inclining, and many remarks from one bystander to another, that the gentleman could go for’ard by the mail to-morrow, whereas to-night he would only be froze, and where was the good of a gentleman being froze—ah, let alone buried alive (which latter clause was added by a humorous helper as a joke at my expense, and was extremely well received), I saw my portmanteau got out stiff, like a frozen body; did the handsome thing by the guard and coachman; wished them good-night and a prosperous journey; and, a little ashamed of myself, after all, for leaving them to fight it out alone, followed the landlord, landlady, and waiter of the Holly-Tree up-stairs.
I thought I had never seen such a large room as that into which they showed me. It had five windows, with dark red curtains that would have absorbed the light of a general illumination; and there were complications of drapery at the top of the curtains, that went wandering about the wall in a most extraordinary manner. I asked for a smaller room, and they told me there was no smaller room.
They could screen me in, however, the landlord said. They brought a great old japanned screen, with natives (Japanese, I suppose) engaged in a variety of idiotic63 pursuits all over it; and left me roasting whole before an immense fire.
My bedroom was some quarter of a mile off, up a great staircase at the end of a long gallery; and nobody knows what a misery64 this is to a bashful man who would rather not meet people on the stairs. It was the grimmest room I have ever had the nightmare in; and all the furniture, from the four posts of the bed to the two old silver candle-sticks, was tall, high-shouldered, and spindle-waisted. Below, in my sitting-room65, if I looked round my screen, the wind rushed at me like a mad bull; if I stuck to my arm-chair, the fire scorched66 me to the colour of a new brick. The chimney-piece was very high, and there was a bad glass—what I may call a wavy67 glass—above it, which, when I stood up, just showed me my anterior68 phrenological developments,—and these never look well, in any subject, cut short off at the eyebrow69. If I stood with my back to the fire, a gloomy vault70 of darkness above and beyond the screen insisted on being looked at; and, in its dim remoteness, the drapery of the ten curtains of the five windows went twisting and creeping about, like a nest of gigantic worms.
I suppose that what I observe in myself must be observed by some other men of similar character in themselves; therefore I am emboldened71 to mention, that, when I travel, I never arrive at a place but I immediately want to go away from it. Before I had finished my supper of broiled72 fowl73 and mulled port, I had impressed upon the waiter in detail my arrangements for departure in the morning. Breakfast and bill at eight. Fly at nine. Two horses, or, if needful, even four.
Tired though I was, the night appeared about a week long. In cases of nightmare, I thought of Angela, and felt more depressed than ever by the reflection that I was on the shortest road to Gretna Green. What had I to do with Gretna Green? I was not going that way to the Devil, but by the American route, I remarked in my bitterness.
In the morning I found that it was snowing still, that it had snowed all night, and that I was snowed up. Nothing could get out of that spot on the moor, or could come at it, until the road had been cut out by labourers from the market-town. When they might cut their way to the Holly-Tree nobody could tell me.
It was now Christmas-eve. I should have had a dismal74 Christmas-time of it anywhere, and consequently that did not so much matter; still, being snowed up was like dying of frost, a thing I had not bargained for. I felt very lonely. Yet I could no more have proposed to the landlord and landlady to admit me to their society (though I should have liked it—very much) than I could have asked them to present me with a piece of plate. Here my great secret, the real bashfulness of my character, is to be observed. Like most bashful men, I judge of other people as if they were bashful too. Besides being far too shamefaced to make the proposal myself, I really had a delicate misgiving75 that it would be in the last degree disconcerting to them.
Trying to settle down, therefore, in my solitude, I first of all asked what books there were in the house. The waiter brought me a Book of Roads, two or three old Newspapers, a little Song-Book, terminating in a collection of Toasts and Sentiments, a little Jest-Book, an odd volume of Peregrine Pickle76, and the Sentimental77 Journey. I knew every word of the two last already, but I read them through again, then tried to hum all the songs (Auld Lang Syne was among them); went entirely78 through the jokes,—in which I found a fund of melancholy adapted to my state of mind; proposed all the toasts, enunciated79 all the sentiments, and mastered the papers. The latter had nothing in them but stock advertisements, a meeting about a county rate, and a highway robbery. As I am a greedy reader, I could not make this supply hold out until night; it was exhausted81 by tea-time. Being then entirely cast upon my own resources, I got through an hour in considering what to do next. Ultimately, it came into my head (from which I was anxious by any means to exclude Angela and Edwin), that I would endeavour to recall my experience of Inns, and would try how long it lasted me. I stirred the fire, moved my chair a little to one side of the screen,—not daring to go far, for I knew the wind was waiting to make a rush at me, I could hear it growling,—and began.
My first impressions of an Inn dated from the Nursery; consequently I went back to the Nursery for a starting-point, and found myself at the knee of a sallow woman with a fishy82 eye, an aquiline83 nose, and a green gown, whose specially84 was a dismal narrative85 of a landlord by the roadside, whose visitors unaccountably disappeared for many years, until it was discovered that the pursuit of his life had been to convert them into pies. For the better devotion of himself to this branch of industry, he had constructed a secret door behind the head of the bed; and when the visitor (oppressed with pie) had fallen asleep, this wicked landlord would look softly in with a lamp in one hand and a knife in the other, would cut his throat, and would make him into pies; for which purpose he had coppers86, underneath87 a trap-door, always boiling; and rolled out his pastry88 in the dead of the night. Yet even he was not insensible to the stings of conscience, for he never went to sleep without being heard to mutter, “Too much pepper!” which was eventually the cause of his being brought to justice. I had no sooner disposed of this criminal than there started up another of the same period, whose profession was originally house-breaking; in the pursuit of which art he had had his right ear chopped off one night, as he was burglariously getting in at a window, by a brave and lovely servant-maid (whom the aquiline-nosed woman, though not at all answering the description, always mysteriously implied to be herself). After several years, this brave and lovely servant-maid was married to the landlord of a country Inn; which landlord had this remarkable89 characteristic, that he always wore a silk nightcap, and never would on any consideration take it off. At last, one night, when he was fast asleep, the brave and lovely woman lifted up his silk nightcap on the right side, and found that he had no ear there; upon which she sagaciously perceived that he was the clipped housebreaker, who had married her with the intention of putting her to death. She immediately heated the poker90 and terminated his career, for which she was taken to King George upon his throne, and received the compliments of royalty91 on her great discretion92 and valour. This same narrator, who had a Ghoulish pleasure, I have long been persuaded, in terrifying me to the utmost confines of my reason, had another authentic93 anecdote94 within her own experience, founded, I now believe, upon Raymond and Agnes, or the Bleeding Nun80. She said it happened to her brother-in-law, who was immensely rich,—which my father was not; and immensely tall,—which my father was not. It was always a point with this Ghoul to present my clearest relations and friends to my youthful mind under circumstances of disparaging95 contrast. The brother-in-law was riding once through a forest on a magnificent horse (we had no magnificent horse at our house), attended by a favourite and valuable Newfoundland dog (we had no dog), when he found himself benighted96, and came to an Inn. A dark woman opened the door, and he asked her if he could have a bed there. She answered yes, and put his horse in the stable, and took him into a room where there were two dark men. While he was at supper, a parrot in the room began to talk, saying, “Blood, blood! Wipe up the blood!” Upon which one of the dark men wrung97 the parrot’s neck, and said he was fond of roasted parrots, and he meant to have this one for breakfast in the morning. After eating and drinking heartily98, the immensely rich, tall brother-in-law went up to bed; but he was rather vexed99, because they had shut his dog in the stable, saying that they never allowed dogs in the house. He sat very quiet for more than an hour, thinking and thinking, when, just as his candle was burning out, he heard a scratch at the door. He opened the door, and there was the Newfoundland dog! The dog came softly in, smelt100 about him, went straight to some straw in the corner which the dark men had said covered apples, tore the straw away, and disclosed two sheets steeped in blood. Just at that moment the candle went out, and the brother-in-law, looking through a chink in the door, saw the two dark men stealing up-stairs; one armed with a dagger101 that long (about five feet); the other carrying a chopper, a sack, and a spade. Having no remembrance of the close of this adventure, I suppose my faculties102 to have been always so frozen with terror at this stage of it, that the power of listening stagnated103 within me for some quarter of an hour.
These barbarous stories carried me, sitting there on the Holly-Tree hearth104, to the Roadside Inn, renowned105 in my time in a sixpenny book with a folding plate, representing in a central compartment106 of oval form the portrait of Jonathan Bradford, and in four corner compartments107 four incidents of the tragedy with which the name is associated,—coloured with a hand at once so free and economical, that the bloom of Jonathan’s complexion108 passed without any pause into the breeches of the ostler, and, smearing109 itself off into the next division, became rum in a bottle. Then I remembered how the landlord was found at the murdered traveller’s bedside, with his own knife at his feet, and blood upon his hand; how he was hanged for the murder, notwithstanding his protestation that he had indeed come there to kill the traveller for his saddle-bags, but had been stricken motionless on finding him already slain110; and how the ostler, years afterwards, owned the deed. By this time I had made myself quite uncomfortable. I stirred the fire, and stood with my back to it as long as I could bear the heat, looking up at the darkness beyond the screen, and at the wormy curtains creeping in and creeping out, like the worms in the ballad111 of Alonzo the Brave and the Fair Imogene.
There was an Inn in the cathedral town where I went to school, which had pleasanter recollections about it than any of these. I took it next. It was the Inn where friends used to put up, and where we used to go to see parents, and to have salmon112 and fowls113, and be tipped. It had an ecclesiastical sign,—the Mitre,—and a bar that seemed to be the next best thing to a bishopric, it was so snug114. I loved the landlord’s youngest daughter to distraction,—but let that pass. It was in this Inn that I was cried over by my rosy115 little sister, because I had acquired a black eye in a fight. And though she had been, that Holly-Tree night, for many a long year where all tears are dried, the Mitre softened116 me yet.
“To be continued to-morrow,” said I, when I took my candle to go to bed. But my bed took it upon itself to continue the train of thought that night. It carried me away, like the enchanted117 carpet, to a distant place (though still in England), and there, alighting from a stage-coach at another Inn in the snow, as I had actually done some years before, I repeated in my sleep a curious experience I had really had there. More than a year before I made the journey in the course of which I put up at that Inn, I had lost a very near and dear friend by death. Every night since, at home or away from home, I had dreamed of that friend; sometimes as still living; sometimes as returning from the world of shadows to comfort me; always as being beautiful, placid118, and happy, never in association with any approach to fear or distress119. It was at a lonely Inn in a wide moorland place, that I halted to pass the night. When I had looked from my bedroom window over the waste of snow on which the moon was shining, I sat down by my fire to write a letter. I had always, until that hour, kept it within my own breast that I dreamed every night of the dear lost one. But in the letter that I wrote I recorded the circumstance, and added that I felt much interested in proving whether the subject of my dream would still be faithful to me, travel-tired, and in that remote place. No. I lost the beloved figure of my vision in parting with the secret. My sleep has never looked upon it since, in sixteen years, but once. I was in Italy, and awoke (or seemed to awake), the well-remembered voice distinctly in my ears, conversing120 with it. I entreated121 it, as it rose above my bed and soared up to the vaulted122 roof of the old room, to answer me a question I had asked touching123 the Future Life. My hands were still outstretched towards it as it vanished, when I heard a bell ringing by the garden wall, and a voice in the deep stillness of the night calling on all good Christians124 to pray for the souls of the dead; it being All Souls’ Eve.
To return to the Holly-Tree. When I awoke next day, it was freezing hard, and the lowering sky threatened more snow. My breakfast cleared away, I drew my chair into its former place, and, with the fire getting so much the better of the landscape that I sat in twilight125, resumed my Inn remembrances.
That was a good Inn down in Wiltshire where I put up once, in the days of the hard Wiltshire ale, and before all beer was bitterness. It was on the skirts of Salisbury Plain, and the midnight wind that rattled126 my lattice window came moaning at me from Stonehenge. There was a hanger-on at that establishment (a supernaturally preserved Druid I believe him to have been, and to be still), with long white hair, and a flinty blue eye always looking afar off; who claimed to have been a shepherd, and who seemed to be ever watching for the reappearance, on the verge127 of the horizon, of some ghostly flock of sheep that had been mutton for many ages. He was a man with a weird128 belief in him that no one could count the stones of Stonehenge twice, and make the same number of them; likewise, that any one who counted them three times nine times, and then stood in the centre and said, “I dare!” would behold129 a tremendous apparition130, and be stricken dead. He pretended to have seen a bustard (I suspect him to have been familiar with the dodo), in manner following: He was out upon the plain at the close of a late autumn day, when he dimly discerned, going on before him at a curious fitfully bounding pace, what he at first supposed to be a gig-umbrella that had been blown from some conveyance132, but what he presently believed to be a lean dwarf133 man upon a little pony134. Having followed this object for some distance without gaining on it, and having called to it many times without receiving any answer, he pursued it for miles and miles, when, at length coming up with it, he discovered it to be the last bustard in Great Britain, degenerated135 into a wingless state, and running along the ground. Resolved to capture him or perish in the attempt, he closed with the bustard; but the bustard, who had formed a counter-resolution that he should do neither, threw him, stunned136 him, and was last seen making off due west. This weird main, at that stage of metempsychosis, may have been a sleep-walker or an enthusiast137 or a robber; but I awoke one night to find him in the dark at my bedside, repeating the Athanasian Creed138 in a terrific voice. I paid my bill next day, and retired139 from the county with all possible precipitation.
That was not a commonplace story which worked itself out at a little Inn in Switzerland, while I was staying there. It was a very homely140 place, in a village of one narrow zigzag141 street, among mountains, and you went in at the main door through the cow-house, and among the mules142 and the dogs and the fowls, before ascending143 a great bare staircase to the rooms; which were all of unpainted wood, without plastering or papering,—like rough packing-cases. Outside there was nothing but the straggling street, a little toy church with a copper-coloured steeple, a pine forest, a torrent144, mists, and mountain-sides. A young man belonging to this Inn had disappeared eight weeks before (it was winter-time), and was supposed to have had some undiscovered love affair, and to have gone for a soldier. He had got up in the night, and dropped into the village street from the loft145 in which he slept with another man; and he had done it so quietly, that his companion and fellow-labourer had heard no movement when he was awakened146 in the morning, and they said, “Louis, where is Henri?” They looked for him high and low, in vain, and gave him up. Now, outside this Inn, there stood, as there stood outside every dwelling147 in the village, a stack of firewood; but the stack belonging to the Inn was higher than any of the rest, because the Inn was the richest house, and burnt the most fuel. It began to be noticed, while they were looking high and low, that a Bantam cock, part of the live stock of the Inn, put himself wonderfully out of his way to get to the top of this wood-stack; and that he would stay there for hours and hours, crowing, until he appeared in danger of splitting himself. Five weeks went on,—six weeks,—and still this terrible Bantam, neglecting his domestic affairs, was always on the top of the wood-stack, crowing the very eyes out of his head. By this time it was perceived that Louis had become inspired with a violent animosity towards the terrible Bantam, and one morning he was seen by a woman, who sat nursing her goître at a little window in a gleam of sun, to catch up a rough billet of wood, with a great oath, hurl148 it at the terrible Bantam crowing on the wood-stack, and bring him down dead. Hereupon the woman, with a sudden light in her mind, stole round to the back of the wood-stack, and, being a good climber, as all those women are, climbed up, and soon was seen upon the summit, screaming, looking down the hollow within, and crying, “Seize Louis, the murderer! Ring the church bell! Here is the body!” I saw the murderer that day, and I saw him as I sat by my fire at the Holly-Tree Inn, and I see him now, lying shackled149 with cords on the stable litter, among the mild eyes and the smoking breath of the cows, waiting to be taken away by the police, and stared at by the fearful village. A heavy animal,—the dullest animal in the stables,—with a stupid head, and a lumpish face devoid150 of any trace of insensibility, who had been, within the knowledge of the murdered youth, an embezzler151 of certain small moneys belonging to his master, and who had taken this hopeful mode of putting a possible accuser out of his way. All of which he confessed next day, like a sulky wretch152 who couldn’t be troubled any more, now that they had got hold of him, and meant to make an end of him. I saw him once again, on the day of my departure from the Inn. In that Canton the headsman still does his office with a sword; and I came upon this murderer sitting bound, to a chair, with his eyes bandaged, on a scaffold in a little market-place. In that instant, a great sword (loaded with quicksilver in the thick part of the blade) swept round him like a gust13 of wind or fire, and there was no such creature in the world. My wonder was, not that he was so suddenly dispatched, but that any head was left unreaped, within a radius153 of fifty yards of that tremendous sickle154.
That was a good Inn, too, with the kind, cheerful landlady and the honest landlord, where I lived in the shadow of Mont Blanc, and where one of the apartments has a zoological papering on the walls, not so accurately155 joined but that the elephant occasionally rejoices in a tiger’s hind45 legs and tail, while the lion puts on a trunk and tusks156, and the bear, moulting as it were, appears as to portions of himself like a leopard157. I made several American friends at that Inn, who all called Mont Blanc Mount Blank,—except one good-humoured gentleman, of a very sociable158 nature, who became on such intimate terms with it that he spoke159 of it familiarly as “Blank;” observing, at breakfast, “Blank looks pretty tall this morning;” or considerably160 doubting in the courtyard in the evening, whether there warn’t some go-ahead naters in our country, sir, that would make out the top of Blank in a couple of hours from first start—now!
Once I passed a fortnight at an Inn in the North of England, where I was haunted by the ghost of a tremendous pie. It was a Yorkshire pie, like a fort,—an abandoned fort with nothing in it; but the waiter had a fixed161 idea that it was a point of ceremony at every meal to put the pie on the table. After some days I tried to hint, in several delicate ways, that I considered the pie done with; as, for example, by emptying fag-ends of glasses of wine into it; putting cheese-plates and spoons into it, as into a basket; putting wine-bottles into it, as into a cooler; but always in vain, the pie being invariably cleaned out again and brought up as before. At last, beginning to be doubtful whether I was not the victim of a spectral162 illusion, and whether my health and spirits might not sink under the horrors of an imaginary pie, I cut a triangle out of it, fully131 as large as the musical instrument of that name in a powerful orchestra. Human provision could not have foreseen the result—but the waiter mended the pie. With some effectual species of cement, he adroitly163 fitted the triangle in again, and I paid my reckoning and fled.
The Holly-Tree was getting rather dismal. I made an overland expedition beyond the screen, and penetrated164 as far as the fourth window. Here I was driven back by stress of weather. Arrived at my winter-quarters once more, I made up the fire, and took another Inn.
It was in the remotest part of Cornwall. A great annual Miners’ Feast was being holden at the Inn, when I and my travelling companions presented ourselves at night among the wild crowd that were dancing before it by torchlight. We had had a break-down in the dark, on a stony166 morass167 some miles away; and I had the honour of leading one of the unharnessed post-horses. If any lady or gentleman, on perusal168 of the present lines, will take any very tall post-horse with his traces hanging about his legs, and will conduct him by the bearing-rein into the heart of a country dance of a hundred and fifty couples, that lady or gentleman will then, and only then, form an adequate idea of the extent to which that post-horse will tread on his conductor’s toes. Over and above which, the post-horse, finding three hundred people whirling about him, will probably rear, and also lash18 out with his hind legs, in a manner incompatible169 with dignity or self-respect on his conductor’s part. With such little drawbacks on my usually impressive aspect, I appeared at this Cornish Inn, to the unutterable wonder of the Cornish Miners. It was full, and twenty times full, and nobody could be received but the post-horse,—though to get rid of that noble animal was something. While my fellow-travellers and I were discussing how to pass the night and so much of the next day as must intervene before the jovial170 blacksmith and the jovial wheelwright would be in a condition to go out on the morass and mend the coach, an honest man stepped forth171 from the crowd and proposed his unlet floor of two rooms, with supper of eggs and bacon, ale and punch. We joyfully172 accompanied him home to the strangest of clean houses, where we were well entertained to the satisfaction of all parties. But the novel feature of the entertainment was, that our host was a chair-maker, and that the chairs assigned to us were mere frames, altogether without bottoms of any sort; so that we passed the evening on perches173. Nor was this the absurdest consequence; for when we unbent at supper, and any one of us gave way to laughter, he forgot the peculiarity174 of his position, and instantly disappeared. I myself, doubled up into an attitude from which self-extrication was impossible, was taken out of my frame, like a clown in a comic pantomime who has tumbled into a tub, five times by the taper’s light during the eggs and bacon.
The Holly-Tree was fast reviving within me a sense of loneliness. I began to feel conscious that my subject would never carry on until I was dug out. I might be a week here,—weeks!
There was a story with a singular idea in it, connected with an Inn I once passed a night at in a picturesque176 old town on the Welsh border. In a large double-bedded room of this Inn there had been a suicide committed by poison, in one bed, while a tired traveller slept unconscious in the other. After that time, the suicide bed was never used, but the other constantly was; the disused bedstead remaining in the room empty, though as to all other respects in its old state. The story ran, that whosoever slept in this room, though never so entire a stranger, from never so far off, was invariably observed to come down in the morning with an impression that he smelt Laudanum, and that his mind always turned upon the subject of suicide; to which, whatever kind of man he might be, he was certain to make some reference if he conversed177 with any one. This went on for years, until it at length induced the landlord to take the disused bedstead down, and bodily burn it,—bed, hangings, and all. The strange influence (this was the story) now changed to a fainter one, but never changed afterwards. The occupant of that room, with occasional but very rare exceptions, would come down in the morning, trying to recall a forgotten dream he had had in the night. The landlord, on his mentioning his perplexity, would suggest various commonplace subjects, not one of which, as he very well knew, was the true subject. But the moment the landlord suggested “Poison,” the traveller started, and cried, “Yes!” He never failed to accept that suggestion, and he never recalled any more of the dream.
This reminiscence brought the Welsh Inns in general before me; with the women in their round hats, and the harpers with their white beards (venerable, but humbugs178, I am afraid), playing outside the door while I took my dinner. The transition was natural to the Highland179 Inns, with the oatmeal bannocks, the honey, the venison steaks, the trout180 from the loch, the whisky, and perhaps (having the materials so temptingly at hand) the Athol brose. Once was I coming south from the Scottish Highlands in hot haste, hoping to change quickly at the station at the bottom of a certain wild historical glen, when these eyes did with mortification181 see the landlord come out with a telescope and sweep the whole prospect for the horses; which horses were away picking up their own living, and did not heave in sight under four hours. Having thought of the loch-trout, I was taken by quick association to the Anglers’ Inns of England (I have assisted at innumerable feats182 of angling by lying in the bottom of the boat, whole summer days, doing nothing with the greatest perseverance183; which I have generally found to be as effectual towards the taking of fish as the finest tackle and the utmost science), and to the pleasant white, clean, flower-pot-decorated bedrooms of those inns, overlooking the river, and the ferry, and the green ait, and the church-spire, and the country bridge; and to the pearless Emma with the bright eyes and the pretty smile, who waited, bless her! with a natural grace that would have converted Blue-Beard. Casting my eyes upon my Holly-Tree fire, I next discerned among the glowing coals the pictures of a score or more of those wonderful English posting-inns which we are all so sorry to have lost, which were so large and so comfortable, and which were such monuments of British submission184 to rapacity185 and extortion. He who would see these houses pining away, let him walk from Basingstoke, or even Windsor, to London, by way of Hounslow, and moralise on their perishing remains186; the stables crumbling187 to dust; unsettled labourers and wanderers bivouacking in the outhouses; grass growing in the yards; the rooms, where erst so many hundred beds of down were made up, let off to Irish lodgers188 at eighteenpence a week; a little ill-looking beer-shop shrinking in the tap of former days, burning coach-house gates for firewood, having one of its two windows bunged up, as if it had received punishment in a fight with the Railroad; a low, bandy-legged, brick-making bulldog standing in the doorway189. What could I next see in my fire so naturally as the new railway-house of these times near the dismal country station; with nothing particular on draught190 but cold air and damp, nothing worth mentioning in the larder191 but new mortar192, and no business doing beyond a conceited193 affectation of luggage in the hall? Then I came to the Inns of Paris, with the pretty apartment of four pieces up one hundred and seventy-five waxed stairs, the privilege of ringing the bell all day long without influencing anybody’s mind or body but your own, and the not-too-much-for-dinner, considering the price. Next to the provincial194 Inns of France, with the great church-tower rising above the courtyard, the horse-bells jingling195 merrily up and down the street beyond, and the clocks of all descriptions in all the rooms, which are never right, unless taken at the precise minute when, by getting exactly twelve hours too fast or too slow, they unintentionally become so. Away I went, next, to the lesser196 roadside Inns of Italy; where all the dirty clothes in the house (not in wear) are always lying in your anteroom; where the mosquitoes make a raisin197 pudding of your face in summer, and the cold bites it blue in winter; where you get what you can, and forget what you can’t: where I should again like to be boiling my tea in a pocket-handkerchief dumpling, for want of a teapot. So to the old palace Inns and old monastery198 Inns, in towns and cities of the same bright country; with their massive quadrangular staircases, whence you may look from among clustering pillars high into the blue vault of heaven; with their stately banqueting-rooms, and vast refectories; with their labyrinths199 of ghostly bedchambers, and their glimpses into gorgeous streets that have no appearance of reality or possibility. So to the close little Inns of the Malaria200 districts, with their pale attendants, and their peculiar175 smell of never letting in the air. So to the immense fantastic Inns of Venice, with the cry of the gondolier below, as he skims the corner; the grip of the watery201 odours on one particular little bit of the bridge of your nose (which is never released while you stay there); and the great bell of St. Mark’s Cathedral tolling202 midnight. Next I put up for a minute at the restless Inns upon the Rhine, where your going to bed, no matter at what hour, appears to be the tocsin for everybody else’s getting up; and where, in the table-d’hôte room at the end of the long table (with several Towers of Babel on it at the other end, all made of white plates), one knot of stoutish203 men, entirely dressed in jewels and dirt, and having nothing else upon them, will remain all night, clinking glasses, and singing about the river that flows, and the grape that grows, and Rhine wine that beguiles204, and Rhine woman that smiles and hi drink drink my friend and ho drink drink my brother, and all the rest of it. I departed thence, as a matter of course, to other German Inns, where all the eatables are soddened205 down to the same flavour, and where the mind is disturbed by the apparition of hot puddings, and boiled cherries, sweet and slab206, at awfully207 unexpected periods of the repast. After a draught of sparkling beer from a foaming208 glass jug209, and a glance of recognition through the windows of the student beer-houses at Heidelberg and elsewhere, I put out to sea for the Inns of America, with their four hundred beds apiece, and their eight or nine hundred ladies and gentlemen at dinner every day. Again I stood in the bar-rooms thereof, taking my evening cobbler, julep, sling26, or cocktail210. Again I listened to my friend the General,—whom I had known for five minutes, in the course of which period he had made me intimate for life with two Majors, who again had made me intimate for life with three Colonels, who again had made me brother to twenty-two civilians211,—again, I say, I listened to my friend the General, leisurely212 expounding213 the resources of the establishment, as to gentlemen’s morning-room, sir; ladies’ morning-room, sir; gentlemen’s evening-room, sir; ladies’ evening-room, sir; ladies’ and gentlemen’s evening reuniting-room, sir; music-room, sir; reading-room, sir; over four hundred sleeping-rooms, sir; and the entire planned and finited within twelve calendar months from the first clearing off of the old encumbrances214 on the plot, at a cost of five hundred thousand dollars, sir. Again I found, as to my individual way of thinking, that the greater, the more gorgeous, and the more dollarous the establishment was, the less desirable it was. Nevertheless, again I drank my cobbler, julep, sling, or cocktail, in all good-will, to my friend the General, and my friends the Majors, Colonels, and civilians all; full well knowing that, whatever little motes165 my beamy eyes may have descried215 in theirs, they belong to a kind, generous, large-hearted, and great people.
I had been going on lately at a quick pace to keep my solitude out of my mind; but here I broke down for good, and gave up the subject. What was I to do? What was to become of me? Into what extremity216 was I submissively to sink? Supposing that, like Baron217 Trenck, I looked out for a mouse or spider, and found one, and beguiled218 my imprisonment219 by training it? Even that might be dangerous with a view to the future. I might be so far gone when the road did come to be cut through the snow, that, on my way forth, I might burst into tears, and beseech220, like the prisoner who was released in his old age from the Bastille, to be taken back again to the five windows, the ten curtains, and the sinuous221 drapery.
A desperate idea came into my head. Under any other circumstances I should have rejected it; but, in the strait at which I was, I held it fast. Could I so far overcome the inherent bashfulness which withheld222 me from the landlord’s table and the company I might find there, as to call up the Boots, and ask him to take a chair,—and something in a liquid form,—and talk to me? I could, I would, I did.
该作者的其它作品
《A Tale of Two Cities双城记》
《David Copperfield大卫·科波菲尔》
《匹克威克外传 Pickwick Papers》
《董贝父子 Dombey and Son》
该作者的其它作品
《A Tale of Two Cities双城记》
《David Copperfield大卫·科波菲尔》
《匹克威克外传 Pickwick Papers》
《董贝父子 Dombey and Son》
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1
evasions
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| 逃避( evasion的名词复数 )； 回避； 遁辞； 借口 | |
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solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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memorable
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| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
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bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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dreariness
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| 沉寂，可怕，凄凉 | |
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chambers
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| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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10
miserably
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| adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地 | |
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flickering
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| adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的 | |
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12
gusty
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| adj.起大风的 | |
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gust
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| n.阵风，突然一阵（雨、烟等），（感情的）迸发 | |
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14
bleak
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| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
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15
trotting
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| 小跑，急走( trot的现在分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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16
hospitable
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| adj.好客的；宽容的；有利的，适宜的 | |
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17
rime
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| n.白霜；v.使蒙霜 | |
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18
lash
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| v.系牢；鞭打；猛烈抨击；n.鞭打；眼睫毛 | |
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19
lashed
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| adj.具睫毛的v.鞭打( lash的过去式和过去分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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20
farmhouse
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| n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房） | |
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21
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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22
lamenting
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| adj.悲伤的，悲哀的v.（为…）哀悼，痛哭，悲伤( lament的现在分词 ) | |
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lament
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| n.悲叹，悔恨，恸哭；v.哀悼，悔恨，悲叹 | |
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24
dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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25
penance
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| n.（赎罪的）惩罪 | |
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sling
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| vt.扔；悬挂；n.挂带；吊索，吊兜；弹弓 | |
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inclemency
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| n.险恶，严酷 | |
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uncommonly
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| adv. 稀罕(极，非常) | |
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29
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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30
rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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31
panes
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| 窗玻璃( pane的名词复数 ) | |
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chubby
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| adj.丰满的，圆胖的 | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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34
dozed
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| v.打盹儿，打瞌睡( doze的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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valiant
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| adj.勇敢的，英勇的；n.勇士，勇敢的人 | |
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depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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auld
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| adj.老的，旧的 | |
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syne
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| adv.自彼时至此时，曾经 | |
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tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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40
regularity
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| n.规律性，规则性；匀称，整齐 | |
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41
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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42
stumping
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| 僵直地行走，跺步行走( stump的现在分词 )； 把（某人）难住； 使为难； （选举前）在某一地区作政治性巡回演说 | |
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43
consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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44
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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45
hind
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| adj.后面的，后部的 | |
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46
prodigiously
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| adv.异常地，惊人地，巨大地 | |
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47
landmarks
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| n.陆标( landmark的名词复数 )；目标；（标志重要阶段的）里程碑 ~ (in sth)；有历史意义的建筑物（或遗址） | |
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48
crunching
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| v.嘎吱嘎吱地咬嚼( crunch的现在分词 )；嘎吱作响；（快速大量地）处理信息；数字捣弄 | |
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49
slate
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| n.板岩，石板，石片，石板色，候选人名单；adj.暗蓝灰色的，含板岩的；vt.用石板覆盖，痛打，提名，预订 | |
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50
expended
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| v.花费( expend的过去式和过去分词 )；使用（钱等）做某事；用光；耗尽 | |
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51
blotted
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| 涂污( blot的过去式和过去分词 )； （用吸墨纸）吸干 | |
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52
moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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53
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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54
clogged
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| （使）阻碍( clog的过去式和过去分词 )； 淤滞 | |
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55
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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56
moor
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| n.荒野，沼泽；vt.(使)停泊；vi.停泊 | |
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57
glimmering
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| n.微光，隐约的一瞥adj.薄弱地发光的v.发闪光，发微光( glimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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58
drowsy
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| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
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59
landlady
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| n.女房东，女地主 | |
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60
parley
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| n.谈判 | |
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61
innately
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| adv.天赋地；内在地，固有地 | |
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62
confirmations
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| 证实( confirmation的名词复数 )； 证据； 确认； （基督教中的）坚信礼 | |
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63
idiotic
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| adj.白痴的 | |
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64
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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66
scorched
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| 烧焦，烤焦( scorch的过去式和过去分词 )； 使（植物）枯萎，把…晒枯； 高速行驶； 枯焦 | |
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67
wavy
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| adj.有波浪的，多浪的，波浪状的，波动的，不稳定的 | |
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68
anterior
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| adj.较早的；在前的 | |
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69
eyebrow
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| n.眉毛，眉 | |
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70
vault
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| n.拱形圆顶，地窖，地下室 | |
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71
emboldened
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| v.鼓励，使有胆量( embolden的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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72
broiled
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| a.烤过的 | |
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73
fowl
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| n.家禽，鸡，禽肉 | |
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74
dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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75
misgiving
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| n.疑虑，担忧，害怕 | |
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76
pickle
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| n.腌汁，泡菜；v.腌，泡 | |
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77
sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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78
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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79
enunciated
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| v.（清晰地）发音( enunciate的过去式和过去分词 )；确切地说明 | |
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80
nun
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| n.修女，尼姑 | |
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81
exhausted
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|
| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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82
fishy
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| adj. 值得怀疑的 | |
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83
aquiline
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| adj.钩状的，鹰的 | |
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84
specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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85
narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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86
coppers
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| 铜( copper的名词复数 )； 铜币 | |
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87
underneath
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|
| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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88
pastry
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|
| n.油酥面团，酥皮糕点 | |
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89
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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90
poker
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| n.扑克；vt.烙制 | |
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91
royalty
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| n.皇家，皇族 | |
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92
discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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93
authentic
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| a.真的，真正的；可靠的，可信的，有根据的 | |
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94
anecdote
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|
| n.轶事，趣闻，短故事 | |
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95
disparaging
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|
| adj.轻蔑的，毁谤的v.轻视( disparage的现在分词 )；贬低；批评；非难 | |
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96
benighted
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| adj.蒙昧的 | |
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97
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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98
heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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99
vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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100
smelt
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| v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼 | |
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101
dagger
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| n.匕首，短剑，剑号 | |
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102
faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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103
stagnated
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| v.停滞，不流动，不发展( stagnate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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104
hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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105
renowned
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| adj.著名的，有名望的，声誉鹊起的 | |
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106
compartment
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| n.卧车包房，隔间；分隔的空间 | |
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107
compartments
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| n.间隔( compartment的名词复数 )；（列车车厢的）隔间；（家具或设备等的）分隔间；隔层 | |
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108
complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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109
smearing
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| 污点，拖尾效应 | |
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110
slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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111
ballad
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| n.歌谣，民谣，流行爱情歌曲 | |
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112
salmon
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| n.鲑，大马哈鱼，橙红色的 | |
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113
fowls
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|
| 鸟( fowl的名词复数 )； 禽肉； 既不是这； 非驴非马 | |
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114
snug
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|
| adj.温暖舒适的，合身的，安全的；v.使整洁干净，舒适地依靠，紧贴；n.（英）酒吧里的私房 | |
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115
rosy
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|
| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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116
softened
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| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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117
enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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118
placid
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|
| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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119
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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120
conversing
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|
| v.交谈，谈话( converse的现在分词 ) | |
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121
entreated
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| 恳求，乞求( entreat的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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122
vaulted
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| adj.拱状的 | |
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123
touching
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|
| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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124
Christians
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| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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125
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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126
rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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127
verge
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| n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临 | |
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128
weird
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|
| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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129
behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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130
apparition
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| n.幽灵，神奇的现象 | |
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131
fully
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|
| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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132
conveyance
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|
| n.(不动产等的)转让，让与；转让证书；传送；运送；表达；（正）运输工具 | |
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133
dwarf
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| n.矮子，侏儒，矮小的动植物；vt.使…矮小 | |
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134
pony
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| adj.小型的；n.小马 | |
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135
degenerated
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| 衰退，堕落，退化( degenerate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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136
stunned
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| adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
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137
enthusiast
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|
| n.热心人，热衷者 | |
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138
creed
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|
| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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139
retired
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|
| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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140
homely
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|
| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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141
zigzag
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|
| n.曲折，之字形；adj.曲折的，锯齿形的；adv.曲折地，成锯齿形地；vt.使曲折；vi.曲折前行 | |
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142
mules
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|
| 骡( mule的名词复数 )； 拖鞋； 顽固的人； 越境运毒者 | |
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143
ascending
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|
| adj.上升的，向上的 | |
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144
torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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145
loft
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| n.阁楼，顶楼 | |
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146
awakened
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|
| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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147
dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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148
hurl
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| vt.猛投，力掷，声叫骂 | |
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149
shackled
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| 给（某人）带上手铐或脚镣( shackle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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150
devoid
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| adj.全无的，缺乏的 | |
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151
embezzler
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| n.盗用公款者，侵占公款犯 | |
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152
wretch
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| n.可怜的人，不幸的人；卑鄙的人 | |
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153
radius
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| n.半径，半径范围；有效航程，范围，界限 | |
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154
sickle
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| n.镰刀 | |
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155
accurately
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|
| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
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156
tusks
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|
| n.（象等动物的）长牙( tusk的名词复数 )；獠牙；尖形物；尖头 | |
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157
leopard
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| n.豹 | |
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158
sociable
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|
| adj.好交际的，友好的，合群的 | |
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159
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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160
considerably
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|
| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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161
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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162
spectral
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|
| adj.幽灵的，鬼魂的 | |
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163
adroitly
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| adv.熟练地，敏捷地 | |
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164
penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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165
motes
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| n.尘埃( mote的名词复数 )；斑点 | |
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166
stony
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| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
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167
morass
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| n.沼泽，困境 | |
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168
perusal
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| n.细读，熟读；目测 | |
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169
incompatible
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| adj.不相容的，不协调的，不相配的 | |
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170
jovial
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| adj.快乐的，好交际的 | |
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171
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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172
joyfully
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| adv. 喜悦地, 高兴地 | |
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173
perches
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| 栖息处( perch的名词复数 )； 栖枝； 高处； 鲈鱼 | |
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174
peculiarity
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| n.独特性，特色；特殊的东西；怪癖 | |
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175
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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176
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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177
conversed
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| v.交谈，谈话( converse的过去式 ) | |
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178
humbugs
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| 欺骗( humbug的名词复数 )； 虚伪； 骗子； 薄荷硬糖 | |
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179
highland
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| n.(pl.)高地，山地 | |
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180
trout
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| n.鳟鱼；鲑鱼(属) | |
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181
mortification
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|
| n.耻辱，屈辱 | |
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182
feats
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| 功绩，伟业，技艺( feat的名词复数 ) | |
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183
perseverance
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| n.坚持不懈，不屈不挠 | |
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184
submission
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| n.服从，投降；温顺，谦虚；提出 | |
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185
rapacity
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| n.贪婪，贪心，劫掠的欲望 | |
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186
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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187
crumbling
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| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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188
lodgers
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| n.房客，租住者( lodger的名词复数 ) | |
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189
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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190
draught
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|
| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
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191
larder
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| n.食物贮藏室，食品橱 | |
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192
mortar
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| n.灰浆，灰泥；迫击炮；v.把…用灰浆涂接合 | |
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193
conceited
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| adj.自负的，骄傲自满的 | |
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194
provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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195
jingling
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| 叮当声 | |
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196
lesser
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|
| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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197
raisin
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| n.葡萄干 | |
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198
monastery
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| n.修道院，僧院，寺院 | |
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199
labyrinths
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| 迷宫( labyrinth的名词复数 )； （文字，建筑）错综复杂的 | |
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200
malaria
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| n.疟疾 | |
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201
watery
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| adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的 | |
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202
tolling
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| [财]来料加工 | |
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203
stoutish
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| 略胖的 | |
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204
beguiles
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| v.欺骗( beguile的第三人称单数 )；使陶醉；使高兴；消磨（时间等） | |
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205
soddened
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| v.（液体）沸腾( seethe的过去分词 )( sodden的过去分词 )；激动，大怒；强压怒火；生闷气(~with sth|~ at sth) | |
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206
slab
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| n.平板，厚的切片；v.切成厚板，以平板盖上 | |
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207
awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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208
foaming
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| adj.布满泡沫的；发泡 | |
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209
jug
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| n.(有柄，小口，可盛水等的)大壶，罐，盂 | |
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210
cocktail
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| n.鸡尾酒；餐前开胃小吃；混合物 | |
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211
civilians
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| 平民，百姓( civilian的名词复数 )； 老百姓 | |
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212
leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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213
expounding
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| 论述，详细讲解( expound的现在分词 ) | |
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214
encumbrances
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| n.负担( encumbrance的名词复数 )；累赘；妨碍；阻碍 | |
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215
descried
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| adj.被注意到的，被发现的，被看到的 | |
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216
extremity
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| n.末端，尽头；尽力；终极；极度 | |
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217
baron
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| n.男爵；(商业界等)巨头，大王 | |
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218
beguiled
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| v.欺骗( beguile的过去式和过去分词 )；使陶醉；使高兴；消磨（时间等） | |
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219
imprisonment
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| n.关押，监禁，坐牢 | |
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220
beseech
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| v.祈求，恳求 | |
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221
sinuous
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| adj.蜿蜒的，迂回的 | |
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222
withheld
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| withhold过去式及过去分词 | |
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