We went in an omnibus, which we left in Commercial Road. Here my grandfather took order to repair my disappointment in the matter of pear-drops; and we left the shop with such a bagful that it would not go into the accustomed pocket at all. A little way from this shop, and on the opposite side of the way, stood a house which my mother had more than once pointed4 out to me already; and as we came abreast5 of it now, Grandfather Nat pointed it out also. "Know who lives there, Stevy?" he asked.
"Yes," I said; "Mr. Viney, that father's ship belongs to."
There was a man sitting on the stone baluster by the landing of the front steps, having apparently7 just desisted from knocking at the door. He was pale and agitated8, and he slapped his leg distractedly with a folded paper.
With that the door opened, and a servant-girl, in bonnet10 and shawl, emerged with her box, lifting and dragging it as best she might. The man rose and spoke11 to her, and I supposed that he was about to help. But at her answer he sank back on the balustrade, and she hauled the box to the pavement by herself. The man looked worse than ever, now, and he moved his head from side to side; so that it struck me that it might be that his mother also was dead; perhaps to-day; and at the thought all the flavour went from the pear-drop in my mouth.
We turned up a narrow street which led us to a part where the river plainly was nearer at every step; for well I knew the curious smell that grew as we went, and that had in it something of tar12, something of rope and junk, something of ships' stores, and much of a blend of unknown outlandish merchandise. We met sailors, some with parrots and accordions13, and many with undecided legs; and we saw more of the hang-dog fellows who were not sailors, though they dressed in the same way, and got an inactive living out of sailors, somehow. They leaned on posts, they lurked15 in foul16 entries, they sat on sills, smoking; and often one would accost17 and hang to a passing sailor, with a grinning, trumped-up cordiality that offended and repelled18 me, child as I was. And there were big, coarse women, with flaring19 clothes, and hair that shone with grease; though for them I had but a certain wonder; as for why they all seemed to live near the docks; why they all grew so stout20; and why they never wore bonnets21.
As we went where the street grew fouler22 and more crooked23, and where dark entries and many turnings gave evidence of the complication of courts and alleys24 about us, we heard a hoarse26 voice crooning a stave of a sea-song, with the low scrape of a fiddle27 striking in here and there, as it were at random28. And presently there turned a corner ahead and faced toward us a blind man, with his fiddle held low against his chest, and his face lifted upward, a little aside. He checked at the corner to hit the wall a couple of taps with the stick that hung from his wrist, and called aloud, with fouler words than I can remember or could print: "Now then, damn ye! Ain't there ne'er a Christian29 sailor-man as wants a toon o' George? Who'll 'ave a toon o' George? Ain't ye got no money, damn ye? Not a brown for pore blind George? What a dirty mean lot it is! Who'll 'ave a 'ornpipe? Who'll 'ave a song o' pore George?... O damn y' all!"
And so, with a mutter and another tap of the stick, he came creeping along, six inches at a step, the stick dangling30 loose again, and the bow scraping the strings31 to the song:—
Fire on the main-deck, fire down below!
Fire! fire! fire down below!
Fetch a bucket o' water; fire down below!
The man's right eye was closed, but the left was horribly wide and white and rolling, and it quite unpleasantly reminded me of a large china marble that lay at that moment at the bottom of my breeches pocket, under some uniform buttons, a key you could whistle on, a brass32 knob from a fender, and a tangle33 of string. So much indeed was I possessed34 with this uncomfortable resemblance in later weeks, when I had seen Blind George often, and knew more of him, that at last I had no choice but to fling the marble into the river; though indeed it was something of a rarity in marbles, and worth four "alleys" as big as itself.
My grandfather stopped his talk as we drew within earshot of the fiddler; but blind men's ears are keen beyond the common. The bow dropped from the fiddle, and Blind George sang out cheerily: "Why, 'ere comes Cap'en Nat, 'ome from the funeral; and got 'is little grandson what 'e's goin' to take care of an' bring up so moral in 'is celebrated35 'ouse o' call!" All to my extreme amazement36: for what should this strange blind man know of me, or of my mother's funeral?
Grandfather Nat seemed a little angry. "Well, well," he said, "your ears are sharp, Blind George; they learn a lot as ain't your business. If your eyes was as good as your ears you'd ha' had your head broke 'fore this—a dozen times!"
"If my eyes was as good as my ears, Cap'en Nat Kemp," the other retorted, "there's many as wouldn't find it so easy to talk o' breakin' my 'ed. Other people's business! Lord! I know enough to 'ang some of 'em, that's what I know! I could tell you some o' your business if I liked,—some as you don't know yourself. Look 'ere! You bin37 to a funeral. Well, it ain't the last funeral as 'll be wanted in your family; see? The kid's mother's gone; don't you be too sure 'is father's safe! I bin along o' some one you know, an' 'e don't look like lastin' for ever, 'e don't; 'e ain't in 'ealthy company."
"Awright!" the blind man called after us, in his tone of affable ferocity. "Awright, go along! You'll see things, some day, near as well as I can, what's blind!"
"That's a bad fellow, Stevy," Grandfather Nat said, as we heard the fiddle and the song begin again. "Don't you listen to neither his talk nor his songs. Somehow it don't seem nat'ral to see a blind man such a bad 'un. But a bad 'un he is, up an' down."
I asked how he came to know about the funeral, and especially about my coming to Wapping—a thing I had only learned of myself an hour before. My grandfather said that he had probably learned of the funeral from somebody who had been at the Hole in the Wall during the day, and had asked the reason of the landlord's absence; and as to myself, he had heard my step, and guessed its meaning instantly. "He's a keen sharp rascal39, Stevy, an' he makes out all of parties' business he can. He knew your father was away, an' he jumped the whole thing at once. That's his way. But I don't stand him; he don't corne into my house barrin' he comes a customer, which I can't help."
Of the meaning of the blind man's talk I understood little. But he shocked me with a sense of insult, and more with one of surprise. For I had entertained a belief, born of Sunday-school stories, that blindness produced saintly piety40—unless it were the piety that caused the blindness—and that in any case a virtuous41 meekness42 was an essential condition of the affliction. So I walked in doubt and cogitation43.
And so, after a dive down a narrower street than any we had yet traversed (it could scarce be dirtier), and a twist through a steep and serpentine44 alley25, we came, as it grew dusk, to the Hole in the Wall. Of odd-looking riverside inns I can remember plenty, but never, before or since, have I beheld45 an odder than this of Grandfather Nat's. It was wooden and clap-boarded, and, like others of its sort, it was everywhere larger at top than at bottom. But the Hole in the Wall was not only top-heavy, but also most alarmingly lopsided. By its side, and half under it, lay a narrow passage, through which one saw a strip of the river and its many craft, and the passage ended in Hole-in-the-Wall Stairs. All of the house that was above the ground floor on this side rested on a row of posts, which stood near the middle of the passage; and the burden of these posts, twisted, wavy46, bulging47, and shapeless, hung still more toward the opposite building; while the farther side, bounded by a later brick house, was vertical48, as though a great wedge, point downward, had been cut away to permit the rise of the newer wall. And the effect was as of a reeling and toppling of the whole construction away from its neighbour, and an imminent49 downfall into the passage. And when, later, I examined the side looking across the river, supported on piles, and bulging and toppling over them also, I decided14 that what kept the Hole in the Wall from crashing into the passage was nothing but its countervailing inclination50 to tumble into the river.
Painted large over the boards of the front, whose lapped edges gave the letters ragged51 outlines, were the words THE HOLE IN THE WALL; and below, a little smaller, NATHANIEL KEMP. I felt a certain pride, I think, in the importance thus given the family name, and my esteem52 of my grandfather increased proportionably with the size of the letters.
There was a great noise within, and Grandfather Nat, with a quick look toward the entrance, grunted53 angrily. But we passed up the passage and entered by a private door under the posts. This door opened directly into the bar parlour, the floor whereof was two steps below the level of the outer paving; and the size whereof was about thrice that of a sentry-box.
The din6 of a quarrel and a scuffle came from the bar, and my grandfather, thrusting me into a corner, and giving me his hat, ran out with a roar like that of a wild beast. At the sound the quarrel hushed in its height. "What's this?" my grandfather blared, with a thump54 on the counter that made the pots jump. "What sort of a row's this in my house? Damme, I'll break y' in halves, every mother's son of ye!"
I peeped through the glass partition, and saw, first, the back of the potman's head (for the bar-floor took another drop) and beyond that and the row of beer-pulls, a group of rough, hulking men, one with blood on his face, and all with an odd look of sulky guilt55.
"Out you go!" pursued Grandfather Nat, "every swab o' ye! Can't leave the place not even to go to—not for nothin', without a row like this, givin' the house a bad name! Go on, Jim Crute! Unless I'm to chuck ye!"
The men had begun filing out awkwardly, with nothing but here and there: "Awright, guv'nor"—"Awright, cap'en." "Goin', ain't I?" and the like. But one big ruffian lagged behind, scowling56 and murmuring rebelliously58.
In a flash Grandfather Nat was through the counter-wicket. With a dart59 of his long left arm he had gripped the fellow's ear and spun60 him round with a wrench61 that I thought had torn the ear from the head; and in the same moment had caught him by the opposite wrist, so as to stretch the man's extended arm, elbow backward, across his own great chest; a posture62 in which the backward pull against the elbow joint63 brought a yell of agony from the victim. Only a man with extraordinarily64 long arms could have done the thing exactly like that. The movement was so savagely65 sudden that my grandfather had kicked open the door and flung Jim Crute headlong into the street ere I quite understood it; when there came a check in my throat and tears in my eyes to see the man so cruelly handled.
Grandfather Nat stood a moment at the door, but it seemed that his customer was quelled66 effectually, for presently he turned inward again, with such a grim scowl57 as I had never seen before. And at that a queer head appeared just above the counter—I had supposed the bar to be wholly cleared—and a very weak and rather womanish voice said, in tones of over-inflected indignation: "Serve 'em right, Cap'en Kemp, I'm sure. Lot o' impudent67 vagabones! Ought to be ashamed o' theirselves, that they ought. Pity every 'ouse ain't kep' as strict as this one is, that's what I say!"
And the queer head looked round the vacant bar with an air of virtuous defiance68, as though anxious to meet the eye of any so bold as to contradict.
It was anything but a clean face on the head, and it was overshadowed by a very greasy69 wideawake hat. Grubbiness and unhealthy redness contended for mastery in the features, of which the nose was the most surprising, wide and bulbous and knobbed all over; so that ever afterward70, in any attempt to look Mr. Cripps in the face, I found myself wholly disregarding his eyes, and fixing a fascinated gaze on his nose; and I could never recall his face to memory as I recalled another, but always as a Nose, garnished71 with a fringe of inferior features. The face had been shaved—apparently about a week before; and by the sides hung long hair, dirtier to look at than the rest of the apparition72.
My grandfather gave no more than a glance in the direction of this little man, passed the counter and re-joined me, pulling off his coat as he came. Something of my tingling73 eyes and screwed mouth was visible, I suppose, for he stooped as he rolled up his shirt-sleeves and said: "Why, Stevy boy, what's amiss?"
"You—you—hurt the man's ear," I said, with a choke and a sniff74; for till then Grandfather Nat had seemed to me the kindest man in the world.
Grandfather Nat looked mightily75 astonished. He left his shirt-sleeve where it was, and thrust his fingers up in his hair behind, through the grey and out at the brown on top. "What?" he said. "Hurt 'im? Hurt 'im? Why, s'pose I did? He ain't a friend o' yours, is he, young 'un?"
I shook my head and blinked. There was a gleam of amusement in my grandfather's grim face as he sat in a chair and took me between his knees. "Hurt 'im?" he repeated. "Why, Lord love ye, I'd get hurt if I didn't hurt some of 'em, now an' then. They're a rough lot—a bitter bad lot round here, an' it's hurt or be hurt with them, Stevy. I got to frighten 'em, my boy—an' I do it, too."
I was passing my fingers to and fro in the matted hair on my grandfather's arm, and thinking. He seemed a very terrible man now, and perhaps something of a hero; for, young as I was, I was a boy. So presently I said, "Did you ever kill a man, Gran'fa' Nat?"
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收听单词发音
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1
fore
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| adv.在前面；adj.先前的；在前部的；n.前部 | |
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scruples
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| n.良心上的不安( scruple的名词复数 )；顾虑，顾忌v.感到于心不安，有顾忌( scruple的第三人称单数 ) | |
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anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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5
abreast
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| adv.并排地；跟上(时代)的步伐，与…并进地 | |
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din
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| n.喧闹声，嘈杂声 | |
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7
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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8
agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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9
crooks
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| n.骗子( crook的名词复数 )；罪犯；弯曲部分；（牧羊人或主教用的）弯拐杖v.弯成钩形( crook的第三人称单数 ) | |
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10
bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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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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12
tar
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| n.柏油，焦油；vt.涂或浇柏油/焦油于 | |
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13
accordions
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| n.手风琴( accordion的名词复数 ) | |
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14
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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15
lurked
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| vi.潜伏，埋伏（lurk的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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16
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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17
accost
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| v.向人搭话，打招呼 | |
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18
repelled
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| v.击退( repel的过去式和过去分词 )；使厌恶；排斥；推开 | |
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flaring
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| a.火焰摇曳的，过份艳丽的 | |
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bonnets
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| n.童帽( bonnet的名词复数 )；（烟囱等的）覆盖物；（苏格兰男子的）无边呢帽；（女子戴的）任何一种帽子 | |
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fouler
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| adj.恶劣的( foul的比较级 )；邪恶的；难闻的；下流的 | |
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23
crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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24
alleys
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| 胡同，小巷( alley的名词复数 )； 小径 | |
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alley
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| n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路 | |
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26
hoarse
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| adj.嘶哑的，沙哑的 | |
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27
fiddle
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| n.小提琴；vi.拉提琴；不停拨弄，乱动 | |
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28
random
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| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
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29
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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30
dangling
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| 悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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strings
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| n.弦 | |
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32
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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33
tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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34
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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bin
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| n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件 | |
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38
twitched
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| vt.& vi.（使）抽动，（使）颤动（twitch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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39
rascal
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| n.流氓；不诚实的人 | |
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40
piety
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| n.虔诚，虔敬 | |
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virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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42
meekness
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| n.温顺，柔和 | |
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43
cogitation
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| n.仔细思考，计划，设计 | |
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44
serpentine
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| adj.蜿蜒的，弯曲的 | |
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45
beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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46
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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47
bulging
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| 膨胀； 凸出（部）； 打气； 折皱 | |
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48
vertical
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| adj.垂直的，顶点的，纵向的；n.垂直物，垂直的位置 | |
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49
imminent
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| adj.即将发生的，临近的，逼近的 | |
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50
inclination
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| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
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51
ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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52
esteem
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| n.尊敬，尊重；vt.尊重，敬重；把…看作 | |
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53
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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54
thump
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| v.重击，砰然地响；n.重击，重击声 | |
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55
guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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56
scowling
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| 怒视，生气地皱眉( scowl的现在分词 ) | |
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57
scowl
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| vi.(at)生气地皱眉，沉下脸，怒视；n.怒容 | |
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58
rebelliously
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| adv.造反地，难以控制地 | |
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59
dart
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| v.猛冲，投掷；n.飞镖，猛冲 | |
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60
spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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61
wrench
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| v.猛拧；挣脱；使扭伤；n.扳手；痛苦，难受 | |
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62
posture
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| n.姿势，姿态，心态，态度；v.作出某种姿势 | |
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63
joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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64
extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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65
savagely
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| adv. 野蛮地，残酷地 | |
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66
quelled
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| v.（用武力）制止，结束，镇压( quell的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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67
impudent
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| adj.鲁莽的，卑鄙的，厚颜无耻的 | |
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68
defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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69
greasy
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| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
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70
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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71
garnished
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| v.给（上餐桌的食物）加装饰( garnish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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72
apparition
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| n.幽灵，神奇的现象 | |
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73
tingling
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| v.有刺痛感( tingle的现在分词 ) | |
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74
sniff
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| vi.嗅…味道；抽鼻涕；对嗤之以鼻，蔑视 | |
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75
mightily
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| ad.强烈地；非常地 | |
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