The Baronet was very slightly known in his county. He had led a reserved and inhospitable life. He was pressed upon by heavy debts; and being a proud man, held aloof1 from society and its doings. He wished people to understand that he was nursing his estate; but somehow the estate did not thrive at nurse. In the country other people’s business is admirably well known; and the lord of Mardykes was conscious, perhaps, that his neighbours knew as well he did, that the utmost he could do was to pay the interest charged upon it, and to live in a frugal2 way enough.
The lake measures some four or five miles across, from the little jetty under the walls of Mardykes Hall to Cloostedd.
Philip Feltram, changed and morose3, loved a solitary4 row upon the lake; and sometimes, with no one to aid him in its management, would take the little sailboat and pass the whole day upon those lonely waters.
Frequently he crossed to Cloostedd; and mooring5 the boat under the solemn trees that stand reflected in that dark mirror, he would disembark and wander among the lonely woodlands, as people thought, cherishing in those ancestral scenes the memory of ineffaceable injuries, and the wrath7 and revenge that seemed of late to darken his countenance8, and to hold him always in a moody9 silence.
One autumnal evening Sir Bale Mardykes was sourly ruminating10 after his solitary meal. A very red sun was pouring its last low beams through the valley at the western extremity11 of the lake, across its elsewhere sombre waters, and touching12 with a sudden and blood-red tint13 the sail of the skiff in which Feltram was returning from his lonely cruise.
“Here comes my domestic water-fiend,” sneered14 Sir Bale, as he lay back in his cumbrous arm-chair. “Cheerful place, pleasant people, delicious fate! The place alone has been enough to set that fool out of his little senses, damn him!”
Sir Bale averted15 his eyes, and another subject not pleasanter entered his mind. He was thinking of the races that were coming off next week at Heckleston Downs, and what sums of money might be made there, and how hard it was that he should be excluded by fortune from that brilliant lottery16.
“Ah, Mrs. Julaper, is that you?”
Mrs. Julaper, who was still at the door, curtsied, and said, “I came, Sir Bale, to see whether you’d please to like a jug17 of mulled claret, sir.”
“Not I, my dear. I’ll take a mug of beer and my pipe; that homely18 solace19 better befits a ruined gentleman.”
“H’m, sir; you’re not that, Sir Bale; you’re no worse than half the lords and great men that are going. I would not hear another say that of you, sir.”
“That’s very kind of you, Mrs. Julaper; but you won’t call me out for backbiting20 myself, especially as it is true, damned true, Mrs. Julaper! Look ye; there never was a Mardykes here before but he could lay his hundred or his thousand pounds on the winner of the Heckleston Cup; and what could I bet? Little more than that mug of beer I spoke21 of. It was my great-grandfather who opened the course on the Downs of Heckleston, and now I can’t show there! Well, what must I do? Grin and bear it, that’s all. If you please, Mrs. Julaper, I will have that jug of claret you offered. I want spice and hot wine to keep me alive; but I’ll smoke my pipe first, and in an hour’s time it will do.”
When Mrs. Julaper was gone, he lighted his pipe, and drew near the window, through which he looked upon the now fading sky and the twilight22 landscape.
He smoked his pipe out, and by that time it had grown nearly dark. He was still looking out upon the faint outlines of the view, and thinking angrily what a little bit of luck at the races would do for many a man who probably did not want it half so much as he. Vague and sombre as his thoughts were, they had, like the darkening landscape outside, shape enough to define their general character. Bitter and impious they were — as those of egotistic men naturally are in suffering. And after brooding, and muttering by fits and starts, he said:
“How many tens and hundreds of thousands of pounds will change hands at Heckleston next week; and not a shilling in all the change and shuffle23 will stick to me! How many a fellow would sell himself, like Dr. Faustus, just for the knowledge of the name of the winner! But he’s no fool, and does not buy his own.”
Something caught his eye; something moving on the wall. The fire was lighted, and cast a flickering24 and gigantic shadow upward; the figure of a man standing25 behind Sir Bale Mardykes, on whose shoulder he placed a lean hand. Sir Bale turned suddenly about, and saw Philip Feltram. He was looking dark and stern, and did not remove his hand from his shoulder as he peered into the Baronet’s face with his deep-set mad eyes.
“Ha, Philip, upon my soul!” exclaimed Sir Bale, surprised. “How time flies! It seems only this minute since I saw the boat a mile and a half away from the shore. Well — yes; there has been time; it is dark now. Ha, ha! I assure you, you startled me. Won’t you take something? Do. Shall I touch the bell?”
“You have been troubled about those mortgages. I told you I should pay them off, I thought.”
Here there was a pause, and Sir Bale looked hard in Feltram’s face. If he had been in his ordinary spirits, or perhaps in some of his haunts less solitary than Mardykes, he would have laughed; but here he had grown unlike himself, gloomy and credulous26, and was, in fact, a nervous man.
Sir Bale smiled, and shook his head dismally27.
“It is very kind of you, Feltram; the idea shows a kindly28 disposition29. I know you would do me a kindness if you could.”
As Sir Bale, each looking in the other’s eyes, repeated in this sentence the words “kind,” “kindly,” “kindness,” a smile lighted Feltram’s face with at each word an intenser light; and Sir Bale grew sombre in its glare; and when he had done speaking, Feltram’s face also on a sudden darkened.
“I have found a fortune-teller in Cloostedd Wood. Look here.”
And he drew from his pocket a leathern purse, which he placed on the table in his hand; and Sir Bale heard the pleasant clink of coin in it.
“A fortune-teller! You don’t mean to say she gave you that?” said Sir Bale.
Feltram smiled again, and nodded.
“It was the custom to give the fortuneteller a trifle. It is a great improvement making her fee you,” observed Sir Bale, with an approach to his old manner.
“He put that in my hand with a message,” said Feltram.
“He? O, then it was a male fortune-teller!”
“Gipsies go in gangs, men and women. He might lend, though she told fortunes,” said Feltram.
“It’s the first time I ever heard of gipsies lending money;” and he eyed the purse with a whimsical smile.
With his lean fingers still holding it, Feltram sat down at the table. His face contracted as if in cunning thought, and his chin sank upon his breast as he leaned back.
“I think,” continued Sir Bale, “ever since they were spoiled, the Egyptians have been a little shy of lending, and leave that branch of business to the Hebrews.”
“What would you give to know, now, the winner at Heckleston races?” said Feltram suddenly, raising his eyes.
“Yes; that would be worth something,” answered Sir Bale, looking at him with more interest than the incredulity he affected30 would quite warrant.
“And this money I have power to lend you, to make your game.”
“Do you mean that really?” said Sir Bale, with a new energy in tone, manner, and features.
“That’s heavy; there are some guineas there,” said Feltram with a dark smile, raising the purse in his hand a little, and letting it drop upon the table with a clang.
“There is something there, at all events,” said Sir Bale.
Feltram took the purse by the bottom, and poured out on the table a handsome pile of guineas.
“And do you mean to say you got all that from a gipsy in Cloostedd Wood?”
“A friend, who is — myself,” answered Philip Feltram.
“Yourself! Then it is yours — you lend it?” said the Baronet, amazed; for there was no getting over the heap of guineas, and the wonder was pretty equal whence they had come.
“Myself, and not myself,” said Feltram oracularly; “as like as voice and echo, man and shadow.”
Had Feltram in some of his solitary wanderings and potterings lighted upon hidden treasure? There was a story of two Feltrams of Cloostedd, brothers, who had joined the king’s army and fought at Marston Moor6, having buried in Cloostedd Wood a great deal of gold and plate and jewels. They had, it was said, intrusted one tried servant with the secret; and that servant remained at home. But by a perverse31 fatality32 the three witnesses had perished within a month: the two brothers at Marston Moor; and the confidant, of fever, at Cloostedd. From that day forth33 treasure-seekers had from time to time explored the woods of Cloostedd; and many a tree of mark was dug beside, and the earth beneath many a stone and scar and other landmark34 in that solitary forest was opened by night, until hope gradually died out, and the tradition had long ceased to prompt to action, and had become a story and nothing more.
The image of the nursery-tale had now recurred35 to Sir Bale after so long a reach of years; and the only imaginable way, in his mind, of accounting36 for penniless Philip Feltram having all that gold in his possession was that, in some of his lonely wanderings, chance had led him to the undiscovered hoard37 of the two Feltrams who had died in the great civil wars.
“Perhaps those gipsies you speak of found the money where you found them; and in that case, as Cloostedd Forest, and all that is in it is my property, their sending it to me is more like my servant’s handing me my hat and stick when I’m going out, than making me a present.”
“You will not be wise to rely upon the law, Sir Bale, and to refuse the help that comes unasked. But if you like your mortgages as they are, keep them; and if you like my terms as they are, take them; and when you have made up your mind, let me know.”
Philip Feltram dropped the heavy purse into his capacious coat-pocket, and walked, muttering, out of the room.
收听单词发音 |
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aloof
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| adj.远离的；冷淡的，漠不关心的 | |
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frugal
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| adj.节俭的，节约的，少量的，微量的 | |
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morose
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| adj.脾气坏的，不高兴的 | |
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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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mooring
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| n.停泊处；系泊用具，系船具；下锚v.停泊，系泊（船只）(moor的现在分词) | |
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moor
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| n.荒野，沼泽；vt.(使)停泊；vi.停泊 | |
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7
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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8
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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moody
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| adj.心情不稳的，易怒的，喜怒无常的 | |
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ruminating
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| v.沉思( ruminate的现在分词 )；反复考虑；反刍；倒嚼 | |
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extremity
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| n.末端，尽头；尽力；终极；极度 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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tint
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| n.淡色，浅色；染发剂；vt.着以淡淡的颜色 | |
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14
sneered
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| 讥笑，冷笑( sneer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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averted
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| 防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移 | |
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lottery
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| n.抽彩；碰运气的事，难于算计的事 | |
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jug
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| n.(有柄，小口，可盛水等的)大壶，罐，盂 | |
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homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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solace
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| n.安慰；v.使快乐；vt.安慰(物)，缓和 | |
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backbiting
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| 背后诽谤 | |
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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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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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shuffle
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| n.拖著脚走，洗纸牌；v.拖曳，慢吞吞地走 | |
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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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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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26
credulous
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| adj.轻信的，易信的 | |
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dismally
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| adv.阴暗地，沉闷地 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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perverse
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| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
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fatality
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| n.不幸，灾祸，天命 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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34
landmark
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| n.陆标，划时代的事，地界标 | |
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35
recurred
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| 再发生，复发( recur的过去式和过去分词 )； 治愈 | |
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accounting
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| n.会计，会计学，借贷对照表 | |
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37
hoard
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| n./v.窖藏，贮存，囤积 | |
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