Part 9 The Potwell Inn Chapter 5

Mr. Polly found the plump woman in the big bricked kitchen lighting¹ a fire for tea. He went to the root of the matter at once.

“I say,” he asked, “who’s Uncle Jim?”

The plump woman blanched² and stood still for a moment. A stick fell out of the bundle in her hand unheeded.

“That little granddaughter of mine been saying things?” she asked faintly.

“Bits of things,” said Mr. Polly.

“Well, I suppose I must tell you sooner or later. He’s —. It’s Jim. He’s the Drorback to this place, that’s what he is. The Drorback. I hoped you mightn’t hear so soon. . . . Very likely he’s gone.”

“She don’t seem to think so.”

“‘E ‘asn’t been near the place these two weeks and more,” said the plump woman.

“But who is he?”

“I suppose I got to tell you,” said the plump woman.

“She says he scoots people,” Mr. Polly remarked after a pause.

“He’s my own sister’s son.” The plump woman watched the crackling fire for a space. “I suppose I got to tell you,” she repeated.

She softened⁴ towards tears. “I try not to think of it, and night and day he’s haunting me. I try not to think of it. I’ve been for easy-going all my life. But I’m that worried and afraid, with death and ruin threatened and evil all about me! I don’t know what to do! My own sister’s son, and me a widow woman and ‘elpless against his doin’s!”

She put down the sticks she held upon the fender, and felt for her handkerchief. She began to sob⁵ and talk quickly.

“I wouldn’t mind nothing else half so much if he’d leave that child alone. But he goes talking to her — if I leave her a moment he’s talking to her, teaching her words and giving her ideas!”

“That’s a Bit Thick,” said Mr. Polly.

“Thick!” cried the plump woman; “it’s ‘orrible! And what am I to do? He’s been here three times now, six days and a week and a part of a week, and I pray to God night and day he may never come again. Praying! Back he’s come sure as fate. He takes my money and he takes my things. He won’t let no man stay here to protect me or do the boats or work the ferry. The ferry’s getting a scandal. They stand and shout and scream and use language. . . . If I complain they’ll say I’m helpless to manage here, they’ll take away my license⁶, out I shall go — and it’s all the living I can get — and he knows it, and he plays on it, and he don’t care. And here I am. I’d send the child away, but I got nowhere to send the child. I buys him off when it comes to that, and back he comes, worse than ever, prowling round and doing evil. And not a soul to help me. Not a soul! I just hoped there might be a day or so. Before he comes back again. I was just hoping — I’m the sort that hopes.”

Mr. Polly was reflecting on the flaws and drawbacks that seem to be inseparable from all the more agreeable things in life.

“Biggish sort of man, I expect?” asked Mr. Polly, trying to get the situation in all its bearings.

But the plump woman did not heed³ him. She was going on with her fire-making, and retailing⁷ in disconnected fragments the fearfulness of Uncle Jim.

“There was always something a bit wrong with him,” she said, “but nothing you mightn’t have hoped for, not till they took him and carried him off and reformed him. . . .

“He was cruel to the hens and chickings, it’s true, and stuck a knife into another boy, but then I’ve seen him that nice to a cat, nobody could have been kinder. I’m sure he didn’t do no ‘arm to that cat whatever anyone tries to make out of it. I’d never listen to that. . . . It was that reformatory ruined him. They put him along of a lot of London boys full of ideas of wickedness, and because he didn’t mind pain — and he don’t, I will admit, try as I would — they made him think himself a hero. Them boys laughed at the teachers they set over them, laughed and mocked at them — and I don’t suppose they was the best teachers in the world; I don’t suppose, and I don’t suppose anyone sensible does suppose that everyone who goes to be a teacher or a chapl’in or a warder in a Reformatory Home goes and changes right away into an Angel of Grace from Heaven — and Oh, Lord! where was I?”

“What did they send him to the Reformatory for?”

“Playing truant⁸ and stealing. He stole right enough — stole the money from an old woman, and what was I to do when it came to the trial but say what I knew. And him like a viper⁹ a-looking at me — more like a viper than a human boy. He leans on the bar and looks at me. ‘All right, Aunt Flo,’ he says, just that and nothing more. Time after time, I’ve dreamt of it, and now he’s come. ‘They’ve Reformed me,’ he says, ‘and made me a devil, and devil I mean to be to you. So out with it,’ he says.”

“What did you give him last time?” asked Mr. Polly.

“Three golden pounds,” said the plump woman.

“‘That won’t last very long,’ he says. ‘But there ain’t no hurry. I’ll be back in a week about.’ If I wasn’t one of the hoping sort —”

She left the sentence unfinished.

Mr. Polly reflected. “What sort of a size is he?” he asked. “I’m not one of your Herculaceous sort, if you mean that. Nothing very wonderful bicepitally.”

“You’ll scoot,” said the plump woman with conviction rather than bitterness. “You’d better scoot now, and I’ll try and find some money for him to go away again when he comes. It ain’t reasonable to expect you to do anything but scoot. But I suppose it’s the way of a woman in trouble to try and get help from a man, and hope and hope. I’m the hoping sort.”

“How long’s he been about?” asked Mr. Polly, ignoring his own outlook.

“Three months it is come the seventh since he come in by that very back door — and I hadn’t set eyes on him for seven long years. He stood in the door watchin’ me, and suddenly he let off a yelp¹⁰ — like a dog, and there he was grinning at the fright he’d given me. ‘Good old Aunty Flo,’ he says, ‘ain’t you dee-lighted to see me?’ he says, ‘now I’m Reformed.’”

The plump lady went to the sink and filled the kettle.

“I never did like ’im,” she said, standing¹¹ at the sink. “And seeing him there, with his teeth all black and broken —. P’raps I didn’t give him much of a welcome at first. Not what would have been kind to him. ‘Lord!’ I said, ‘it’s Jim.’”

“‘It’s Jim,’ he said. ‘Like a bad shillin’— like a damned bad shilling. Jim and trouble. You all of you wanted me Reformed and now you got me Reformed. I’m a Reformatory Reformed Character, warranted all right and turned out as such. Ain’t you going to ask me in, Aunty dear?’

“‘Come in,’ I said, ‘I won’t have it said I wasn’t ready to be kind to you!’

“He comes in and shuts the door. Down he sits in that chair. ‘I come to torment¹² you!’ he says, ‘you Old Sumpthing!’ and begins at me. . . . No human being could ever have been called such things before. It made me cry out. ‘And now,’ he says, ‘just to show I ain’t afraid of ‘urting you,’ he says, and ups and twists my wrist.”

Mr. Polly gasped¹³.

“I could stand even his vi’lence,” said the plump woman, “if it wasn’t for the child.”

Mr. Polly went to the kitchen window and surveyed his namesake, who was away up the garden path with her hands behind her back, and whisps of black hair in disorder¹⁴ about her little face, thinking, thinking profoundly, about ducklings.

“You two oughtn’t to be left,” he said.

The plump woman stared at his back with hard hope in her eyes.

“I don’t see that it’s my affair,” said Mr. Polly.

The plump woman resumed her business with the kettle.

“I’d like to have a look at him before I go,” said Mr. Polly, thinking aloud. And added, “somehow. Not my business, of course.”

“Lord!” he cried with a start at a noise in the bar, “who’s that?”

“Only a customer,” said the plump woman.

1 lighting   

n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光

参考例句：

• The gas lamp gradually lost ground to electric lighting.煤气灯逐渐为电灯所代替。
• The lighting in that restaurant is soft and romantic.那个餐馆照明柔和而且浪漫。

2 blanched   

v.使变白( blanch的过去式 )；使（植物）不见阳光而变白；酸洗（金属）使有光泽；用沸水烫（杏仁等）以便去皮

参考例句：

• The girl blanched with fear when she saw the bear coming. 那女孩见熊（向她）走来，吓得脸都白了。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Their faces blanched in terror. 他们的脸因恐惧而吓得发白。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 heed   

v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心

参考例句：

• You must take heed of what he has told.你要注意他所告诉的事。
• For the first time he had to pay heed to his appearance.这是他第一次非得注意自己的外表不可了。

4 softened   

（使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰

参考例句：

• His smile softened slightly. 他的微笑稍柔和了些。
• The ice cream softened and began to melt. 冰淇淋开始变软并开始融化。

5 sob   

n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣

参考例句：

• The child started to sob when he couldn't find his mother.孩子因找不到他妈妈哭了起来。
• The girl didn't answer,but continued to sob with her head on the table.那个女孩不回答，也不抬起头来。她只顾低声哭着。

6 license   

n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许

参考例句：

• The foreign guest has a license on the person.这个外国客人随身携带执照。
• The driver was arrested for having false license plates on his car.司机由于使用假车牌而被捕。

7 retailing   

n.零售业v.零售(retail的现在分词)

参考例句：

• career opportunities in retailing 零售业的职业机会
• He is fond of retailing the news. 他喜欢传播消息。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 truant   

n.懒惰鬼，旷课者；adj.偷懒的，旷课的，游荡的；v.偷懒，旷课

参考例句：

• I found the truant throwing stones in the river.我发现那个逃课的学生在往河里扔石子。
• Children who play truant from school are unimaginative.逃学的孩子们都缺乏想像力。

9 viper   

n.毒蛇；危险的人

参考例句：

• Envy lucks at the bottom of the human heart a viper in its hole.嫉妒潜伏在人心底，如同毒蛇潜伏在穴中。
• Be careful of that viper;he is dangerous.小心那个阴险的人，他很危险。

10 yelp   

vi.狗吠

参考例句：

• The dog gave a yelp of pain.狗疼得叫了一声。
• The puppy a yelp when John stepped on her tail.当约翰踩到小狗的尾巴，小狗发出尖叫。

11 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

12 torment   

n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠

参考例句：

• He has never suffered the torment of rejection.他从未经受过遭人拒绝的痛苦。
• Now nothing aggravates me more than when people torment each other.没有什么东西比人们的互相折磨更使我愤怒。

13 gasped   

v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要

参考例句：

• She gasped at the wonderful view. 如此美景使她惊讶得屏住了呼吸。
• People gasped with admiration at the superb skill of the gymnasts. 体操运动员的高超技艺令人赞叹。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

14 disorder   

n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调

参考例句：

• When returning back,he discovered the room to be in disorder.回家后，他发现屋子里乱七八糟。
• It contained a vast number of letters in great disorder.里面七零八落地装着许多信件。