‘Some folks can’t a-bear to put off their colours,’ she remarked; ‘but that was never the way i’ my family. Why, Mrs. Parrot, from the time I was married, till Mr. Higgins died, nine years ago come Candlemas, I niver was out o’ black two year together!’
‘Ah,’ said Mrs. Parrot, who was conscious of inferiority in this respect, ‘there isn’t many families as have had so many deaths as yours, Mrs. Higgins.’
Mrs. Higgins, who was an elderly widow, ‘well left’, reflected with complacency that Mrs. Parrot’s observation was no more than just, and that Mrs. Jennings very likely belonged to a family which had had no funerals to speak of.
Even dirty Dame6 Fripp, who was a very rare church-goer, had been to Mrs. Hackit to beg a bit of old crape, and with this sign of grief pinned on her little coal-scuttle bonnet7, was seen dropping her curtsy opposite the reading-desk. This manifestation8 of respect towards Mr. Gilfil’s memory on the part of Dame Fripp had no theological bearing whatever. It was due to an event which had occurred some years back, and which, I am sorry to say, had left that grimy old lady as indifferent to the means of grace as ever. Dame Fripp kept leeches9, and was understood to have such remarkable10 influence over those wilful11 animals in inducing them to bite under the most unpromising circumstances, that though her own leeches were usually rejected, from a suspicion that they had lost their appetite, she herself was constantly called in to apply the more lively individuals furnished from Mr. Pilgrim’s surgery, when, as was very often the case, one of that clever man’s paying patients was attacked with inflammation. Thus Dame Fripp, in addition to ‘property’ supposed to yield her no less than half-a-crown a-week, was in the receipt of professional fees, the gross amount of which was vaguely12 estimated by her neighbours as ‘pouns an’ pouns’. Moreover, she drove a brisk trade in lollipop13 with epicurean urchins14, who recklessly purchased that luxury at the rate of two hundred per cent. Nevertheless, with all these notorious sources of income, the shameless old woman constantly pleaded poverty, and begged for scraps15 at Mrs. Hackit’s, who, though she always said Mrs. Fripp was ‘as false as two folks’, and no better than a miser16 and a heathen, had yet a leaning towards her as an old neighbour.
‘There’s that case-hardened old Judy a-coming after the tea-leaves again,’ Mrs. Hackit would say; ‘an’ I’m fool enough to give ’em her, though Sally wants ’em all the while to sweep the floors with!’
Such was Dame Fripp, whom Mr. Gilfil, riding leisurely17 in top-boots and spurs from doing duty at Knebley one warm Sunday afternoon, observed sitting in the dry ditch near her cottage, and by her side a large pig, who, with that ease and confidence belonging to perfect friendship, was lying with his head in her lap, and making no effort to play the agreeable beyond an occasional grunt18.
‘Why, Mrs. Fripp,’ said the Vicar, ‘I didn’t know you had such a fine pig. You’ll have some rare flitches at Christmas!’
‘Eh, God forbid! My son gev him me two ’ear ago, an’ he’s been company to me iver sin’. I couldn’t find i’ my heart to part wi’m, if I niver knowed the taste o’ bacon-fat again.’
‘Why, he’ll eat his head off, and yours too. How can you go on keeping a pig, and making nothing by him?’
‘O, he picks a bit hisself wi’ rootin’, and I dooant mind doing wi’out to gi’ him summat. A bit o’ company’s meat an’ drink too, an’ he follers me about, and grunts19 when I spake to’m, just like a Christian20.’
Mr. Gilfil laughed, and I am obliged to admit that he said good-bye to Dame Fripp without asking her why she had not been to church, or making the slightest effort for her spiritual edification. But the next day he ordered his man David to take her a great piece of bacon, with a message, saying, the parson wanted to make sure that Mrs. Fripp would know the taste of bacon-fat again. So, when Mr. Gilfil died, Dame Fripp manifested her gratitude21 and reverence22 in the simply dingy24 fashion I have mentioned.
You already suspect that the Vicar did not shine in the more spiritual functions of his office; and indeed, the utmost I can say for him in this respect is, that he performed those functions with undeviating attention to brevity and despatch25. He had a large heap of short sermons, rather yellow and worn at the edges, from which he took two every Sunday, securing perfect impartiality26 in the selection by taking them as they came, without reference to topics; and having preached one of these sermons at Shepperton in the morning, he mounted his horse and rode hastily with the other in his pocket to Knebley, where he officiated in a wonderful little church, with a checkered27 pavement which had once rung to the iron tread of military monks28, with coats of arms in clusters on the lofty roof, marble warriors29 and their wives without noses occupying a large proportion of the area, and the twelve apostles, with their heads very much on one side, holding didactic ribbons, painted in fresco30 on the walls. Here, in an absence of mind to which he was prone31, Mr. Gilfil would sometimes forget to take off his spurs before putting on his surplice, and only become aware of the omission32 by feeling something mysteriously tugging33 at the skirts of that garment as he stepped into the reading-desk. But the Knebley farmers would as soon have thought of criticizing the moon as their pastor34. He belonged to the course of nature, like markets and toll-gates and dirty bank-notes; and being a vicar, his claim on their veneration35 had never been counteracted36 by an exasperating37 claim on their pockets. Some of them, who did not indulge in the superfluity of a covered cart without springs, had dined half an hour earlier than usual—that is to say, at twelve o’clock—in order to have time for their long walk through miry lanes, and present themselves duly in their places at two o’clock, when Mr. Oldinport and Lady Felicia, to whom Knebley Church was a sort of family temple, made their way among the bows and curtsies of their dependants38 to a carved and canopied39 pew in the chancel, diffusing40 as they went a delicate odour of Indian roses on the unsusceptible nostrils41 of the congregation.
The farmers’ wives and children sat on the dark oaken benches, but the husbands usually chose the distinctive42 dignity of a stall under one of the twelve apostles, where, when the alternation of prayers and responses had given place to the agreeable monotony of the sermon, Paterfamilias might be seen or heard sinking into a pleasant doze43, from which he infallibly woke up at the sound of the concluding doxology. And then they made their way back again through the miry lanes, perhaps almost as much the better for this simple weekly tribute to what they knew of good and right, as many a more wakeful and critical congregation of the present day.
Mr. Gilfil, too, used to make his way home in the later years of his life, for he had given up the habit of dining at Knebley Abbey on a Sunday, having, I am sorry to say, had a very bitter quarrel with Mr. Oldinport, the cousin and predecessor44 of the Mr. Oldinport who flourished in the Rev23. Amos Barton’s time. That quarrel was a sad pity, for the two had had many a good day’s hunting together when they were younger, and in those friendly times not a few members of the hunt envied Mr. Oldinport the excellent terms he was on with his vicar; for, as Sir Jasper Sitwell observed, ‘next to a man’s wife, there’s nobody can be such an infernal plague to you as a parson, always under your nose on your own estate.’
I fancy the original difference which led to the rupture45 was very slight; but Mr. Gilfil was of an extremely caustic46 turn, his satire47 having a flavour of originality48 which was quite wanting in his sermons; and as Mr. Oldinport’s armour49 of conscious virtue50 presented some considerable and conspicuous51 gaps, the Vicar’s keen-edged retorts probably made a few incisions52 too deep to be forgiven. Such, at least, was the view of the case presented by Mr. Hackit, who knew as much of the matter as any third person. For, the very week after the quarrel, when presiding at the annual dinner of the Association for the Prosecution53 of Felons54, held at the Oldinport Arms, he contributed an additional zest55 to the conviviality56 on that occasion by informing the company that ‘the parson had given the squire57 a lick with the rough side of his tongue.’ The detection of the person or persons who had driven off Mr. Parrot’s heifer, could hardly have been more welcome news to the Shepperton tenantry, with whom Mr. Oldinport was in the worst odour as a landlord, having kept up his rents in spite of falling prices, and not being in the least stung to emulation59 by paragraphs in the provincial60 newspapers, stating that the Honourable61 Augustus Purwell, or Viscount Blethers, had made a return of ten per cent on their last rent-day. The fact was, Mr. Oldinport had not the slightest intention of standing62 for Parliament, whereas he had the strongest intention of adding to his unentailed estate. Hence, to the Shepperton farmers it was as good as lemon with their grog to know that the Vicar had thrown out sarcasms63 against the Squire’s charities, as little better than those of the man who stole a goose, and gave away the giblets in alms. For Shepperton, you observe, was in a state of Attic64 culture compared with Knebley; it had turnpike roads and a public opinion, whereas, in the Bœotian Knebley, men’s minds and waggons65 alike moved in the deepest of ruts, and the landlord was only grumbled66 at as a necessary and unalterable evil, like the weather, the weevils, and the turnip-fly.
Thus in Shepperton this breach67 with Mr. Oldinport tended only to heighten that good understanding which the Vicar had always enjoyed with the rest of his parishioners, from the generation whose children he had christened a quarter of a century before, down to that hopeful generation represented by little Tommy Bond, who had recently quitted frocks and trousers for the severe simplicity68 of a tight suit of corduroys, relieved by numerous brass69 buttons. Tommy was a saucy70 boy, impervious71 to all impressions of reverence, and excessively addicted72 to humming-tops and marbles, with which recreative resources he was in the habit of immoderately distending73 the pockets of his corduroys. One day, spinning his top on the garden-walk, and seeing the Vicar advance directly towards it, at that exciting moment when it was beginning to ‘sleep’ magnificently, he shouted out with all the force of his lungs—‘Stop! don’t knock my top down, now!’ From that day ‘little Corduroys’ had been an especial favourite with Mr. Gilfil, who delighted to provoke his ready scorn and wonder by putting questions which gave Tommy the meanest opinion of his intellect.
‘Well, little Corduroys, have they milked the geese to-day?’
‘Milked the geese! why, they don’t milk the geese, you silly!’
‘No! dear heart! why, how do the goslings live, then?’
The nutriment of goslings rather transcending74 Tommy’s observations in natural history, he feigned75 to understand this question in an exclamatory rather than an interrogatory sense, and became absorbed in winding76 up his top.
‘Ah, I see you don’t know how the goslings live! But did you notice how it rained sugar-plums yesterday?’ (Here Tommy became attentive77.) ‘Why, they fell into my pocket as I rode along. You look in my pocket and see if they didn’t.’ Tommy, without waiting to discuss the alleged78 antecedent, lost no time in ascertaining79 the presence of the agreeable consequent, for he had a well-founded belief in the advantages of diving into the Vicar’s pocket. Mr. Gilfil called it his wonderful pocket, because, as he delighted to tell the ‘young shavers’ and ‘two-shoes’—so he called all little boys and girls—whenever he put pennies into it, they turned into sugar-plums or gingerbread, or some other nice thing. Indeed, little Bessie Parrot, a flaxen-headed ‘two-shoes’, very white and fat as to her neck, always had the admirable directness and sincerity80 to salute81 him with the question—‘What zoo dot in zoo pottet?’
You can imagine, then, that the christening dinners were none the less merry for the presence of the parson. The farmers relished82 his society particularly, for he could not only smoke his pipe, and season the details of parish affairs with abundance of caustic jokes and proverbs, but, as Mr. Bond often said, no man knew more than the Vicar about the breed of cows and horses. He had grazing-land of his own about five miles off, which a bailiff, ostensibly a tenant58, farmed under his direction; and to ride backwards83 and forwards, and look after the buying and selling of stock, was the old gentleman’s chief relaxation84, now his hunting days were over. To hear him discussing the respective merits of the Devonshire breed and the short-horns, or the last foolish decision of the magistrates85 about a pauper86, a superficial observer might have seen little difference, beyond his superior shrewdness, between the Vicar and his bucolic87 parishioners; for it was his habit to approximate his accent and mode of speech to theirs, doubtless because he thought it a mere88 frustration89 of the purposes of language to talk of ‘shear-hogs’ and ‘ewes’ to men who habitually90 said ‘sharrags’ and ‘yowes’. Nevertheless the farmers themselves were perfectly91 aware of the distinction between them and the parson, and had not at all the less belief in him as a gentleman and a clergyman for his easy speech and familiar manners. Mrs. Parrot smoothed her apron92 and set her cap right with the utmost solicitude93 when she saw the Vicar coming, made him her deepest curtsy, and every Christmas had a fat turkey ready to send him with her ‘duty’. And in the most gossiping colloquies95 with Mr. Gilfil, you might have observed that both men and women ‘minded their words’, and never became indifferent to his approbation96.
The same respect attended him in his strictly97 clerical functions. The benefits of baptism were supposed to be somehow bound up with Mr. Gilfil’s personality, so metaphysical a distinction as that between a man and his office being, as yet, quite foreign to the mind of a good Shepperton Churchman, savouring, he would have thought, of Dissent98 on the very face of it. Miss Selina Parrot put off her marriage a whole month when Mr. Gilfil had an attack of rheumatism99, rather than be married in a makeshift manner by the Milby curate.
‘We’ve had a very good sermon this morning’, was the frequent remark, after hearing one of the old yellow series, heard with all the more satisfaction because it had been heard for the twentieth time; for to minds on the Shepperton level it is repetition, not novelty, that produces the strongest effect; and phrases, like tunes100, are a long time making themselves at home in the brain.
Mr. Gilfil’s sermons, as you may imagine, were not of a highly doctrinal, still less of a polemical, cast. They perhaps did not search the conscience very powerfully; for you remember that to Mrs. Patten, who had listened to them thirty years, the announcement that she was a sinner appeared an uncivil heresy101; but, on the other hand, they made no unreasonable102 demand on the Shepperton intellect—amounting, indeed, to little more than an expansion of the concise103 thesis, that those who do wrong will find it the worse for them, and those who do well will find it the better for them; the nature of wrong-doing being exposed in special sermons against lying, backbiting104, anger, slothfulness, and the like; and well-doing being interpreted as honesty, truthfulness105, charity, industry, and other common virtues106, lying quite on the surface of life, and having very little to do with deep spiritual doctrine107. Mrs. Patten understood that if she turned out ill-crushed cheeses, a just retribution awaited her; though, I fear, she made no particular application of the sermon on backbiting. Mrs. Hackit expressed herself greatly edified108 by the sermon on honesty, the allusion109 to the unjust weight and deceitful balance having a peculiar110 lucidity111 for her, owing to a recent dispute with her grocer; but I am not aware that she ever appeared to be much struck by the sermon on anger.
As to any suspicion that Mr. Gilfil did not dispense112 the pure Gospel, or any strictures on his doctrine and mode of delivery, such thoughts never visited the minds of the Shepperton parishioners—of those very parishioners who, ten or fifteen years later, showed themselves extremely critical of Mr. Barton’s discourses113 and demeanour. But in the interim114 they had tasted that dangerous fruit of the tree of knowledge—innovation which is well known to open the eyes, even in an uncomfortable manner. At present, to find fault with the sermon was regarded as almost equivalent to finding fault with religion itself. One Sunday, Mr. Hackit’s nephew, Master Tom Stokes, a flippant town youth, greatly scandalized his excellent relatives by declaring that he could write as good a sermon as Mr. Gilfil’s; whereupon Mr. Hackit sought to reduce the presumptuous115 youth to utter confusion, by offering him a sovereign if he would fulfil his vaunt. The sermon was written, however; and though it was not admitted to be anywhere within reach of Mr. Gilfil’s, it was yet so astonishingly like a sermon, having a text, three divisions, and a concluding exhortation116 beginning ‘And now, my brethren’, that the sovereign, though denied formally, was bestowed117 informally, and the sermon was pronounced, when Master Stokes’s back was turned, to be ‘an uncommon118 cliver thing’.
The Rev. Mr. Pickard, indeed, of the Independent Meeting, had stated, in a sermon preached at Rotheby, for the reduction of a debt on New Zion, built, with an exuberance119 of faith and a deficiency of funds, by seceders from the original Zion, that he lived in a parish where the Vicar was very ‘dark’, and in the prayers he addressed to his own congregation, he was in the habit of comprehensively alluding120 to the parishioners outside the chapel121 walls, as those who, ‘Gallio-like, cared for none of these things’. But I need hardly say that no church-goer ever came within earshot of Mr. Pickard.
It was not to the Shepperton farmers only that Mr. Gilfil’s society was acceptable; he was a welcome guest at some of the best houses in that part of the country. Old Sir Jasper Sitwell would have been glad to see him every week; and if you had seen him conducting Lady Sitwell in to dinner, or had heard him talking to her with quaint122 yet graceful123 gallantry, you would have inferred that the earlier period of his life had been passed in more stately society than could be found in Shepperton, and that his slipshod chat and homely124 manners were but like weather-stains on a fine old block of marble, allowing you still to see here and there the fineness of the grain, and the delicacy125 of the original tint126. But in his later years these visits became a little too troublesome to the old gentleman, and he was rarely to be found anywhere of an evening beyond the bounds of his own parish—most frequently, indeed, by the side of his own sitting-room127 fire, smoking his pipe, and maintaining the pleasing antithesis128 of dryness and moisture by an occasional sip94 of gin-and-water.
Here I am aware that I have run the risk of alienating129 all my refined lady-readers, and utterly130 annihilating131 any curiosity they may have felt to know the details of Mr. Gilfil’s love-story. ‘Gin-and-water! foh! you may as well ask us to interest ourselves in the romance of a tallow-chandler, who mingles132 the image of his beloved with short dips and moulds.’
But in the first place, dear ladies, allow me to plead that gin-and-water, like obesity133, or baldness, or the gout, does not exclude a vast amount of antecedent romance, any more than the neatly-executed ‘fronts’ which you may some day wear, will exclude your present possession of less expensive braids. Alas134, alas! we poor mortals are often little better than wood-ashes—there is small sign of the sap, and the leafy freshness, and the bursting buds that were once there; but wherever we see wood-ashes, we know that all that early fullness of life must have been. I, at least, hardly ever look at a bent135 old man, or a wizened136 old woman, but I see also, with my mind’s eye, that Past of which they are the shrunken remnant, and the unfinished romance of rosy137 cheeks and bright eyes seems sometimes of feeble interest and significance, compared with that drama of hope and love which has long ago reached its catastrophe138, and left the poor soul, like a dim and dusty stage, with all its sweet garden-scenes and fair perspectives overturned and thrust out of sight.
In the second place, let me assure you that Mr. Gilfil’s potations of gin-and-water were quite moderate. His nose was not rubicund139; on the contrary, his white hair hung around a pale and venerable face. He drank it chiefly, I believe, because it was cheap; and here I find myself alighting on another of the Vicar’s weaknesses, which, if I had cared to paint a flattering portrait rather than a faithful one, I might have chosen to suppress. It is undeniable that, as the years advanced, Mr. Gilfil became, as Mr. Hackit observed, more and more ‘close-fisted’, though the growing propensity140 showed itself rather in the parsimony141 of his personal habits, than in withholding142 help from the needy143. He was saving—so he represented the matter to himself—for a nephew, the only son of a sister who had been the dearest object, all but one, in his life. ‘The lad,’ he thought, ‘will have a nice little fortune to begin life with, and will bring his pretty young wife some day to see the spot where his old uncle lies. It will perhaps be all the better for his hearth144 that mine was lonely.’
Mr. Gilfil was a bachelor, then?
That is the conclusion to which you would probably have come if you had entered his sitting-room, where the bare tables, the large old-fashioned horse-hair chairs, and the threadbare Turkey carpet perpetually fumigated145 with tobacco, seemed to tell a story of wifeless existence that was contradicted by no portrait, no piece of embroidery146, no faded bit of pretty triviality, hinting of taper-fingers and small feminine ambitions. And it was here that Mr. Gilfil passed his evenings, seldom with other society than that of Ponto, his old brown setter, who, stretched out at full length on the rug with his nose between his fore-paws, would wrinkle his brows and lift up his eyelids147 every now and then, to exchange a glance of mutual148 understanding with his master. But there was a chamber149 in Shepperton Vicarage which told a different story from that bare and cheerless dining-room—a chamber never entered by any one besides Mr. Gilfil and old Martha the housekeeper150, who, with David her husband as groom151 and gardener, formed the Vicar’s entire establishment. The blinds of this chamber were always down, except once a-quarter, when Martha entered that she might air and clean it. She always asked Mr. Gilfil for the key, which he kept locked up in his bureau, and returned it to him when she had finished her task.
It was a touching152 sight that the daylight streamed in upon, as Martha drew aside the blinds and thick curtains, and opened the Gothic casement153 of the oriel window! On the little dressing-table there was a dainty looking-glass in a carved and gilt154 frame; bits of wax-candle were still in the branched sockets155 at the sides, and on one of these branches hung a little black lace kerchief; a faded satin pin-cushion, with the pins rusted156 in it, a scent-bottle, and a large green fan, lay on the table; and on a dressing-box by the side of the glass was a work-basket, and an unfinished baby-cap, yellow with age, lying in it. Two gowns, of a fashion long forgotten, were hanging on nails against the door, and a pair of tiny red slippers157, with a bit of tarnished158 silver embroidery on them, were standing at the foot of the bed. Two or three water-colour drawings, views of Naples, hung upon the walls; and over the mantelpiece, above some bits of rare old china, two miniatures in oval frames. One of these miniatures represented a young man about seven-and-twenty, with a sanguine159 complexion160, full lips, and clear candid161 grey eyes. The other was the likeness162 of a girl probably not more than eighteen, with small features, thin cheeks, a pale southern-looking complexion, and large dark eyes. The gentleman wore powder; the lady had her dark hair gathered away from her face, and a little cap, with a cherry-coloured bow, set on the top of her head—a coquettish head-dress, but the eyes spoke163 of sadness rather than of coquetry.
Such were the things that Martha had dusted and let the air upon, four times a-year, ever since she was a blooming lass of twenty; and she was now, in this last decade of Mr. Gilfil’s life, unquestionably on the wrong side of fifty. Such was the locked-up chamber in Mr. Gilfil’s house: a sort of visible symbol of the secret chamber in his heart, where he had long turned the key on early hopes and early sorrows, shutting up for ever all the passion and the poetry of his life.
There were not many people in the parish, besides Martha, who had any very distinct remembrance of Mr. Gilfil’s wife, or indeed who knew anything of her, beyond the fact that there was a marble tablet, with a Latin inscription164 in memory of her, over the vicarage pew. The parishioners who were old enough to remember her arrival were not generally gifted with descriptive powers, and the utmost you could gather from them was, that Mrs. Gilfil looked like a ‘furriner, wi’ such eyes, you can’t think, an’ a voice as went through you when she sung at church.’ The one exception was Mrs. Patten, whose strong memory and taste for personal narrative165 made her a great source of oral tradition in Shepperton. Mr. Hackit, who had not come into the parish until ten years after Mrs. Gilfil’s death, would often put old questions to Mrs. Patten for the sake of getting the old answers, which pleased him in the same way as passages from a favourite book, or the scenes of a familiar play, please more accomplished166 people.
‘Ah, you remember well the Sunday as Mrs. Gilfil first come to church, eh, Mrs. Patten?’
‘To be sure I do. It was a fine bright Sunday as ever was seen, just at the beginnin’ o’ hay harvest. Mr. Tarbett preached that day, and Mr. Gilfil sat i’ the pew with his wife. I think I see him now, a-leading her up the aisle167, an’ her head not reachin’ much above his elber: a little pale woman, with eyes as black as sloes, an’ yet lookin’ blank-like, as if she see’d nothing with ’em.’
‘I warrant she had her weddin’ clothes on?’ said Mr. Hackit.
‘Nothin’ partikler smart—on’y a white hat tied down under her chin, an’ a white Indy muslin gown. But you don’t know what Mr. Gilfil was in those times. He was fine an’ altered before you come into the parish. He’d a fresh colour then, an’ a bright look wi’ his eyes, as did your heart good to see. He looked rare and happy that Sunday; but somehow, I’d a feelin’ as it wouldn’t last long. I’ve no opinion o’ furriners, Mr. Hackit, for I’ve travelled i’ their country with my lady in my time, an’ seen enough o’ their victuals168 an’ their nasty ways.’
‘Mrs. Gilfil come from It’ly, didn’t she?’
‘I reckon she did, but I niver could rightly hear about that. Mr. Gilfil was niver to be spoke to about her, and nobody else hereabout knowed anythin’. Howiver, she must ha’ come over pretty young, for she spoke English as well as you an’ me. It’s them Italians as has such fine voices, an’ Mrs. Gilfil sung, you never heared the like. He brought her here to have tea with me one afternoon, and says he, in his jovial169 way, “Now, Mrs. Patten, I want Mrs. Gilfil to see the neatest house, and drink the best cup o’ tea, in all Shepperton; you must show her your dairy and your cheese-room, and then she shall sing you a song.” An’ so she did; an’ her voice seemed sometimes to fill the room; an’ then it went low an’ soft, as if it was whisperin’ close to your heart like.’
‘You never heared her again, I reckon?’
‘No; she was sickly then, and she died in a few months after. She wasn’t in the parish much more nor half a year altogether. She didn’t seem lively that afternoon, an’ I could see she didn’t care about the dairy, nor the cheeses, on’y she pretended, to please him. As for him, I niver see’d a man so wrapt up in a woman. He looked at her as if he was worshippin’ her, an’ as if he wanted to lift her off the ground ivery minute, to save her the trouble o’ walkin’. Poor man, poor man! It had like to ha’ killed him when she died, though he niver gev way, but went on ridin’ about and preachin’. But he was wore to a shadder, an’ his eyes used to look as dead—you wouldn’t ha’ knowed ’em.’
‘She brought him no fortune?’
‘Not she. All Mr. Gilfil’s property come by his mother’s side. There was blood an’ money too, there. It’s a thousand pities as he married i’ that way—a fine man like him, as might ha’ had the pick o’ the county, an’ had his grandchildren about him now. An’ him so fond o’ children, too.’
In this manner Mrs. Patten usually wound up her reminiscences of the Vicar’s wife, of whom, you perceive, she knew but little. It was clear that the communicative old lady had nothing to tell of Mrs. Gilfil’s history previous to her arrival in Shepperton, and that she was unacquainted with Mr. Gilfil’s love-story.
But I, dear reader, am quite as communicative as Mrs. Patten, and much better informed; so that, if you care to know more about the Vicar’s courtship and marriage, you need only carry your imagination back to the latter end of the last century, and your attention forward into the next chapter.
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wharf
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alacrity
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levity
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unnatural
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dame
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bonnet
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manifestation
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leeches
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remarkable
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wilful
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vaguely
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lollipop
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| n.棒棒糖 | |
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14
urchins
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| n.顽童( urchin的名词复数 )；淘气鬼；猬；海胆 | |
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15
scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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16
miser
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| n.守财奴，吝啬鬼 (adj.miserly) | |
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17
leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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18
grunt
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| v.嘟哝；作呼噜声；n.呼噜声，嘟哝 | |
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19
grunts
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| （猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的第三人称单数 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说； 石鲈 | |
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20
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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21
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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22
reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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23
rev
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| v.发动机旋转，加快速度 | |
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24
dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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25
despatch
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| n./v.(dispatch)派遣；发送；n.急件；新闻报道 | |
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26
impartiality
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| n. 公平, 无私, 不偏 | |
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27
checkered
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| adj.有方格图案的 | |
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28
monks
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| n.修道士，僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
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29
warriors
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| 武士，勇士，战士( warrior的名词复数 ) | |
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30
fresco
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|
| n.壁画；vt.作壁画于 | |
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31
prone
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| adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的 | |
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32
omission
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| n.省略，删节；遗漏或省略的事物，冗长 | |
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33
tugging
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| n.牵引感v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的现在分词 ) | |
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34
pastor
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| n.牧师，牧人 | |
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35
veneration
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| n.尊敬，崇拜 | |
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36
counteracted
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| 对抗，抵消( counteract的过去式 ) | |
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37
exasperating
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| adj. 激怒的 动词exasperate的现在分词形式 | |
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38
dependants
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| 受赡养者，受扶养的家属( dependant的名词复数 ) | |
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39
canopied
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| adj. 遮有天篷的 | |
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40
diffusing
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| （使光）模糊，漫射，漫散( diffuse的现在分词 )； （使）扩散； （使）弥漫； （使）传播 | |
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41
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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42
distinctive
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|
| adj.特别的，有特色的，与众不同的 | |
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43
doze
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| v.打瞌睡；n.打盹，假寐 | |
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44
predecessor
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| n.前辈，前任 | |
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45
rupture
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|
| n.破裂；(关系的)决裂；v.(使)破裂 | |
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46
caustic
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|
| adj.刻薄的，腐蚀性的 | |
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47
satire
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|
| n.讽刺，讽刺文学，讽刺作品 | |
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48
originality
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|
| n.创造力，独创性；新颖 | |
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49
armour
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| （=armor）n.盔甲；装甲部队 | |
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50
virtue
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|
| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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51
conspicuous
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|
| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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52
incisions
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| n.切开，切口( incision的名词复数 ) | |
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53
prosecution
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| n.起诉，告发，检举，执行，经营 | |
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54
felons
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| n.重罪犯( felon的名词复数 )；瘭疽；甲沟炎；指头脓炎 | |
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55
zest
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| n.乐趣；滋味，风味；兴趣 | |
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56
conviviality
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| n.欢宴，高兴，欢乐 | |
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57
squire
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| n.护卫, 侍从, 乡绅 | |
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58
tenant
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| n.承租人；房客；佃户；v.租借，租用 | |
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59
emulation
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|
| n.竞争；仿效 | |
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60
provincial
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|
| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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61
honourable
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|
| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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62
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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63
sarcasms
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|
| n.讥讽，讽刺，挖苦( sarcasm的名词复数 ) | |
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64
attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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65
waggons
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|
| 四轮的运货马车( waggon的名词复数 )； 铁路货车； 小手推车 | |
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66
grumbled
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|
| 抱怨( grumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 发牢骚； 咕哝； 发哼声 | |
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67
breach
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|
| n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破 | |
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68
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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69
brass
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|
| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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70
saucy
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|
| adj.无礼的；俊俏的；活泼的 | |
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71
impervious
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|
| adj.不能渗透的，不能穿过的，不易伤害的 | |
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72
addicted
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|
| adj.沉溺于....的，对...上瘾的 | |
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73
distending
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|
| v.（使）膨胀，肿胀( distend的现在分词 ) | |
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74
transcending
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|
| 超出或超越（经验、信念、描写能力等）的范围( transcend的现在分词 )； 优于或胜过… | |
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75
feigned
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|
| a.假装的，不真诚的 | |
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76
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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77
attentive
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|
| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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78
alleged
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|
| a.被指控的，嫌疑的 | |
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79
ascertaining
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|
| v.弄清，确定，查明( ascertain的现在分词 ) | |
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80
sincerity
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|
| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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81
salute
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|
| vi.行礼，致意，问候，放礼炮；vt.向…致意，迎接，赞扬；n.招呼，敬礼，礼炮 | |
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82
relished
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|
| v.欣赏( relish的过去式和过去分词 )；从…获得乐趣；渴望 | |
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83
backwards
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|
| adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地 | |
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84
relaxation
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|
| n.松弛，放松；休息；消遣；娱乐 | |
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85
magistrates
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|
| 地方法官，治安官( magistrate的名词复数 ) | |
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86
pauper
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|
| n.贫民，被救济者，穷人 | |
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87
bucolic
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|
| adj.乡村的；牧羊的 | |
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88
mere
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|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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89
frustration
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|
| n.挫折，失败，失效，落空 | |
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90
habitually
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| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
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91
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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92
apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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93
solicitude
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| n.焦虑 | |
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94
sip
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|
| v.小口地喝，抿，呷；n.一小口的量 | |
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95
colloquies
|
|
| n.谈话，对话( colloquy的名词复数 ) | |
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96
approbation
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|
| n.称赞；认可 | |
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97
strictly
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|
| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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98
dissent
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| n./v.不同意，持异议 | |
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99
rheumatism
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|
| n.风湿病 | |
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100
tunes
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|
| n.曲调，曲子( tune的名词复数 )v.调音( tune的第三人称单数 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调 | |
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101
heresy
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|
| n.异端邪说；异教 | |
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102
unreasonable
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|
| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
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103
concise
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|
| adj.简洁的，简明的 | |
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104
backbiting
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| 背后诽谤 | |
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105
truthfulness
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|
| n. 符合实际 | |
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106
virtues
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|
| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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107
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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108
edified
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| v.开导，启发( edify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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109
allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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110
peculiar
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|
| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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111
lucidity
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| n.明朗，清晰，透明 | |
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112
dispense
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| vt.分配，分发；配(药)，发(药)；实施 | |
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113
discourses
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| 论文( discourse的名词复数 )； 演说； 讲道； 话语 | |
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114
interim
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| adj.暂时的，临时的；n.间歇，过渡期间 | |
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115
presumptuous
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| adj.胆大妄为的，放肆的，冒昧的，冒失的 | |
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116
exhortation
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| n.劝告，规劝 | |
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117
bestowed
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| 赠给，授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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118
uncommon
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| adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的 | |
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119
exuberance
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| n.丰富；繁荣 | |
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120
alluding
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| 提及，暗指( allude的现在分词 ) | |
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121
chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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122
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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123
graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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124
homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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125
delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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126
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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127
sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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128
antithesis
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| n.对立；相对 | |
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129
alienating
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|
| v.使疏远( alienate的现在分词 )；使不友好；转让；让渡（财产等） | |
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130
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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131
annihilating
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|
| v.（彻底）消灭( annihilate的现在分词 )；使无效；废止；彻底击溃 | |
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132
mingles
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|
| 混合，混入( mingle的第三人称单数 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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133
obesity
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| n.肥胖，肥大 | |
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134
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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135
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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136
wizened
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|
| adj.凋谢的；枯槁的 | |
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137
rosy
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|
| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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138
catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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139
rubicund
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| adj.(脸色)红润的 | |
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140
propensity
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| n.倾向；习性 | |
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141
parsimony
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|
| n.过度节俭，吝啬 | |
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142
withholding
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| 扣缴税款 | |
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143
needy
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|
| adj.贫穷的，贫困的，生活艰苦的 | |
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144
hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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145
fumigated
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| v.用化学品熏（某物）消毒( fumigate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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146
embroidery
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| n.绣花，刺绣；绣制品 | |
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147
eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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148
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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149
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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150
housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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151
groom
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| vt.给（马、狗等）梳毛，照料，使...整洁 | |
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152
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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153
casement
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| n.竖铰链窗；窗扉 | |
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154
gilt
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| adj.镀金的；n.金边证券 | |
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155
sockets
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| n.套接字，使应用程序能够读写与收发通讯协定(protocol)与资料的程序( Socket的名词复数 )；孔( socket的名词复数 )；（电器上的）插口；托座；凹穴 | |
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156
rusted
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| v.（使）生锈( rust的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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157
slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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158
tarnished
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| （通常指金属）（使）失去光泽，（使）变灰暗( tarnish的过去式和过去分词 )； 玷污，败坏 | |
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159
sanguine
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| adj.充满希望的，乐观的，血红色的 | |
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160
complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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161
candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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162
likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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163
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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164
inscription
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| n.（尤指石块上的）刻印文字，铭文，碑文 | |
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165
narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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166
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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167
aisle
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| n.（教堂、教室、戏院等里的）过道，通道 | |
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168
victuals
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| n.食物；食品 | |
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169
jovial
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| adj.快乐的，好交际的 | |
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