Rex told Mr. Meekin, who, the next day, did him the honour to visit him, that, “under Providence1, he owed his escape from death to the kind manner in which Captain Frere had spoken of him.”
“I hope your escape will be a warning to you, my man,” said Mr. Meekin, “and that you will endeavour to make the rest of your life, thus spared by the mercy of Providence, an atonement for your early errors.”
“Indeed I will, sir,” said John Rex, who had taken Mr. Meekin’s measure very accurately3, “and it is very kind of you to condescend4 to speak so to a wretch5 like me.”
“Not at all,” said Meekin, with affability; “it is my duty. I am a Minister of the Gospel.”
“Ah! sir, I wish I had attended to the Gospel’s teachings when I was younger. I might have been saved from all this.”
“You might, indeed, poor man; but the Divine Mercy is infinite — quite infinite, and will be extended to all of us — to you as well as to me.” (This with the air of saying, “What do you think of that!") “Remember the penitent6 thief, Rex — the penitent thief.”
“Indeed I do, sir.”
“And read your Bible, Rex, and pray for strength to bear your punishment.”
“I will, Mr. Meekin. I need it sorely, sir — physical as well as spiritual strength, sir — for the Government allowance is sadly insufficient7.”
“I will speak to the authorities about a change in your dietary scale,” returned Meekin, patronizingly. “In the meantime, just collect together in your mind those particulars of your adventures of which you spoke2, and have them ready for me when next I call. Such a remarkable8 history ought not to be lost.”
“Thank you kindly9, sir. I will, sir. Ah! I little thought when I occupied the position of a gentleman, Mr. Meekin”— the cunning scoundrel had been piously10 grandiloquent11 concerning his past career —“that I should be reduced to this. But it is only just, sir.”
“The mysterious workings of Providence are always just, Rex,” returned Meekin, who preferred to speak of the Almighty12 with well-bred vagueness.
“I am glad to see you so conscious of your errors. Good morning.”
“Good morning, and Heaven bless you, sir,” said Rex, with his tongue in his cheek for the benefit of his yard mates; and so Mr. Meekin tripped gracefully13 away, convinced that he was labouring most successfully in the Vineyard, and that the convict Rex was really a superior person.
“I will send his narrative14 to the Bishop,” said he to himself. “It will amuse him. There must be many strange histories here, if one could but find them out.”
As the thought passed through his brain, his eye fell upon the “notorious Dawes”, who, while waiting for the schooner15 to take him back to Port Arthur, had been permitted to amuse himself by breaking stones. The prison-shed which Mr. Meekin was visiting was long and low, roofed with iron, and terminating at each end in the stone wall of the gaol16. At one side rose the cells, at the other the outer wall of the prison. From the outer wall projected a weatherboard under-roof, and beneath this were seated forty heavily-ironed convicts. Two constables17, with loaded carbines, walked up and down the clear space in the middle, and another watched from a sort of sentry-box built against the main wall. Every half-hour a third constable18 went down the line and examined the irons. The admirable system of solitary19 confinement20 — which in average cases produces insanity21 in the space of twelve months — was as yet unknown in Hobart Town, and the forty heavily-ironed men had the pleasure of seeing each other’s faces every day for six hours.
The other inmates22 of the prison were at work on the roads, or otherwise bestowed23 in the day time, but the forty were judged too desperate to be let loose. They sat, three feet apart, in two long lines, each man with a heap of stones between his outstretched legs, and cracked the pebbles24 in leisurely25 fashion. The double row of dismal26 woodpeckers tapping at this terribly hollow beech-tree of penal27 discipline had a semi-ludicrous appearance. It seemed so painfully absurd that forty muscular men should be ironed and guarded for no better purpose than the cracking of a cartload of quartz-pebbles. In the meantime the air was heavy with angry glances shot from one to the other, and the passage of the parson was hailed by a grumbling28 undertone of blasphemy29. It was considered fashionable to grunt30 when the hammer came in contact with the stone, and under cover of this mock exclamation31 of fatigue32, it was convenient to launch an oath. A fanciful visitor, seeing the irregularly rising hammers along the line, might have likened the shed to the interior of some vast piano, whose notes an unseen hand was erratically33 fingering. Rufus Dawes was seated last on the line — his back to the cells, his face to the gaol wall. This was the place nearest the watching constable, and was allotted34 on that account to the most ill-favoured. Some of his companions envied him that melancholy35 distinction.
“Well, Dawes,” says Mr. Meekin, measuring with his eye the distance between the prisoner and himself, as one might measure the chain of some ferocious36 dog. “How are you this morning, Dawes?”
Dawes, scowling37 in a parenthesis38 between the cracking of two stones, was understood to say that he was very well.
“I am afraid, Dawes,” said Mr. Meekin reproachfully, “that you have done yourself no good by your outburst in court on Monday. I understand that public opinion is quite incensed39 against you.”
Dawes, slowly arranging one large fragment of bluestone in a comfortable basin of smaller fragments, made no reply.
“I am afraid you lack patience, Dawes. You do not repent40 of your offences against the law, I fear.”
The only answer vouchsafed41 by the ironed man — if answer it could be called — was a savage42 blow, which split the stone into sudden fragments, and made the clergyman skip a step backward.
“You are a hardened ruffian, sir! Do you not hear me speak to you?”
“I hear you,” said Dawes, picking up another stone.
“Then listen respectfully, sir,” said Meekin, roseate with celestial43 anger. “You have all day to break those stones.”
“Yes, I have all day,” returned Rufus Dawes, with a dogged look upward, “and all next day, for that matter. Ugh!” and again the hammer descended44.
“I came to console you, man — to console you,” says Meekin, indignant at the contempt with which his well-meant overtures45 had been received. “I wanted to give you some good advice!”
The self-important annoyance46 of the tone seemed to appeal to whatever vestige47 of appreciation48 for the humorous, chains and degradation49 had suffered to linger in the convict’s brain, for a faint smile crossed his features.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said. “Pray, go on.”
“I was going to say, my good fellow, that you have done yourself a great deal of injury by your ill-advised accusation50 of Captain Frere, and the use you made of Miss Vickers’s name.”
A frown, as of pain, contracted the prisoner’s brows, and he seemed with difficulty to put a restraint upon his speech. “Is there to be no inquiry51, Mr. Meekin?” he asked, at length. “What I stated was the truth — the truth, so help me God!”
“No blasphemy, sir,” said Meekin, solemnly. “No blasphemy, wretched man. Do not add to the sin of lying the greater sin of taking the name of the Lord thy God in vain. He will not hold him guiltless, Dawes. He will not hold him guiltless, remember. No, there is to be no inquiry.”
“Are they not going to ask her for her story?” asked Dawes, with a pitiful change of manner. “They told me that she was to be asked. Surely they will ask her.”
“I am not, perhaps, at liberty,” said Meekin, placidly52 unconscious of the agony of despair and rage that made the voice of the strong man before him quiver, “to state the intentions of the authorities, but I can tell you that Miss Vickers will not be asked anything about you. You are to go back to Port Arthur on the 24th, and to remain there.”
A groan53 burst from Rufus Dawes; a groan so full of torture that even the comfortable Meekin was thrilled by it.
“It is the Law, you know, my good man. I can’t help it,” he said. “You shouldn’t break the Law, you know.”
“Curse the Law!” cries Dawes. “It’s a Bloody54 Law; it’s — there, I beg your pardon,” and he fell to cracking his stones again, with a laugh that was more terrible in its bitter hopelessness of winning attention or sympathy, than any outburst of passion could have been.
“Come,” says Meekin, feeling uneasily constrained55 to bring forth56 some of his London-learnt platitudes57. “You can’t complain. You have broken the Law, and you must suffer. Civilized58 Society says you sha’n’t do certain things, and if you do them you must suffer the penalty Civilized Society imposes. You are not wanting in intelligence, Dawes, more’s the pity — and you can’t deny the justice of that.”
Rufus Dawes, as if disdaining59 to answer in words, cast his eyes round the yard with a glance that seemed to ask grimly if Civilized Society was progressing quite in accordance with justice, when its civilization created such places as that stone-walled, carbine-guarded prison-shed, and filled it with such creatures as those forty human beasts, doomed60 to spend the best years of their manhood cracking pebbles in it.
“You don’t deny that?” asked the smug parson, “do you, Dawes?”
“It’s not my place to argue with you, sir,” said Dawes, in a tone of indifference61, born of lengthened62 suffering, so nicely balanced between contempt and respect, that the inexperienced Meekin could not tell whether he had made a convert or subjected himself to an impertinence; “but I’m a prisoner for life, and don’t look at it in the same way that you do.”
This view of the question did not seem to have occurred to Mr. Meekin, for his mild cheek flushed. Certainly, the fact of being a prisoner for life did make some difference. The sound of the noonday bell, however, warned him to cease argument, and to take his consolations63 out of the way of the mustering64 prisoners.
With a great clanking and clashing of irons, the forty rose and stood each by his stone-heap. The third constable came round, rapping the leg-irons of each man with easy nonchalance65, and roughly pulling up the coarse trousers (made with buttoned flaps at the sides, like Mexican calzoneros, in order to give free play to the ankle fetters), so that he might assure himself that no tricks had been played since his last visit. As each man passed this ordeal66 he saluted67, and clanked, with wide-spread legs, to the place in the double line. Mr. Meekin, though not a patron of field sports, found something in the scene that reminded him of a blacksmith picking up horses’ feet to examine the soundness of their shoes.
“Upon my word,” he said to himself, with a momentary68 pang69 of genuine compassion70, “it is a dreadful way to treat human beings. I don’t wonder at that wretched creature groaning71 under it. But, bless me, it is near one o’clock, and I promised to lunch with Major Vickers at two. How time flies, to be sure!”
收听单词发音 |
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providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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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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accurately
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| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
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condescend
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| v.俯就，屈尊；堕落，丢丑 | |
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wretch
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| n.可怜的人，不幸的人；卑鄙的人 | |
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penitent
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| adj.后悔的；n.后悔者；忏悔者 | |
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insufficient
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| adj.(for，of)不足的，不够的 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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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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piously
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| adv.虔诚地 | |
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grandiloquent
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| adj.夸张的 | |
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almighty
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| adj.全能的，万能的；很大的，很强的 | |
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gracefully
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| ad.大大方方地；优美地 | |
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narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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schooner
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| n.纵帆船 | |
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gaol
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| n.(jail)监狱；(不加冠词)监禁；vt.使…坐牢 | |
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constables
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| n.警察( constable的名词复数 ) | |
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constable
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| n.(英国)警察，警官 | |
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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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confinement
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| n.幽禁，拘留，监禁；分娩；限制，局限 | |
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insanity
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| n.疯狂，精神错乱；极端的愚蠢，荒唐 | |
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inmates
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| n.囚犯( inmate的名词复数 ) | |
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bestowed
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| 赠给，授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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pebbles
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| [复数]鹅卵石； 沙砾； 卵石，小圆石( pebble的名词复数 ) | |
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leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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penal
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| adj.刑罚的；刑法上的 | |
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grumbling
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| adj. 喃喃鸣不平的, 出怨言的 | |
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blasphemy
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| n.亵渎，渎神 | |
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grunt
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| v.嘟哝；作呼噜声；n.呼噜声，嘟哝 | |
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exclamation
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| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
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fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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erratically
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| adv.不规律地，不定地 | |
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allotted
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| 分配，拨给，摊派( allot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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ferocious
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| adj.凶猛的，残暴的，极度的，十分强烈的 | |
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scowling
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| 怒视，生气地皱眉( scowl的现在分词 ) | |
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parenthesis
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| n.圆括号，插入语，插曲，间歇，停歇 | |
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incensed
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| 盛怒的 | |
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repent
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| v.悔悟，悔改，忏悔，后悔 | |
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vouchsafed
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| v.给予，赐予( vouchsafe的过去式和过去分词 )；允诺 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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celestial
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| adj.天体的；天上的 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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overtures
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| n.主动的表示，提议；（向某人做出的）友好表示、姿态或提议( overture的名词复数 )；（歌剧、芭蕾舞、音乐剧等的）序曲，前奏曲 | |
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annoyance
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| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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vestige
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| n.痕迹，遗迹，残余 | |
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appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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degradation
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| n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变 | |
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50
accusation
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| n.控告，指责，谴责 | |
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51
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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placidly
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| adv.平稳地，平静地 | |
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groan
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| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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54
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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constrained
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| adj.束缚的,节制的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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platitudes
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| n.平常的话，老生常谈，陈词滥调( platitude的名词复数 )；滥套子 | |
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civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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disdaining
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| 鄙视( disdain的现在分词 )； 不屑于做，不愿意做 | |
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doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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lengthened
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| （时间或空间）延长，伸长( lengthen的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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consolations
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| n.安慰，慰问( consolation的名词复数 )；起安慰作用的人（或事物） | |
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mustering
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| v.集合，召集，集结（尤指部队）( muster的现在分词 )；（自他人处）搜集某事物；聚集；激发 | |
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nonchalance
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| n.冷淡，漠不关心 | |
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ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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saluted
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| v.欢迎，致敬( salute的过去式和过去分词 )；赞扬，赞颂 | |
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momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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groaning
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| adj. 呜咽的, 呻吟的 动词groan的现在分词形式 | |
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