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以下英文版小说品阅

 this book may be a bit more uncomfortable than Book 1. Stay with the discomfort if

 door be

Author’s Note

us argument with a sudden rhapsody of oaths and never slept a wink. His left-hand neighbour alternately sang, and shouted, “Cain was a murderer, Cain was a murderer;” and howled like a wolf, making night hideous. His opposite neighbour had an audience, and every now and then delivered in a high nasal key, “Let us curse and pray;” varying it sometimes thus: “Brethren, let us work double tides.” And then he would deliver a long fervent prayer, and follow it up immediately with a torrent of blasphemies so terrific, that coming in such a contrast they made Alfred’s body wet with perspiration to hear a poor creature so defy his Creator. No rest, no peace. When it was still, the place was like the grave; and ever and anon, loud, sharp, tremendous, burst a thunderclap of curses, and set those poor demented creatures all yelling again for half-an-hour, making the tombs ring. And at clock-like intervals a harmless but dirty idiot, who was allowed to roam the ward, came and chanted through the keyhole, “Everything is nothing, and nothing is everything.”

This was the only observation he had made for many years.

His ears assailed with horrors, of which you have literally no conception, or shadow of a conception, his nose poisoned with ammoniacal vapours, and the peculiar wild-beast smell that marks the true maniac, Alfred ran wildly about his cell trying to stop his ears, and trembling for his own reason. When the fearful night rolled away, and morning broke, and he could stand on his truckle-bed and see the sweet hoar-frost on a square yard of grass level with his prison bars, it refreshed his very soul, and affected him almost to tears. He was then, to his surprise, taken out, and allowed to have a warm bath and to breakfast with David and the rest; but I suspect it was done to watch the effect of the trial he had been submitted to. After breakfast, having now no place to go, he lay on a bench, and there exhausted nature overpowered him, and he fell fast asleep.

turn. And norisen sun with a discordant scream. Presently a man came out of a half glass door under a verandah which shaded one s young women now-a-days is otherwise.

He ignorright, exploring the beauties of Dungeon Ghyll.

‘I wonder whether he thinks me very ugly?’ said Mary, with her hands clasped upon her knees, her eyes fixed on Wetherlam, upon whose steep brow a craggy mass of brown rock clothed with crimson heather stood out from the velvety green of the hill-side.

‘Who thinks you ugly?’

‘Mr. Hammond. I’m sure he does. I am so sunburnt and so horrid!’

‘But you are not ugly. Why, Molly, what are you dreaming about?’

‘Oh, yes, I am ugly. I may not seem so to you, perhaps, because you are used to me, but I know he must think me very plain compared with Lesbia, whom he admires so much.’

‘Yes, he admires Lesbia. There is no doubt of that.’

‘And I know he thinks me plain,’ said Molly, contemplating Wetherlam with sorrowful eyes, as if the sequence were inevitable.

‘My dearest girl, what nonsense! Plain, forsooth? Ugly, quotha? Why, there are not a finer pair of eyes in Westmoreland than my Molly’s, or a prettier smile, or whiter teeth.’

‘But all the rest is horrid,’ said Mary, intensely in earnest. ‘I am sunburnt, freckled, and altogether odious — like a haymaker or a market woman. Grandmother has said so often enough, and I know it is the truth. I can see it in Mr. Hammond’s manner.’

‘What! freckles and sunburn, and the haymaker, and all that?’ cried Maulevrier, laughing. ‘What an expressive manner Jack’s must be, if it can convey all that — like Lord Burleigh’s nod, by Jove. Why, what a goose you are, Mary. Jack thinks you a very nice girl, and a very pretty girl, I’ll be bou

Kirk

‘You need not fear, grandmother. I have been an idiot; but — but it was only a passing folly, and I shall never be so weak again.’

Lesbia’s scornful lips and kindling eyes gave intensity to her speech. It was evident that she despised herself for that one touch of womanly softness which had made her as ready to fall in love with her first wooer as any peasant girl in Grasmere Vale.ys harping upon change and death.’

The carriage, which was to take the travellers to Windermere Station, was announced at this moment, and Lesbia and her grandmother gave each other the farewell embrace.

‘You like Lady Kirkbank, I hope?’ said Lady Maulevrier, as they went towards the ball, where that lady was waiting for them, with Lady Mary and Fr?ulein Müller in attendance upon her.

‘She seems very kind, but I should like her better if she did not paint — or if she painted better.’

‘My dear child I’m afraid it is the fashion of the day, just as it was in Pope’s time, and we ought to think nothing about it.’

‘Well, I suppose I shall get hardened in time.’

‘My dearest Lesbia,’ shrieked Lady Kirkbank from below, ‘remember we have to catch a train.’

Lesbia hurried downstairs, followed by Lady Maulevrier, who had to bid her friend adieu. The luggage had been sent on in a cart, Lesbia’s trunks and dress baskets forming no small item. She was so well furnished with pretty gowns of all kinds that there had been no difficulty in getting her ready for this sudden visit. Her maid was on the box beside the coachman. Lady Kirkbank’s attendant, a Frenchwoman of five-and-thirty, who looked as if she had graduated at Mabille, was to occupy the back seat of the landau.

Lady Mary looked after her sister longingly, as the carriage drove down the hill. She was going into a new world, to see all kinds of people — clever people — distinguished people — musical, artistic, political people — hunting and shooting people — while Mary was to stay at home all the winter among the old familiar faces. Dearly as she loved these hills and vales her heart sank a little at the thought of those long lonely months, days and evenings that would be all alike, and which must be spent without sympathetic companionship. And there would be dreary days on which the weather would keep her a prisoner in her luxurious gaol, when the mountains, and the rugged paths beside the mountain streams, would be inaccessible, when she would be restricted to Fr?ulein’s phlegmatic society, that lady being stout and lazy, fond of her meals, and given to afternoon slumbers. Lesbia and Mary were not by any means sympathetic; yet, after all, blood is thicker than water; and Lesbia was intelligent, and could talk of the things Mary loved, which was better than total dumbness, even if she generally took an antagonistic view of them.

‘I shall miss her dreadfully,’ thought Mary, as she strolled listlessly in the gardens, where the leaves where falling and the flowers fading.

‘I wonder if she will see Mr. Hammond at Lady Kirkbank’s?’ mused Mary. ‘If he were anything like a lover he would find out all about her visit, and seize the opportunity of her being away from grandmother. But then if he had been much of a lover he would have followed her to St. Bees.’

Lady Maulevrier sorely missed her favourite grandchild. In a life spent in such profound seclusion, so remote from the busy interests of the world, this beloved companionship had become 

‘I feel sure that I shall like you very much,’ Lesbia answered sweetly. ‘I am prepared to love you as grandmother’s old friend.’

‘Oh, my dear, to think that I should ever be the old friend of anybody’s grandmother!’ sighed Lady Kirkbank, with unaffected regret. ‘When I was your age I used to think all old people odious. It never occurred to me that I should live to be one of them.’

‘Then you had no dear grandmother whom you loved,’ said Lesbia, ‘or you would have liked old people for her sake.’

‘No, my love, I had no grandparents. I had a father, and he was all-sufficient — anything beyond him in the ancestral line would have been a burden laid upon me greater than I could bear, as the poet says.’

Dinner was announced, and Mary came shyly out of her corner, blushing deeply.

‘And this is Lady Mary, I suppose?’ said Lady Kirkbank, in an off-hand way, ‘How do you do, my dear? I am going to steal your sister.’

‘I am very glad,’ faltered Mary. ‘I mean I am glad that Lesbia should enjoy herself.’

‘And some fine day, when Lesbia is married and a great lady, I shall ask you to come to Scotland,’ said Lady Kirkbank, condescendingly, and than she murmured in her friend’s ear, as they went to the dining-room, ‘Quite an English girl. Very fresh and frank and nice,’ which was great praise for such a second-rate young person as Lady Mary.

‘What do you think of Lesbia?’ asked Lady Maulevrier, in the same undertone.

‘She is simply adorable. Your letters prepared me to expect beauty, but not such beauty. My dear, I thought the progress of the human race was all in a downward line since our time; but your granddaughter is as handsome as you were in your first season, and that is going very far.’

Chapter 14 ‘Not Yet.’

Lady Kirkbank carried off Lesbia early next day, the girl radiant at the idea of seeing life under new conditions. She had a few minutes’ serious talk with her grandmother before she went.

‘Lesbia, you are going into the world,’ said Lady Maulevrier; ‘yes, even a country house is the world in little. You will have many admirers instead of one; but I think, I believe, that you will be true to me and to yourself.’

‘Dear child, men’s hearts do not break so easily. I have fancied that mine was broken more than once in my life, yet it is sound enough, I assure you.’

‘Oh!’ sighed Mary, ‘but you are not like him; wounds do not go so deep with you.’

But I must now, to justify my heading, skip some months, and relate a remarkable incident that befell her in the said character. On the first of August in this year, a good Christian woman, one of her patients, asked her to call on Mr. Barkington, that lodged above. “He is a decent body, miss, and between you and me, I think his complaint is, he don’t get quite enough to eat.”

“Barkington!” said Julia, and put her hand to her bosom. She went and tapped at his door.

“Come in,” said a shrillish voice.

She entered, and found a weazened old man seated, mending his own coat.

He rose, and she told him she was a district visitor. He said he had heard of her; they called her the beautiful lady in that court. This was news to her, and made her blush. She asked leave to read a chapter to him; he listened as to some gentle memory of childhood. She prescribed him a glass of port wine, and dispensed it on the instant. Thus physicked, her patient became communicative, and chattered on about his native place — but did not name it — and talked about the people there. Now our district visitor was, if the truth must be told, a compounder. She would permit her pupils to talk about earthly affairs, on condition they would listen to heavenly ones before she went. So she let this old man run on, and he told her he had been a banker’s clerk all his life, and saved a thousand pounds, and come up to London to make his fortune on the Stock Exchange; and there he was sometimes a bull, and sometimes a bear, and whichever he was, certain foxes called brokers and jobbers got the profit and he the loss. “It’s all the same as a gambling-table,” said he. “The jobbers and brokers have got the same odds the bank has at Rouge et Noir, and the little capitalist like me is doomed beforehand.” Then he told her that there was a crossing-sweeper near the Exchange who came from his native place, and had started as a speculator, and come down to that. Only he called it rising, and used to speak with a shudder of when he dabbled in the funds, and often told him to look sharp, and get a crossing. And lo! one day when he was cleaned out, and desperate, and hovering with the other ghosts of little capitalists about the tomb of their money, he saw his countryman fall flat, and the broom fly out of his hand. Instantly he made a rush, and so did a wooden-legged sailor; but he got first to the broom, and began to sweep while others picked up his countryman, who proved dead as a herring; and he succeeded to his broom, and it made money by the Exchange, though he never could. Still, one day he picked up a pocket-book in that neighbourhood, with a lump of money, which he straightway advertised in-no newspapers. And now, Julia thought it time to interpose the eighth commandment, the golden rule, and such branches of learning.

He became a favourite of hers: he had so much to say: she even thought she had seen his face before: but she could not tell where. She gave him good books and tracts; and read to him, and ploughed his heart with her sweet voice, and sowed the good seed in the furrows — seed which, like wheat or other grain, often seems to fall flat and die, but comes out green after many days.

One Saturday she invited him to dine with the servants next day. He came during church time, and went away in the afternoon while she was with her mother. But she asked Sarah, who proved eager to talk about him. “He was a rum customer; kept asking questions all dinner time. ‘Well,’ says I, ‘you’re good company you are; be you a lawyer; for you examines us; but you don’t tell us nothing.’ Ye see, Miss, Jane she is that simple, she was telling him everything, and about Mr. Alfred’s lawsuit with his father and all.”

Julia said that was indiscreet; but after all what did it matter?

“Who knows, Miss?” Sarah replied: “least said is soonest mended. If you please, Miss, who is he? Where does he bide? Where does he come from? Does he know Hardies?”

“I should think not. Why?”

“Because I’m much mistaken if he doesn’t.” Then putting on a stolid look, she asked, “Does he know your papa?”

“Oh no, Sarah. How should he?”

“There now,” said Sarah; “Miss, you are all in the dark about this old man: I’ll tell you something; I took him out of the way of Jane’s temper when she began a dishing up, and I had him into the parlour for a minute; and in course there he sees the picture of your poor papa hung up. Miss, if you’ll believe me, the moment he claps eyes on that there picture, he halloes out, and out goes his two hands like this here. ‘It’s him!’ says he; ‘it’s him!’ and stares at the picture like a stuck pig. Forgot I was close behind him, I do believe. ‘She’s his daughter,’ says he, in a whisper, a curious whisper; seemed to come out of his stomack. ‘What’s the matter now?’ says I, just so. He gave a great start, as if my speaking had wakened him from a dream, and says he, ‘nothing,’ as quiet as a lamb. ‘Nothing isn’t much,’ says I, just so. ‘It usedn’t to be anything at all when I was your age,’ says he, sneering. But I paid him a good coin: says I, ‘Old man, where you comes from do the folks use to start and hallo out and cry “It’s him! she’s his daughter!” and fling their two arms abroad like a wiumdmill in March, and all for — nothing?’ So at that he changed as white as my smock, and fell all of a tremble. However, at dinner he perks up, and drew that poor simple Jane out a good one. But he didn’t look towards me much, which I set opposite to watch my lord.”

“Sarah,” said Julia, “this is really curious, mysterious; you are a good, watchful, faithful girl; and, to tell the truth, I sometimes fancy I have seen Mr. Barkington’s face. However, I will solve this little mystery tomorrow; for I will ask him: thank you, Sarah.”

On Monday she called on Mr. Barkington to solve the mystery. But, instead of solving, her visit thickened it: for Mr. Barkington was gone bag and baggage. When Edward was told of this business, he thought it remarkable, and regretted he had not seen the old man.

So do I; for it is my belief Edward would have recognised him.

DAVID DODD.

The history of a man is the history of his mind. And that is why you have heard so little of late about the simplest, noblest, and most unfortunate of all my personages. Insanity is as various as eccentricity. I have spared the kind-hearted reader some of David’s vagaries. However, when we parted with him, he had settled into that strange phase of lunacy, in which the distant past seems nearly obliterated, and memory exists, but revolves in a narrow round of things present: this was accompanied with a positive illusion, to wit, a fixed idea that he was an able seaman: and, as usual, what mental power he retained came out strongest in support of this idea. All this was marked by a bodily agility somewhat more than natural in a man of his age. Owing to the wind astern, he was enabled to run into Portsmouth before the steam-tug came up with him: and he did run into port, not because he feared pursuit, but because he was desperately hungry; and he had no suicidal tendencies whatever.

He made for a public-house, and called for some bread and cheese and beer; they were supplied, and then lo! he had no money to pay for them. “I’ll owe you till I come back from sea, my bo,” said he coolly. On this the landlord collared him, and David shook him off into the road, much as a terrier throws a rat from him; then there was a row, and a naval officer, who was cruising about for hands, came up and heard it. There was nothing at all unseamanlike in David’s conduct, and the gentleman took a favourable view of it, and paid the small demand; but not with unleavened motives. He was the second lieutenant of H. M. frigate Vulture; she had a bad name, thanks to her last captain, and was short of hands: he took David aside and asked him would he like to ship on board the Vulture.

David said yes, and suggested the foretop. “Oh yes,” growled the lieutenant, “you all want to be there.” He then gauged this Jacky Tar’s intellects; asked him inter alia how to send a frigate’s foretop gallant yard down upon deck: and to show how seamanship sticks in the brain when once it gets there, David actually told him. “You are rather old,” said the lieutenant, “but you are a seaman:” and so took him on board the Vulture at Spithead, before Green began to search the town in earnest. Nobody acts his part better than some demented persons do: and David made a very tolerable sailor notwithstanding his forty-five years: and the sea did him good within certain limits. Between him and the past lay some intellectual or cerebral barrier as impenetrable as the great wall of China; but on the hither side of that wall his faculties improved. Of course, the crew soon found out the gap in his poor brain, and called him Soft Billy, and played on him at first. But by degrees he won their affection; he was so wonderfully sweet-tempered: and besides his mind being in an abnormal state, he loathed grog, and gave his allowance to his messmates. One day he showed an unexpected trait; they were lying becalmed in southern latitudes, and, time hanging heavily, each wiled it how he might: one fiddled, another wrote to his Polly, another fished for sharks, another whistled for a wind, scores fell into the form of meditation without the reality, and one got a piece of yarn and amused himself killing flies on the bulwark. Now this shocked poor Billy: he put out his long arm and intercepted a stroke. “What is the row?” said the operator.

“You mustn’t,” said Billy solemnly, looking into his face with great dreamy eyes.

pered to Soa.

resent tim

Start telling the truth now, and never stop. Begin by telling the trut

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