章节正文
escaped the notice of Fred, and since his entrance he had been
gravitating toward it.
As the voice of the judge rose in violent objurgation, and all
eyes were fixed upon him, the chauffeurcrooked his leg
tightly about the brass pole, and, like the devil in the
pantomime, sank softly and swiftly through the floor.
The irate judge was shaking his finger in Winthrop's face.
"Don't you try to teach me no law," he shouted; "I know what I
can do. Ef MY darter went gallivantin' around nights in one
of them automobiles, it would serve her right to get locked
up. Maybe this young woman will learn to stay at home nights
with her folks. She ain't goin' to take no harm here. The
constable sits up all night downstairs in the fire engine
room, and that sofa's as good a place to sleep as the hotel.
If you want me to let her go to the hotel, why don't you send
to your folks and bail her out?"
"You know damn well why I don't," returned Winthrop. "I don't
intend to give the newspapers and you and these other idiots
the chance to annoy her further. This young lady's brother
has been with us all day; he left us only by accident, and by
forcing her to remain here alone you are acting outrageously.
If you knew anything of decency, or law, you'd----"
"I know this much!" roared the justice triumphantly, pointing
his spectacle-case at Miss Forbes. "I know her name ain't
Lizzie Borden and yours ain't Charley Ross."
Winthrop crossed to where Miss Forbes stood in a corner. She
still wore her veil, but through it, though her face was pale,
she smiled at him.
His own distress was undisguised.
"I can never forgive myself," he said.
"Nonsense!" replied Miss Forbes briskly. "You were perfectly
right. If we had sent for any one, it would have had to come
out. Now, we'll pay the fine in the morning and get home, and
no one will know anything of it excepting the family and Mr.
Peabody, and they'll understand. But if I ever lay hands on
my brother Sam!"--she clasped her fingers together helplessly.
"To think of his leaving you to spend the night in a cell----"
Winthrop interrupted her.
"I will get one of these men to send his wife or sister over
to stay with you," he said.
But Miss Forbes protested that she did not want a companion.
The constable would protect her, she said, and she would sit
up all night and read. She nodded at the periodicals on the
club table.
"This is the only chance I may ever have," she said, "to read
the `Police Gazette'!"
"You ready there?" called the constable.
"Good-night," said Winthrop.
Under the eyes of the grinning yokels, they shook hands.
"Good-night," said the girl.
"Where's your young man?" demanded the chief of police.
"My what?" inquired Winthrop.
"The young fellow that was with you when we held you up that
first time."
The constable, or the chief of police as he called himself, on
the principle that if there were only one policeman he must
necessarily be the chief, glanced hastily over the heads of
the crowd.
"Any of you holding that shoffer?" he called.
No one was holding the chauffeur.
The chauffeur had vanished.
The cell to which the constable led Winthrop was in a corner
of the cellar in which formerly coal had been stored. This
corner was now fenced off with boards, and a wooden door with
chain and padlock.
High in the wall, on a level with the ground, was the opening,
or window, through which the coal had been dumped. This
window now was barricaded with iron bars. Winthrop tested the
door by shaking it, and landed a heavy kick on one of the
hinges. It gave slightly, and emitted a feeble groan.
"What you tryin'to do?" demanded the constable. "That's town
property."
In the light of the constable's lantern, Winthrop surveyed his
cell with extreme dissatisfaction.
"I call this a cheap cell," he said.
"It's good enough for a cheap sport," returned the constable.
It was so overwhelming a retort that after the constable had
turned the key in the padlock, and taken himself and his
lantern to the floor above, Winthrop could hear him repeating
it to the volunteer firemen. They received it with delighted
howls.
For an hour, on the three empty boxes that formed his bed,
Winthrop sat, with his chin on his fists, planning the
nameless atrocities he would inflict upon the village of
Fairport. Compared to his tortures, those of Neuremberg were
merely reprimands. Also he considered the particular
punishment he would mete out to Sam Forbes for his desertion
of his sister, and to Fred. He could not understand Fred. It
was not like the chauffeur to think only of himself.
Nevertheless, for abandoning Miss Forbes in the hour of need,
Fred must be discharged. He had, with some regret, determined
upon this discipline, when from directly over his head the
voice of Fred hailed him cautiously.
"Mr. Winthrop," the voice called, "are you there?"
To Winthrop the question seemed superfluous. He jumped to his
feet, and peered up into the darkness.
"Where are YOU?" he demanded.
"At the window," came the answer. "We're in the back yard.
Mr. Sam wants to speak to you."
On Miss Forbes's account, Winthrop gave a gasp of relief. On
his own, one of savage satisfaction.
"And _I_ want to speak to HIM!" he whispered.
The moonlight, which had been faintly shining through the iron
bars of the coal chute, was eclipsed by a head and shoulders.
The comfortable voice of Sam Forbes greeted him in a playful
whisper.
"Hullo, Billy! You down there?"
"Where the devil did you think I was?" Winthrop answered at
white heat. "Let me tell you if I was not down here I'd be
punching your head."
"That's all right, Billy," Sam answered soothingly. "But I'll
save you just the same. It shall never be said of Sam Forbes
he deserted a comrade----"
"Stop that! Do you know," Winthrop demanded fiercely, "that
your sister is a prisoner upstairs?"
"I do," replied the unfeeling brother, " but she won't be long.
All the low-comedy parts are out now arranging a rescue."
"Who are? Todd and those boys? demanded Winthrop. "They
mustn't think of it! They'll only make it worse. It is
impossible to get your sister out of here with those drunken
firemen in the building. You must wait till they've gone
home. Do you hear me?"
"Pardon ME!" returned Sam stiffly "but this is MY relief
expedition. I have sent two of the boys to hold the bridge,
like Horatius, and two to guard the motors, and the others are
going to entice the firemen away from the engine house."
"Entice them? How?" demanded Winthrop. "They're drunk, and
they won't leave here till morning."
Outside the engine house, suspended from a heavy cross-bar,
was a steel rail borrowed from a railroad track, and bent into
a hoop. When hit with a sledge-hammer it proclaimed to
Fairport that the "consuming element" was at large.
At the moment Winthrop asked his question, over the village of
Fairport and over the bay and marshes, and far out across the
Sound, the great steel bar sent forth a shuddering boom of
warning.
From the room above came a wild tumult of joyous yells.
"Fire!" shrieked the vamps, "fire!"
The two men crouching by the cellar window heard the rush of
feet, the engine banging and bumping across the sidewalk, its
brass bell clanking crazily, the happy vamps shouting hoarse,
incoherent orders.
Through the window Sam lowered a bag of tools he had taken
from Winthrop's car.
"Can you open the lock with any of these?" he asked.
"I can kick it open!" yelled Winthrop joyfully. "Get to your
sister, quick!"
He threw his shoulder against the door, and the staples flying
before him sent him sprawling in the coal-dust. When he
reached the head of the stairs, Beatrice Forbes was descending
from the clubroom, and in front of the door the two cars, with
their lamps unlit and numbers hidden, were panting to be free.
And in the North, reaching to the sky, rose a roaring column
of flame, shameless in the pale moonlight, dragging into naked
day the sleeping village, the shingled houses, the clock-face
in the church steeple.
"What the devil have you done?" gasped Winthrop.
Before he answered, Sam waited until the cars were rattling to
safety across the bridge.
"We have been protecting the face of nature," he shouted. "The
only way to get that gang out of the engine house was to set
fire to something. Tommy wanted to burn up the railroad
station, because he doesn't like the New York and New Haven,
and Fred was for setting fire to Judge Allen's house, because
he was rude to Beatrice. But we finally formed the Village
Improvement Society, organized to burn all advertising signs.
You know those that stood in the marshes, and hid the view
from the trains, so that you could not see the Sound. We
chopped them down and put them in a pile, and poured gasolene
on them, and that fire is all that is left of the pickles,
fly-screens, and pills."
It was midnight when the cars drew up at the door of the house
of Forbes. Anxiously waiting in the library were Mrs. Forbes
and Ernest Peabody.
"At last!" cried Mrs. Forbes, smiling her relief; "we thought
maybe Sam and you had decided to spend the night in New
Haven."
"No," said Miss Forbes, "there WAS some talk about spending
the night at Fairport, but we pushed right on."
II
THE TRESPASSERS
With a long, nervousshudder, the Scarlet Car came to a stop,
and the lamps bored a round hole in the night, leaving the
rest of the encircling world in a chill and silent darkness.
The lamps showed a flickering picture of a country road
between high banks covered with loose stones, and overhead, a
fringe of pine boughs. It looked like a colored photograph
thrown from a stereopticon in a darkened theater.
From the back of the car the voice of the owner said briskly:
"We will now sing that beautiful ballad entitled `He Is
Sleeping in the Yukon Vale To-night.' What are you stopping
for, Fred?" he asked.
The tone of the chauffeur suggested he was again upon the
defensive.
"For water, sir," he mumbled.
Miss Forbes in the front seat laughed, and her brother in the
rear seat, groaned in dismay.
"Oh, for water?" said the owner cordially. "I thought maybe
it was for coal."
Save a dignified silence, there was no answer to this, until
there came a rolling of loose stones and the sound of a heavy
gravitating toward it.
As the voice of the judge rose in violent objurgation, and all
eyes were fixed upon him, the chauffeurcrooked his leg
tightly about the brass pole, and, like the devil in the
pantomime, sank softly and swiftly through the floor.
The irate judge was shaking his finger in Winthrop's face.
"Don't you try to teach me no law," he shouted; "I know what I
can do. Ef MY darter went gallivantin' around nights in one
of them automobiles, it would serve her right to get locked
up. Maybe this young woman will learn to stay at home nights
with her folks. She ain't goin' to take no harm here. The
constable sits up all night downstairs in the fire engine
room, and that sofa's as good a place to sleep as the hotel.
If you want me to let her go to the hotel, why don't you send
to your folks and bail her out?"
"You know damn well why I don't," returned Winthrop. "I don't
intend to give the newspapers and you and these other idiots
the chance to annoy her further. This young lady's brother
has been with us all day; he left us only by accident, and by
forcing her to remain here alone you are acting outrageously.
If you knew anything of decency, or law, you'd----"
"I know this much!" roared the justice triumphantly, pointing
his spectacle-case at Miss Forbes. "I know her name ain't
Lizzie Borden and yours ain't Charley Ross."
Winthrop crossed to where Miss Forbes stood in a corner. She
still wore her veil, but through it, though her face was pale,
she smiled at him.
His own distress was undisguised.
"I can never forgive myself," he said.
"Nonsense!" replied Miss Forbes briskly. "You were perfectly
right. If we had sent for any one, it would have had to come
out. Now, we'll pay the fine in the morning and get home, and
no one will know anything of it excepting the family and Mr.
Peabody, and they'll understand. But if I ever lay hands on
my brother Sam!"--she clasped her fingers together helplessly.
"To think of his leaving you to spend the night in a cell----"
Winthrop interrupted her.
"I will get one of these men to send his wife or sister over
to stay with you," he said.
But Miss Forbes protested that she did not want a companion.
The constable would protect her, she said, and she would sit
up all night and read. She nodded at the periodicals on the
club table.
"This is the only chance I may ever have," she said, "to read
the `Police Gazette'!"
"You ready there?" called the constable.
"Good-night," said Winthrop.
Under the eyes of the grinning yokels, they shook hands.
"Good-night," said the girl.
"Where's your young man?" demanded the chief of police.
"My what?" inquired Winthrop.
"The young fellow that was with you when we held you up that
first time."
The constable, or the chief of police as he called himself, on
the principle that if there were only one policeman he must
necessarily be the chief, glanced hastily over the heads of
the crowd.
"Any of you holding that shoffer?" he called.
No one was holding the chauffeur.
The chauffeur had vanished.
The cell to which the constable led Winthrop was in a corner
of the cellar in which formerly coal had been stored. This
corner was now fenced off with boards, and a wooden door with
chain and padlock.
High in the wall, on a level with the ground, was the opening,
or window, through which the coal had been dumped. This
window now was barricaded with iron bars. Winthrop tested the
door by shaking it, and landed a heavy kick on one of the
hinges. It gave slightly, and emitted a feeble groan.
"What you tryin'to do?" demanded the constable. "That's town
property."
In the light of the constable's lantern, Winthrop surveyed his
cell with extreme dissatisfaction.
"I call this a cheap cell," he said.
"It's good enough for a cheap sport," returned the constable.
It was so overwhelming a retort that after the constable had
turned the key in the padlock, and taken himself and his
lantern to the floor above, Winthrop could hear him repeating
it to the volunteer firemen. They received it with delighted
howls.
For an hour, on the three empty boxes that formed his bed,
Winthrop sat, with his chin on his fists, planning the
nameless atrocities he would inflict upon the village of
Fairport. Compared to his tortures, those of Neuremberg were
merely reprimands. Also he considered the particular
punishment he would mete out to Sam Forbes for his desertion
of his sister, and to Fred. He could not understand Fred. It
was not like the chauffeur to think only of himself.
Nevertheless, for abandoning Miss Forbes in the hour of need,
Fred must be discharged. He had, with some regret, determined
upon this discipline, when from directly over his head the
voice of Fred hailed him cautiously.
"Mr. Winthrop," the voice called, "are you there?"
To Winthrop the question seemed superfluous. He jumped to his
feet, and peered up into the darkness.
"Where are YOU?" he demanded.
"At the window," came the answer. "We're in the back yard.
Mr. Sam wants to speak to you."
On Miss Forbes's account, Winthrop gave a gasp of relief. On
his own, one of savage satisfaction.
"And _I_ want to speak to HIM!" he whispered.
The moonlight, which had been faintly shining through the iron
bars of the coal chute, was eclipsed by a head and shoulders.
The comfortable voice of Sam Forbes greeted him in a playful
whisper.
"Hullo, Billy! You down there?"
"Where the devil did you think I was?" Winthrop answered at
white heat. "Let me tell you if I was not down here I'd be
punching your head."
"That's all right, Billy," Sam answered soothingly. "But I'll
save you just the same. It shall never be said of Sam Forbes
he deserted a comrade----"
"Stop that! Do you know," Winthrop demanded fiercely, "that
your sister is a prisoner upstairs?"
"I do," replied the unfeeling brother, " but she won't be long.
All the low-comedy parts are out now arranging a rescue."
"Who are? Todd and those boys? demanded Winthrop. "They
mustn't think of it! They'll only make it worse. It is
impossible to get your sister out of here with those drunken
firemen in the building. You must wait till they've gone
home. Do you hear me?"
"Pardon ME!" returned Sam stiffly "but this is MY relief
expedition. I have sent two of the boys to hold the bridge,
like Horatius, and two to guard the motors, and the others are
going to entice the firemen away from the engine house."
"Entice them? How?" demanded Winthrop. "They're drunk, and
they won't leave here till morning."
Outside the engine house, suspended from a heavy cross-bar,
was a steel rail borrowed from a railroad track, and bent into
a hoop. When hit with a sledge-hammer it proclaimed to
Fairport that the "consuming element" was at large.
At the moment Winthrop asked his question, over the village of
Fairport and over the bay and marshes, and far out across the
Sound, the great steel bar sent forth a shuddering boom of
warning.
From the room above came a wild tumult of joyous yells.
"Fire!" shrieked the vamps, "fire!"
The two men crouching by the cellar window heard the rush of
feet, the engine banging and bumping across the sidewalk, its
brass bell clanking crazily, the happy vamps shouting hoarse,
incoherent orders.
Through the window Sam lowered a bag of tools he had taken
from Winthrop's car.
"Can you open the lock with any of these?" he asked.
"I can kick it open!" yelled Winthrop joyfully. "Get to your
sister, quick!"
He threw his shoulder against the door, and the staples flying
before him sent him sprawling in the coal-dust. When he
reached the head of the stairs, Beatrice Forbes was descending
from the clubroom, and in front of the door the two cars, with
their lamps unlit and numbers hidden, were panting to be free.
And in the North, reaching to the sky, rose a roaring column
of flame, shameless in the pale moonlight, dragging into naked
day the sleeping village, the shingled houses, the clock-face
in the church steeple.
"What the devil have you done?" gasped Winthrop.
Before he answered, Sam waited until the cars were rattling to
safety across the bridge.
"We have been protecting the face of nature," he shouted. "The
only way to get that gang out of the engine house was to set
fire to something. Tommy wanted to burn up the railroad
station, because he doesn't like the New York and New Haven,
and Fred was for setting fire to Judge Allen's house, because
he was rude to Beatrice. But we finally formed the Village
Improvement Society, organized to burn all advertising signs.
You know those that stood in the marshes, and hid the view
from the trains, so that you could not see the Sound. We
chopped them down and put them in a pile, and poured gasolene
on them, and that fire is all that is left of the pickles,
fly-screens, and pills."
It was midnight when the cars drew up at the door of the house
of Forbes. Anxiously waiting in the library were Mrs. Forbes
and Ernest Peabody.
"At last!" cried Mrs. Forbes, smiling her relief; "we thought
maybe Sam and you had decided to spend the night in New
Haven."
"No," said Miss Forbes, "there WAS some talk about spending
the night at Fairport, but we pushed right on."
II
THE TRESPASSERS
With a long, nervousshudder, the Scarlet Car came to a stop,
and the lamps bored a round hole in the night, leaving the
rest of the encircling world in a chill and silent darkness.
The lamps showed a flickering picture of a country road
between high banks covered with loose stones, and overhead, a
fringe of pine boughs. It looked like a colored photograph
thrown from a stereopticon in a darkened theater.
From the back of the car the voice of the owner said briskly:
"We will now sing that beautiful ballad entitled `He Is
Sleeping in the Yukon Vale To-night.' What are you stopping
for, Fred?" he asked.
The tone of the chauffeur suggested he was again upon the
defensive.
"For water, sir," he mumbled.
Miss Forbes in the front seat laughed, and her brother in the
rear seat, groaned in dismay.
"Oh, for water?" said the owner cordially. "I thought maybe
it was for coal."
Save a dignified silence, there was no answer to this, until
there came a rolling of loose stones and the sound of a heavy
- violent [´vaiələnt]
a.强暴的；猛烈的 (初中英语单词) - softly [´sɔftli] ad.软化地；柔和地 (初中英语单词)
- swiftly [´swiftli] ad.迅速地，敏捷地 (初中英语单词)
- downstairs [,daun´steəz] ad.在楼下 a.楼下的 (初中英语单词)
- acting [´æktiŋ] a.代理的 n.演戏 (初中英语单词)
- distress [di´stres] n.痛苦 vt.使苦恼 (初中英语单词)
- forgive [fə´giv] vt.原谅，谅解，宽恕 (初中英语单词)
- policeman [pə´li:smən] n.警察 (初中英语单词)
- hastily [´heistili] ad.急速地；草率地 (初中英语单词)
- cellar [´selə] n.地窑，地下室 (初中英语单词)
- formerly [´fɔ:məli] ad.从前，以前 (初中英语单词)
- wooden [´wudn] a.木制的；呆板的 (初中英语单词)
- slightly [´slaitli] ad.轻微地；细长的 (初中英语单词)
- feeble [´fi:bəl] a.虚弱的，无力的 (初中英语单词)
- extreme [ik´stri:m] a.尽头的 n.极端 (初中英语单词)
- discipline [´disiplin] n.纪律；训练 (初中英语单词)
- account [ə´kaunt] vi.说明 vt.认为 n.帐目 (初中英语单词)
- relief [ri´li:f] n.救济；援救；减轻 (初中英语单词)
- savage [´sævidʒ] a.野蛮的 n.蛮人 (初中英语单词)
- moonlight [´mu:nlait] n.&a.月光(的) (初中英语单词)
- fiercely [´fiəsli] ad.凶猛地，残忍地 (初中英语单词)
- hidden [´hid(ə)n] hide 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- sleeping [´sli:piŋ] n.&a.睡着(的) (初中英语单词)
- advertising [´ædvətaiziŋ] n.广告a.广告的 (初中英语单词)
- midnight [´midnait] n.午夜；漆黑 (初中英语单词)
- waiting [´weitiŋ] n.等候；伺候 (初中英语单词)
- nervous [´nə:vəs] a.神经的；神经过敏的 (初中英语单词)
- scarlet [´skɑ:lit] n.猩红色 a.猩红的 (初中英语单词)
- overhead [´əuvə,hed] ad.当头 a.在头上的 (初中英语单词)
- crooked [´krukid] a.弯曲的；畸形的 (高中英语单词)
- constable [´kʌnstəbəl] n.警察；警官 (高中英语单词)
- lantern [´læntən] n.灯笼；提灯 (高中英语单词)
- retort [ri´tɔ:t] n.&v.报复；反击；反驳 (高中英语单词)
- volunteer [,vɔlən´tiə] n.志愿者 v.自愿做 (高中英语单词)
- inflict [in´flikt] vt.加以(打击等) (高中英语单词)
- faintly [´feintli] ad.微弱地，软弱无力的 (高中英语单词)
- stiffly [´stifli] ad.硬；顽固地 (高中英语单词)
- tumult [´tju:mʌlt, ´tu:-] n.喧哗；激昂；烦乱 (高中英语单词)
- joyous [´dʒɔiəs] a.充满快乐的 (高中英语单词)
- sidewalk [´saidwɔ:k] n.人行道 (高中英语单词)
- anxiously [´æŋkʃəsli] ad.挂念地；渴望地 (高中英语单词)
- decided [di´saidid] a.明显的；决定的 (高中英语单词)
- shudder [´ʃʌdə] n.&vi.震颤；发抖 (高中英语单词)
- ballad [´bæləd] n.民歌，民谣 (高中英语单词)
- dignified [´dignifaid] a.尊贵的 (高中英语单词)
- chauffeur [´ʃəufə,ʃeu´fə:] n.(汽车)司机 (英语四级单词)
- triumphantly [trai´ʌmfəntli] ad.胜利地；洋洋得意地 (英语四级单词)
- briskly [´briskli] ad.轻快地；活泼地 (英语四级单词)
- overwhelming [,əuvə´welmiŋ] a.压倒的；势不可挡的 (英语四级单词)
- superfluous [su:´pə:fluəs, sju:-] a.过剩的，多余的 (英语四级单词)
- entice [in´tais] vt.诱惑；怂恿 (英语四级单词)
- joyfully [´dʒɔifuli] ad.高兴地，快乐地 (英语四级单词)
- setting [´setiŋ] n.安装；排字；布景 (英语四级单词)
- cordially [´kɔ:djəli] ad.热诚地；亲切地 (英语四级单词)
- decency [´di:sənsi] n.正派；体面 (英语六级单词)
- holding [´həuldiŋ] n.保持，固定，存储 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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