章节正文
generally know these things."
"And now," continued Mrs. Mullet, in her tragic
whisper, "when there's a rich husband-in-prospect
imminent on the horizon Toby goes and sells him that
miserable animal. It will probably kill him if he tries
to ride it; anyway it will kill any affection he might
have felt towards any member of our family. What is to
be done? We can't very well ask to have the horse back;
you see, we praised it up like anything when we thought
there was a chance of his buying it, and said it was just
the animal to suit him."
"Couldn't you steal it out of his stable and send it
to grass at some farm miles away?" suggested Clovis;
"write 'Votes for Women' on the stable door, and the
thing would pass for a Suffragette outrage. No one who
knew the horse could possibly suspect you of wanting to
get it back again."
"Every newspaper in the country would ring with the
affair," said Mrs. Mullet; "can't you imagine the
headline, 'Valuable Hunter Stolen by Suffragettes'? The
police would scour the countryside till they found the
animal."
"Well, Jessie must try and get it back from
Penricarde on the plea that it's an old favourite. She
can say it was only sold because the stable had to be
pulled down under the terms of an old repairing lease,
and that now it has been arranged that the stable is to
stand for a couple of years longer."
"It sounds a queer proceeding to ask for a horse
back when you've just sold him," said Mrs. Mullet, "but
something must be done, and done at once. The man is not
used to horses, and I believe I told him it was as quiet
as a lamb. After all, lambs go kicking and twisting
about as if they were demented, don't they?"
"The lamb has an entirely unmerited character for
sedateness," agreed Clovis.
Jessie came back from the golf links next day in a
state of mingled elation and concern.
"It's all right about the proposal," she announced
he came out with it at the sixth hole. I said I must
have time to think it over. I accepted him at the
seventh."
"My dear," said her mother, "I think a little more
maidenly reserve and hesitation would have been
advisable, as you've known him so short a time. You
might have waited till the ninth hole."
"The seventh is a very long hole," said Jessie;
"besides, the tension was putting us both off our game.
By the time we'd got to the ninth hole we'd settled lots
of things. The honeymoon is to be spent in Corsica, with
perhaps a flying visit to Naples if we feel like it, and
a week in London to wind up with. Two of his nieces are
to be asked to be bridesmaids, so with our lot there will
be seven, which is rather a lucky number. You are to
wear your pearl grey, with any amount of Honiton lace
jabbed into it. By the way, he's coming over this
evening to ask your consent to the whole affair. So far
all's well, but about the Brogue it's a different matter.
I told him the legend about the stable, and how keen we
were about buying the horse back, but he seems equally
keen on keeping it. He said he must have horse exercise
now that he's living in the country, and he's going to
start riding tomorrow. He's ridden a few times in the
Row, on an animal that was accustomed to carry
octogenarians and people undergoing rest cures, and
that's about all his experience in the saddle - oh, and
he rode a pony once in Norfolk, when he was fifteen and
the pony twenty-four; and tomorrow he's going to ride the
Brogue! I shall be a widow before I'm married, and I do
so want to see what Corsica's like; it looks so silly on
the map."
Clovis was sent for in haste, and the developments
of the situation put before him.
"Nobody can ride that animal with any safety," said
Mrs. Mullet, "except Toby, and he knows by long
experience what it is going to shy at, and manages to
swerve at the same time."
"I did hint to Mr. Penricarde - to Vincent, I should
say - that the Brogue didn't like white gates," said
Jessie.
"White gates!" exclaimed Mrs. Mullet; "did you
mention what effect a pig has on him? He'll have to go
past Lockyer's farm to get to the high road, and there's
sure to be a pig or two grunting about in the lane."
"He's taken rather a dislike to turkeys lately,"
said Toby.
"It's obvious that Penricarde mustn't be allowed to
go out on that animal," said Clovis, "at least not till
Jessie has married him, and tired of him. I tell you
what: ask him to a picnic to-morrow, starting at an early
hour; he's not the sort to go out for a ride before
breakfast. The day after I'll get the rector to drive
him over to Crowleigh before lunch, to see the new
cottage hospital they're building there. The Brogue will
be standing idle in the stable and Toby can offer to
exercise it; then it can pick up a stone or something of
the sort and go conveniently lame. If you hurry on the
wedding a bit the lameness fiction can be kept up till
the ceremony is safely over."
Mrs. Mullet belonged to an emotional race, and she
kissed Clovis.
It was nobody's fault that the rain came down in
torrents the next morning, making a picnic a fantastic
impossibility. It was also nobody's fault, but sheer
ill-luck, that the weather cleared up sufficiently in the
afternoon to tempt Mr. Penricarde to make his first essay
with the Brogue. They did not get as far as the pigs at
Lockyer's farm; the rectory gate was painted a dull
unobtrusive green, but it had been white a year or two
ago, and the Brogue never forgot that he had been in the
habit of making a violentcurtsey, a back-pedal and a
swerve at this particular point of the road.
Subsequently, there being apparently no further call on
his services, he broke his way into the rectory orchard,
where he found a hen turkey in a coop; later visitors to
the orchard found the coop almost intact, but very little
left of the turkey.
Mr. Penricarde, a little stunned and shaken, and
suffering from a bruised knee and some minor damages,
good-naturedly ascribed the accident to his own
inexperience with horses and country roads, and allowed
Jessie to nurse him back into complete recovery and golf-
fitness within something less than a week.
In the list of wedding presents which the local
newspaper published a fortnight or so later appeared the
following item:
"Brown saddle-horse, 'The Brogue,' bridegroom's gift
to bride."
"Which shows," said Toby Mullet, "that he knew
nothing."
"Or else," said Clovis, "that he has a very pleasing
wit."
THE HEN
"DORA BITTHOLZ is coming on Thursday," said Mrs.
Sangrail.
"This next Thursday? " asked Clovis
His mother nodded.
"You've rather done it, haven't you?" he chuckled;
"Jane Martlet has only been here five days, and she never
stays less than a fortnight, even when she's asked
definitely for a week. You'll never get her out of the
house by Thursday."
"Why should I?" asked Mrs. Sangrail; "she and Dora
are good friends, aren't they? They used to be, as far
as I remember."
"They used to be; that's what makes them all the
more bitter now. Each feels that she has nursed a viper
in her bosom. Nothing fans the flame of human resentment
so much as the discovery that one's bosom has been
utilised as a snake sanatorium."
"But what has happened? Has some one been making
mischief?"
"Not exactly," said Clovis; "a hen came between
them."
"A hen? What hen?"
"It was a bronze Leghorn or some such exotic breed,
and Dora sold it to Jane at a rather exotic price. They
both go in for prize poultry, you know, and Jane thought
she was going to get her money back in a large family of
pedigree chickens. The bird turned out to be an
abstainer from the egg habit, and I'm told that the
letters which passed between the two women were a
revelation as to how much invective could be got on to a
sheet of notepaper."
"How ridiculous!" said Mrs. Sangrail. "Couldn't
some of their friends compose the quarrel?"
"People tried," said Clovis, "but it must have been
rather like composing the storm music of the `Fliegende
Hollander.' Jane was willing to take back some of her
most libellous remarks if Dora would take back the hen,
but Dora said that would be owning herself in the wrong,
and you know she'd as soon think of owning slum property
in Whitechapel as do that."
"It's a most awkward situation," said Mrs. Sangrail.
"Do you suppose they won't speak to one another?"
"On the contrary, the difficulty will be to get them
to leave off. Their remarks on each other's conduct and
character have hitherto been governed by the fact that
only four ounces of plain speaking can be sent through
the post for a penny."
"I can't put Dora off," said Mrs. Sangrail. "I've
already postponed her visit once, and nothing short of a
miracle would make Jane leave before her self-allotted
fortnight is over."
"Miracles are rather in my line," said Clovis. "I
don't pretend to be very hopeful in this case but I'll do
my best."
"As long as you don't drag me into it - " stipulated
his mother.
* * * *
"Servants are a bit of a nuisance," muttered Clovis,
as he sat in the smoking-room after lunch, talking
fitfully to Jane Martlet in the intervals of putting
together the materials of a cocktail, which he had
irreverently patented under the name of an Ella Wheeler
Wilcox. It was partly compounded of old brandy and
partly of curacoa; there were other ingredients, but they
were never indiscriminately revealed.
"Servants a nuisance!" exclaimed Jane, bounding into
the topic with the exuberant plunge of a hunter when it
leaves the high road and feels turf under its hoofs; "I
"And now," continued Mrs. Mullet, in her tragic
whisper, "when there's a rich husband-in-prospect
imminent on the horizon Toby goes and sells him that
miserable animal. It will probably kill him if he tries
to ride it; anyway it will kill any affection he might
have felt towards any member of our family. What is to
be done? We can't very well ask to have the horse back;
you see, we praised it up like anything when we thought
there was a chance of his buying it, and said it was just
the animal to suit him."
"Couldn't you steal it out of his stable and send it
to grass at some farm miles away?" suggested Clovis;
"write 'Votes for Women' on the stable door, and the
thing would pass for a Suffragette outrage. No one who
knew the horse could possibly suspect you of wanting to
get it back again."
"Every newspaper in the country would ring with the
affair," said Mrs. Mullet; "can't you imagine the
headline, 'Valuable Hunter Stolen by Suffragettes'? The
police would scour the countryside till they found the
animal."
"Well, Jessie must try and get it back from
Penricarde on the plea that it's an old favourite. She
can say it was only sold because the stable had to be
pulled down under the terms of an old repairing lease,
and that now it has been arranged that the stable is to
stand for a couple of years longer."
"It sounds a queer proceeding to ask for a horse
back when you've just sold him," said Mrs. Mullet, "but
something must be done, and done at once. The man is not
used to horses, and I believe I told him it was as quiet
as a lamb. After all, lambs go kicking and twisting
about as if they were demented, don't they?"
"The lamb has an entirely unmerited character for
sedateness," agreed Clovis.
Jessie came back from the golf links next day in a
state of mingled elation and concern.
"It's all right about the proposal," she announced
he came out with it at the sixth hole. I said I must
have time to think it over. I accepted him at the
seventh."
"My dear," said her mother, "I think a little more
maidenly reserve and hesitation would have been
advisable, as you've known him so short a time. You
might have waited till the ninth hole."
"The seventh is a very long hole," said Jessie;
"besides, the tension was putting us both off our game.
By the time we'd got to the ninth hole we'd settled lots
of things. The honeymoon is to be spent in Corsica, with
perhaps a flying visit to Naples if we feel like it, and
a week in London to wind up with. Two of his nieces are
to be asked to be bridesmaids, so with our lot there will
be seven, which is rather a lucky number. You are to
wear your pearl grey, with any amount of Honiton lace
jabbed into it. By the way, he's coming over this
evening to ask your consent to the whole affair. So far
all's well, but about the Brogue it's a different matter.
I told him the legend about the stable, and how keen we
were about buying the horse back, but he seems equally
keen on keeping it. He said he must have horse exercise
now that he's living in the country, and he's going to
start riding tomorrow. He's ridden a few times in the
Row, on an animal that was accustomed to carry
octogenarians and people undergoing rest cures, and
that's about all his experience in the saddle - oh, and
he rode a pony once in Norfolk, when he was fifteen and
the pony twenty-four; and tomorrow he's going to ride the
Brogue! I shall be a widow before I'm married, and I do
so want to see what Corsica's like; it looks so silly on
the map."
Clovis was sent for in haste, and the developments
of the situation put before him.
"Nobody can ride that animal with any safety," said
Mrs. Mullet, "except Toby, and he knows by long
experience what it is going to shy at, and manages to
swerve at the same time."
"I did hint to Mr. Penricarde - to Vincent, I should
say - that the Brogue didn't like white gates," said
Jessie.
"White gates!" exclaimed Mrs. Mullet; "did you
mention what effect a pig has on him? He'll have to go
past Lockyer's farm to get to the high road, and there's
sure to be a pig or two grunting about in the lane."
"He's taken rather a dislike to turkeys lately,"
said Toby.
"It's obvious that Penricarde mustn't be allowed to
go out on that animal," said Clovis, "at least not till
Jessie has married him, and tired of him. I tell you
what: ask him to a picnic to-morrow, starting at an early
hour; he's not the sort to go out for a ride before
breakfast. The day after I'll get the rector to drive
him over to Crowleigh before lunch, to see the new
cottage hospital they're building there. The Brogue will
be standing idle in the stable and Toby can offer to
exercise it; then it can pick up a stone or something of
the sort and go conveniently lame. If you hurry on the
wedding a bit the lameness fiction can be kept up till
the ceremony is safely over."
Mrs. Mullet belonged to an emotional race, and she
kissed Clovis.
It was nobody's fault that the rain came down in
torrents the next morning, making a picnic a fantastic
impossibility. It was also nobody's fault, but sheer
ill-luck, that the weather cleared up sufficiently in the
afternoon to tempt Mr. Penricarde to make his first essay
with the Brogue. They did not get as far as the pigs at
Lockyer's farm; the rectory gate was painted a dull
unobtrusive green, but it had been white a year or two
ago, and the Brogue never forgot that he had been in the
habit of making a violentcurtsey, a back-pedal and a
swerve at this particular point of the road.
Subsequently, there being apparently no further call on
his services, he broke his way into the rectory orchard,
where he found a hen turkey in a coop; later visitors to
the orchard found the coop almost intact, but very little
left of the turkey.
Mr. Penricarde, a little stunned and shaken, and
suffering from a bruised knee and some minor damages,
good-naturedly ascribed the accident to his own
inexperience with horses and country roads, and allowed
Jessie to nurse him back into complete recovery and golf-
fitness within something less than a week.
In the list of wedding presents which the local
newspaper published a fortnight or so later appeared the
following item:
"Brown saddle-horse, 'The Brogue,' bridegroom's gift
to bride."
"Which shows," said Toby Mullet, "that he knew
nothing."
"Or else," said Clovis, "that he has a very pleasing
wit."
THE HEN
"DORA BITTHOLZ is coming on Thursday," said Mrs.
Sangrail.
"This next Thursday? " asked Clovis
His mother nodded.
"You've rather done it, haven't you?" he chuckled;
"Jane Martlet has only been here five days, and she never
stays less than a fortnight, even when she's asked
definitely for a week. You'll never get her out of the
house by Thursday."
"Why should I?" asked Mrs. Sangrail; "she and Dora
are good friends, aren't they? They used to be, as far
as I remember."
"They used to be; that's what makes them all the
more bitter now. Each feels that she has nursed a viper
in her bosom. Nothing fans the flame of human resentment
so much as the discovery that one's bosom has been
utilised as a snake sanatorium."
"But what has happened? Has some one been making
mischief?"
"Not exactly," said Clovis; "a hen came between
them."
"A hen? What hen?"
"It was a bronze Leghorn or some such exotic breed,
and Dora sold it to Jane at a rather exotic price. They
both go in for prize poultry, you know, and Jane thought
she was going to get her money back in a large family of
pedigree chickens. The bird turned out to be an
abstainer from the egg habit, and I'm told that the
letters which passed between the two women were a
revelation as to how much invective could be got on to a
sheet of notepaper."
"How ridiculous!" said Mrs. Sangrail. "Couldn't
some of their friends compose the quarrel?"
"People tried," said Clovis, "but it must have been
rather like composing the storm music of the `Fliegende
Hollander.' Jane was willing to take back some of her
most libellous remarks if Dora would take back the hen,
but Dora said that would be owning herself in the wrong,
and you know she'd as soon think of owning slum property
in Whitechapel as do that."
"It's a most awkward situation," said Mrs. Sangrail.
"Do you suppose they won't speak to one another?"
"On the contrary, the difficulty will be to get them
to leave off. Their remarks on each other's conduct and
character have hitherto been governed by the fact that
only four ounces of plain speaking can be sent through
the post for a penny."
"I can't put Dora off," said Mrs. Sangrail. "I've
already postponed her visit once, and nothing short of a
miracle would make Jane leave before her self-allotted
fortnight is over."
"Miracles are rather in my line," said Clovis. "I
don't pretend to be very hopeful in this case but I'll do
my best."
"As long as you don't drag me into it - " stipulated
his mother.
* * * *
"Servants are a bit of a nuisance," muttered Clovis,
as he sat in the smoking-room after lunch, talking
fitfully to Jane Martlet in the intervals of putting
together the materials of a cocktail, which he had
irreverently patented under the name of an Ella Wheeler
Wilcox. It was partly compounded of old brandy and
partly of curacoa; there were other ingredients, but they
were never indiscriminately revealed.
"Servants a nuisance!" exclaimed Jane, bounding into
the topic with the exuberant plunge of a hunter when it
leaves the high road and feels turf under its hoofs; "I
- horizon [hə´raizən]
n.地平线；范围；视野 (初中英语单词) - affection [ə´fekʃən] n.友爱；慈爱 (初中英语单词)
- stable [´steibəl] n.马棚 a.稳固的 (初中英语单词)
- suspect [´sʌspekt, sə´spekt] v.怀疑；觉得 n.嫌疑犯 (初中英语单词)
- hunter [´hʌntə] n.猎人；猎狗；猎马 (初中英语单词)
- stolen [´stəulən] steal 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- character [´kæriktə] n.特性；性质；人物；字 (初中英语单词)
- amount [ə´maunt] n.总数；数量 v.合计 (初中英语单词)
- saddle [´sædl] n.鞍子 v.装鞍(于) (初中英语单词)
- dislike [dis´laik] vt.&n.不喜爱，厌恶 (初中英语单词)
- obvious [´ɔbviəs] a.明显的；显而易见的 (初中英语单词)
- standing [´stændiŋ] n.持续 a.直立的 (初中英语单词)
- ceremony [´seriməni] n.典礼；礼仪；客气 (初中英语单词)
- safely [´seifli] ad.安全地；平安地 (初中英语单词)
- emotional [i´məuʃənəl] a.易动感情的；情感的 (初中英语单词)
- sufficiently [sə´fiʃəntli] ad.充分地，足够地 (初中英语单词)
- violent [´vaiələnt] a.强暴的；猛烈的 (初中英语单词)
- turkey [´tə:ki] n.火鸡 (初中英语单词)
- orchard [´ɔ:tʃəd] n.果园 (初中英语单词)
- shaken [´ʃeikən] shake的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- wedding [´wediŋ] n.婚礼，结婚 (初中英语单词)
- compose [kəm´pəuz] v.组成；创作；作曲 (初中英语单词)
- willing [´wiliŋ] a.情愿的，乐意的 (初中英语单词)
- contrary [´kɔntrəri] a.相反的 n.相反 (初中英语单词)
- pretend [pri´tend] v.假装；借口；妄求 (初中英语单词)
- partly [´pɑ:tli] ad.部分地；不完全地 (初中英语单词)
- plunge [plʌndʒ] v.插进 n.投入；冲击 (初中英语单词)
- outrage [´aut,reidʒ] n.残暴 vt.虐待；伤害 (高中英语单词)
- proceeding [prə´si:diŋ] n.程序；进程；行动 (高中英语单词)
- hesitation [,hezi´teiʃən] n.犹豫，踌躇 (高中英语单词)
- picnic [´piknik] n.郊游 vi.(去)野餐 (高中英语单词)
- fiction [´fikʃən] n.小说；虚构；谎言 (高中英语单词)
- apparently [ə´pærəntli] ad.显然，表面上地 (高中英语单词)
- recovery [ri´kʌvəri] n.重获；获得；恢复 (高中英语单词)
- fortnight [´fɔ:tnait] n.两星期 (高中英语单词)
- bronze [brɔnz] n.青铜(器) (高中英语单词)
- poultry [´pəultri] n.&v.家禽 (高中英语单词)
- awkward [´ɔ:kwəd] a.笨拙的；为难的 (高中英语单词)
- hitherto [,hiðə´tu:] ad.至今，迄今 (高中英语单词)
- cocktail [´kɔkteil] n.&a.鸡尾酒(的) (高中英语单词)
- countryside [´kʌntrisaid] n.乡下，农村 (英语四级单词)
- tension [´tenʃən] n.紧张；压力；拉力 (英语四级单词)
- honeymoon [´hʌnimu:n] n.蜜月 (英语四级单词)
- naples [´neiplz] n.那不勒斯 (英语四级单词)
- ridden [´ridn] ride 的过去分词 (英语四级单词)
- conveniently [kən´vi:njəntli] ad.方便地；合宜地 (英语四级单词)
- hopeful [´həupfəl] a.有希望的，激励人的 (英语四级单词)
- brandy [´brændi] n.白兰地酒 (英语四级单词)
- wanting [´wɔntiŋ, wɑ:n-] a.短缺的；不足的 (英语六级单词)
- rector [´rektə] n.校长；主任；负责人 (英语六级单词)
- curtsey [´kə:tsi] n.(妇女行的)屈膝礼 (英语六级单词)
- intact [in´tækt] a.未动过的，完整的 (英语六级单词)
- speaking [´spi:kiŋ] n.说话 a.发言的 (英语六级单词)
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