名酒葡萄酒红酒和全国酒水经销商总群汇总
发布于 2021-09-21 22:51
白酒文化-白酒品牌-白酒知识-白酒批发商-白酒批发网-白酒名酒零售-名酒白酒批发群-白酒知识大全-名酒白酒业-名酒白酒推荐-名酒白酒批发网-名酒白酒批发群-进口白酒-白酒品鉴-白酒推荐-白酒世界-白酒知识-婚庆企业白酒定制-白酒OEM贴牌。
⇈⇈⇈
你想要的优惠一件也是批发价
聚集全网各品类酒
厂家直供
一件也是批发价
您想要的知识全都有
▲
白酒知识
白酒知识大全
酱香酒知识大全
高度酒知识大全
酱香酒知识大全
洋酒知识大全
进口酒知识大全
……………
你想要的品类全都有
国内浓香型白酒
国内酱香型白酒
国内红酒
国内葡萄酒
国内洋酒
进口红酒
进口葡萄酒
进口洋酒
进口鸡尾酒
……………
…………………………
名酒批发平台
红酒批发平台
…………………………
……………………………
……………………………
…………………………
……………………………
END
谢谢观看
以下世界名酒英文介绍
pter 1 Shewing How Wrath Began
When Louis Trevelyan was twenty
If the infliction of pain an
when she was alone, and whe
Cottage, the other two a little way up the road.
Ten o’clock struck. Some minutes passed without the expected signal from Green; and Edward and Sampson began to shiver. For it was very cold and dark, and in
the room with a deep sigh, in which pity mingled with shame and regret. He wandered out into the silent night, and soon was leaning on the gate of Albion Villa, gazing wistfully at the windows, and sore perplexed and nobly wretched.
As he was going out, Mr. Hardie raised his eyebrows with a look of disinterested wonder and curiosity; and touched his forehead to Jane, as much as to say, “Is he disordered in his mind?”
As soon as they were alone, he asked her coolly what Alfred meant. She said she had no idea. Then h
edites the cure. Now off we go to th’ other.”
“The body’s memory!” said Mr. Osmond to himself: “what on earth d
of a voice at such a time. And indeed both the lovers’ faces were a pretty sight and a study. How they stole loving glances, but tried to keep within bounds, and not steal more than three per minute! and how unconscious they endeavoured to look the intervening seconds! and what windows were the demure complacent visages they thought they were making shutters of! Innocent love has
are harsh, and — forgive me for saying so — they are coarse. Such words would separate us two, without my mother, if I were to hear many of them; for they take the bloom o
order for his discharge. “That is not a legal order.”—“It is as legal as the order on which I am here.” “Granted; but, legally or not, the asylum has got you; the open air has not got you. Possession is ninety-nine points of Lunacy law. Die your own illegal prisoner, and let your kinsfolk eat your land, and drink your consols, and bury you in a pauper’s shroud” All that Alfred could do for these victims was to promise to try and get them out some day, D.V. But there was a weak-minded youth, Francis Beverley, who had the honour to be under the protection of the Lord Chancellor. Now a lunatic or a Softy, protected by that functionary, is literally a lamb protected by a wolf, and that wolf ex officio the cruellest, cunningest old mangler and fleecer of innocents in Christendom. Chancery lunatics are the richest class, yet numbers of them are flung among pauper and even criminal lunatics, at a few pounds a year, while their committees bag four-fifths of the money that has been assigned to keep the patient in comfort.
Unfortunately the protection of the Chancellor extends to Life dissuaded him from receiving Captain Dodd. He stared at her. “What, turn away a couple of thousand pounds?”
“But they will come to visit him; and perhaps see him.”
“Oh, that can be managed. You must be on your guard: and I’ll warn Rooke. I can’t turn away money on a chance.”
his reason? What was this mysterious drama prepared for him th
his forehead to Jane, as much as to say, “Is he disordered in his mind?”
As soon as they were alone, he asked her coolly what Alfred meant. She said she had no idea. Then h
eep sigh, in which pity mingled with shame and regret. He wandered out into the silent night, and soon was leaning on the gate of Albion Villa, gazing wistfully at the windows, and sore perplexed and nobly wretched.
As he was going out, Mr. Hardie raised his eyebrows with a look of disinterested wonder and curiosity; and touched his forehead to Jane, as much as to say, “Is he disordered in his mind?”
As soon as they were alone, he asked her coolly what Alfred meant. She said she had no idea. Then h
edites the cure. Now off we go to th’ other.”
“The body’s memory!” said Mr. Osmond to himself: “what on earth d
of a voice at such a time. And indeed both the lovers’ faces were a pretty sight and a study. How they stole loving glances, but tried to keep within bounds, and not steal more than three per minute! and how unconscious they endeavoured to look the intervening seconds! and what windows were the demure complacent visages they thought they were making shutters of! Innocent love has at least this advantage over melodramatic, that it can extract exquisite sweetness out of so small a thing. These sweethearts were not alone, could not open their hearts, must not even gaze too long; yet to be in the same room even on such terms was a taste of Heaven.
candid man of twenty-one. Even her passion could not put them on an equality.
That night he could not sleep. He lay wondering what would be the next foul practice, and how he should parry it.
He wrote next morning to the Comm designing relative? Then he drew a strong picture of this free-born British citizen skulking and hiding at this moment from a gang of rogues and conspirators, who in France and other civilised countries that brag less of liberty than we do, would be themselves flying as criminals from the officers of justice; and he wound up with a warm appeal to the press to cast its shield over the victim of bad laws and foul practices. “In England,” said he, “Justice is the daughter of Publicity. Throughout the world deeds of villainy are done every day in kid gloves: but, with us, at all events, they have to be done on the sly! Here lies our true moral eminence as
y and hate you.”
He turned furiously on his heel.
“God bless you, go where you will,” faltered Julia.
He replied with a fierce ejaculation of despair, and dashed away.
Thus temper and misunderstanding triumphed, after so many strange and bitter trials had failed.
But alas! it is often so.
Chapter 49
Both the parted lovers were wretched. Julia never complained, but drooped, and read the Psalms, and Edward detected her in tears over them. He questioned her and obtained a lame account; she being far more bent on screening Alfred than on telling the truth.
Edward called on the other; and found him disconsolate, and reading a Heathen philosopher for comfort, and finding none. Edward questioned him, and he was reserved and even sulky. Sir Imperturbable persisted quietly, and he exploded, and out came his wrongs. Edward replied that he was a pretty fellow: wanted it all his own way. “Suppose my mother
MR. HARDIE was taken by surprise for once, and had not a word to say, but looked in his son’s face, mute and gasping as a fish.
During this painful silence his
h a match.
Julia bowed her head submissively and went to her duties. But when Alfred came to her open-mouthed to complain of her mother’s cruelty, she stopped him at once, and asked him how he could go and write that foolish, unreasonable letter. Why had he not consulted her first? “You have subjected yourself to a rebuff,” said she angrily, “and one from which I should have saved you. Is it nothing that mamma out of pity to me connives at our meeting and spending hours together? Do you think she does no violence to her own wishes here? and is she to meet with no return?”
“What, are you against me too?” said poor Alfred.
“No, it is you who are our enemy with your unreasonable impatience.”
“I am not so cold-blooded as you are, certainly.”
“Humility and penitence would become you better than to retort on me. I love you both, and pray God on my knees to sho
able to say his name was omitted through inadvertency, so Mrs. Dodd inserted this postscript merely to clench the nail and tantalise her enemy. It was a masterpiece of feminine spite.
She would have been wonderstruck could she have seen how Alfred received her missive.
To be sure he sat in a cold stupor of dejection for a good half hour; but at the end of that time he lifted up his head, and said quietly, “So be it. I’ll get the trial over, and my sanity established, as soon as possible: and then I’ll hire a yacht and hunt her husband till I find him.”
Having settled this little plan, he looked out for Julia, whose sympathy he felt in need of after such a stern blow.
She came out much later than usual that day, for to tell the truth, her mother had detained her to show her Alfred’s letter, and her answer.
“Ah, mamma,” said poor Julia, “you don’t love me as you did once. Poor Alfred!”
Mrs. Dodd sighed at this reproach, but said she did not deserve it. No mother in her senses would consent to such a match.
Julia bowed her head submissively and went to her duties. But when Alfred came to her open-mouthed to complain of her mother’s cruelty, she stopped him at once, and asked him how he could go and write that foolish, unreasonable letter. Why had he not consulted her first? “You have subjected yourself to a rebuff,” said she angrily, “and one from which I should have saved you. Is it nothing that mamma out of pity to me connives at our meeting and spending hours together? Do you think she does no violence to her own wishes here? and is she to meet with no return?”
“What, are you against me too?” said poor Alfred.
“No, it is you who are our enemy with your unreasonable impatience.”
“I am not so cold-blooded as you are, certainly.”
“Humility and penitence would become you better than to retort on me. I love you both, and pray God on my knees to show me how to do my duty to both.”
“That is it; you are not single-hearted like me. You want to please all the world, and reconcile the irreconcilable. It won’t do: you will have to choose between your mother and me at last.”
“Then of course I shall choose my mother.”
“Why?”
“Because she claims my duty as well as my love; because she is bowed down with sorrow, and needs her daughter just now more than you do; besides, you are my other self, and we must deny ourselves.”
“We have no more right to be unjust to ourselves than to anybody else; injustice is injustice.”
“Alfred, you are a high-minded Heathen, and talk Morality. Morality is a snare. What I pray to be is a Christian, as your dear sister was, and to deny myself; and you make it, oh so difficult.”
“So I suppose it will end in turning out your heathen and then taking your curate. Your mother would consent to that directly.”
“Alfred,” said Julia with dignity, “these words are harsh, and — forgive me for saying so — they are coarse. Such words would separate us two, without my mother, if I were to hear many of them; for they take the bloom off affection, and that mutual reverence, without which no gentleman and lady could be blessed in holy wedlock.”
Alfred was staggered and mortified too: they walked on in silence now.
“Alfred,” said Julia at last, “do not think me behind you in affection, but wiser, for once, and our best friend. I do think we had better see less of one another for a time, my poor Alfred.”
“And why for a time? Why not for ever?”
“If your heart draws no distinction, why not indeed?”
“So be it then: for I will be no woman’s slave. There’s my hand, Julia: let us part friends.”
“Thank you for that, dear Alfred: may you find some one who can love you more — than — I do.”
The words choked her. But he was stronger, because he was in a passion. He reproached her bitterly. “If I had been as weak and inconstant as you are, I might have been out of Drayton House long before I did escape. But I was faithful to my one love. I have some right to sing ‘Aileen Aroon,’ you have none. You are an angel of beauty and goodness; you will go to Heaven, and I shall go to the devil now for want of you; but then you have no constancy nor true fidelity: so that has parted us, and now nothing is left me but to try and hate you.”
He turned furiously on his heel.
“God bless you, go where you will,” faltered Julia.
He replied with a fierce ejaculation of despair, and dashed away.
Thus temper and misunderstanding triumphed, after so many strange
sh, and — forgive me for saying so — they are coarse. Such words would separate us two, without my mother, if I were to hear many of them; for they take the bloom off affection, and that mutual reverence, without which no gentleman and lady could be blessed in holy wedlock.”
Alfred was staggered and mortified too: they walked on in silence now.
“Alfred,” said Julia at last, “do not think me behind you in affection, but wiser, for once, and our best friend. I do think we had better see less of one another for a time, my poor Alfred.”
“And why for a time? Why not for ever?”
“If your heart draws no distinction, why not indeed?”
“So be it then: for I will be no woman’s slave. There’s my hand, Julia: let us part friends.”
“Thank you for that, dear Alfred: may you find some one who can love you more — than — I do.”
The words choked her. But he was stronger, because he was in a passion. He reproached her bitterly. “If I had been as weak and inconstant as you are, I might have been out of Drayton House long before I did escape. But I was faithful to my one love. I have some right to sing ‘Aileen Aroon,’ you have none. You are an angel of beauty and goodness; you will go to Heaven, and I shall go to the devil now for want of you; but then you have no constancy nor true fidelity: so that has parted us, and now nothing is left me but to try and hate you.”
He turned furiously on his heel.
“God bless you, go where you will,” faltered Julia.
He replied with a fierce ejaculation of despair, and dashed away.
Thus temper and misunderstanding triumphed, after so many strange and bitter trials had failed.
But alas! it is often so.
Chapter 49
Both the parted lovers were wretched. Julia never complained, but drooped, and read the Psalms, and Edward detected her in tears over them. He questioned her and obtained a lame account; she being far more bent on screening Alfred than on telling the truth.
Edward called on the other; and found him disconsolate, and reading a Heathen philosopher for comfort, and finding none. Edward questioned him, and he was reserved and even sulky. Sir Imperturbable persisted quietly, and he exploded, and out came his wrongs. Edward replied that he was a pretty fellow: wanted it all his own way. “Suppose my mother, with her present feelings, was to take a leaf out of your book, and use all her power; where would you be then? Come, old fellow, I know what love is, and one of us shall have the girl he loves, unless any harm should come to my poor father owing to your blunder — oh, that would put it out of the question, I feel — but let us hope better. I pulled you out of the fire, and somehow I seem to like you better than ever after that; let me pull you out of this mess too.”
“Pull away,” cried the impetuous youth. “I’ll trust you with my life: ay, with more than my life, with my love; for you are the man for me: reason is always uppermost with you:
Give me the man that is not passion’s slave,
And I will wear him in my heart’s core, ay ——”
“Oh bother that. If you are in earnest, don’t mouth, but put on your hat and come over.”
He assented; but in the middle of putting on his coat, made this little observation: “Now I see how wise the ancients were: yes, friendship is better than love; calmer, more constant, free from the heats and chills of that impetuous passion; its pure bosom is ruffled by none of love’s jealousies and irritabilities. Solem e mundo tollunt qui tollunt amicitiam.”
“Oh bother quoting; come and shake hands with Julia.” They went over; Mrs. Dodd was in the city. Edward ushered in Alfred, saying, “Here is the other Impetuosity;” and sagely retired for a few minutes. When he came back they were sitting hand in hand, he gazing on her, she inspecting the carpet. “That is all right,” said Edward drily: “now the next thing is, you must go back to Oxford directly, and read for your first class.”
The proposal fell like a blight upon the reconciled lovers. But Edward gave potent reasons.
“Oh yes. And can’t you trust me?”
“There’s a question: why I have appointed you my Trusty in the Deed; he, he.”
“Well then trust me without my signing, and I’ll trust you without reading.”
Sampson laughed at this retort, and Alfred reddened; he did not want the Deed read. But while he hesitated, Sarah came in with Julia’s note, asking him to come to her for a minute. This sweet summons made him indifferent to prosaic things. “Well, read away,” said he: “one comfort, you will be no wiser.”
“What, is it in Latin?” asked Edward with a wry face.
“No such luck. Deeds used to be in Latin; but Latin could not be made obscure enough. So now Dark Deeds are written in an unknown tongue called ‘Lawyerish,’ where the sense is ‘as one grain of wheat in two bushels of chaff,’ pick it out if you can.
“Whatever man has done man may do,” said Dr. Sampson stoutly. “You have rid it, and yet understood it: so why mayn’t we, ye monster o’ conceit?”
“Read it?” said Alfred. “I never read it: would not read it for a great deal of money. The moment I saw what a senseless rigmarole it was, I flung it down and insisted on the battological author furnishing me with an English translation. He complied: the crib occupies just twenty lines; the original three folio pages, as you see. That crib, gentlemen,” added he severely, “is now in my waist
etter.
The enclosed was a wedding-ring.
At nine this extraordinary pair of lovers met at the gate; but Peggy seem
“No, to papa.”
“I don’t believe it. Why to him?”
“But I saw the letter, dear; I had it my hand.”
“Did you read it?” asked Julia, trembling now like an aspen, an
The wife of the poor Captain he had driven mad met him in the passage, her motherly eyes full of tears for him, and both hands held out to him like a pitying angel. “Oh, Mr. Hardie,” she said in a broken voice, and took him, and led him, wonder-struck, stupefied, shivering with dark fears, to the room where his crushed daughter lay.
Chapter 37
MR. HARDIE found his daughter lying ashy pale on a little bed in the drawing-room of Albion Villa. She was now scarce conscious. The old doctor sat at her head looking very grave; and Julia kneeled over her beloved friend, pale as herself; with hands clasped convulsively, and great eyes of terror and grief.
That vivid young face, full of foreboding and woe, struck Mr. Hardie the moment he entered, and froze his very heart. The strong man quivered and sank slowly like a felled tree by the bedside; and his face and the poor girl’s, whose earthly happiness he had coldly destroyed, nearly met over his crushed daughter.
“Jane, my child,” he gasped; “my poor little Jane!”s, and said feebly, but with a sweet smile, “He is coming, love; all shall be well.” Then to herself as it were, and looking up with a gentle rapture in her pale face —
“Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of God.”
On this thought she seemed to feed with innocent joy; but for a long ti
While waiting for their answers, a word about the parties and their niece.
Our Mrs. Dodd, born Lucy Fountain, was left at nineteen to the care of two guardians: 1, her Uncle Fountain, an old bachelor, who loved comfort, pedigree, and his own way; 2, her Aunt Bazalgette, who loved flirting, dressing, and her own way; both charming people, when they got their own way; verjuice, when they didn’t: and, to conclude, egotists deep as ocean. From guardians they grew match-makers and rivals by proxy: uncle schemed to graft Lucy on to a stick called Talboys, that came in with the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, known in pedigrees as “the Norman Conquest.” Aunt, wife of a merchant of no Descent, except from a high stool, devoted her to Richard Hardie. An unlooked-for obstacle encountered both: Lucy was not amorous. She loved these two egotists and their quadrupeds; but there she stopped dead short. They persisted; and, while they pulled her to and fro and ruffled her native calm, David Dodd, first mate of the Something or other East Indiaman — brown cheek, honest speech, heart of gold — fell deep in love and worshipped her at a distance. His timidity and social insignificance made him harmless; so egotist Fountain had him in to dessert to spin yarns; egotist Bazalgette invited him to her house to flirt with. At this latter place he found Hardie and Talboys both courting Lucy; this drove him mad, and in his fury he popped. Lucy declined him secundum artem: he went away blessing her, with a manly sob or two. Lucy cried a little and took a feminine spite against his rivals, who remained to pester her. Now Talboys, spurred by uncle, had often all but popped; only some let, hindrance, or just impediment had still interposed: once her pony kept prancing at each effort he made towards Hymen; they do say the subtle virgin kept probing the brute with a hair pin, and made him caracole and spill the treacle as fast as it came her way. However, now Talboys elected to pop by sea. It was the element his ancestors had invaded fair England by; and on its tranquil bosom a lover is safe from prancing steeds, and the myriad anti-pops of terra firma. Miss Lucy consented to the won my armour, and said quietly, we were not so poor but we could pay for a piece of cloth should I be so unfortunate as to spoil it; and I offered in plain terms to deposit the price as security. But he turned as stiff at that as his yard measure; ‘that was not Cross and Co.‘s way of doing business,’ he said. But it is unreasonable to be dejected at a repulse or two; and I am not out of spirits; not much:” with this her gentle mouth smiled; and her patient eyes were moist.
The next day, just after breakfast, was announced a gentleman fro
d uttered a stentorian cry of terror, that rang through the night and made two of his three captors tremble.
“Cut that” said Green sternly, “or you’ll get into trouble.”
Mr. Hardie lowered his voice directly: “Do not kill me, do not hurt me,” he murmured; “I am but a poor man now. Take my little money; it is in my waistcoat pocket; but spare my life. You see I don’t resist.”
“Come, stash your gab, my lad,” said Green contemptuously, addressing him just as he would any other of the birds he was accustomed to capture. “It’s not your stiff that is wanted, but Captain Dodd’s.”
“Captain Dodd’s?” cried the prisoner with a wonderful assumption of innocence.
“Ay, the pocket-book,” said Green; “here, this! this!” He tapped on the pocket-book, and instantly the prisoner uttered a cry of agony, and sprang into the road with an agility no one would have thought possible but Edward and Green soon caught him, and, the Doctor joining, they held him, and Green tore his coat open.
The pocket-book was not there. He tore open his waistcoat; it was not in the waistcoat: but it was sewed to his very shirt on the outside.
Green wrenched it away, and bidding the other two go behind the prisoner and look over his shoulder, unseen themselves, slipped the shade of his lantern.
Mr. Hardie had now ceased to struggle and to exclaim; he stood sullen, mute, desperate; while an agitated face peered eagerly over each of his shoulders at the open pocket-book in Green’s hands, on which the lantern now poured a narrow but vivid stream of light.
Chapter 35
THERE was not a moment to lose, so Green emptied the pocketbook into his hat, and sifted the contents in a turn of the hand, announcing each discovery in a whisper to his excited and peering associates.
“A lot of receipts.”
“Of no use to any one but me,” said the prisoner earnestly.
“Two miniatures; gold rims, pinchbeck backs.”
“They are portraits of my children when young: Heaven forgive me, I could not give them up to my creditors: surely, surely, you will not rob me of them.”
“Stash your gab,” said Mr. Green roughly. “Here’s a guinea, Queen Anne’s reign.”
“It belonged to my great-grandfather: take it, but you will let me redeem it; I will give L. 5 for it poor as I am: you can leave it on my door-step, and I’ll leave the L. 5.”
“Stow your gab. Letters; papers covered with figures. Stay, what is this? a lot of memoranda.”
“They are of the most private and delicate character. Pray do not expose my family misfortunes.” And Mr. Hardie, who of late had been gathering composure, showed some signs of agitation; the two figures glaring over his shoulder shared it, and his remonstrance only made Green examine the papers keenly: they might contain some clue to the missing money. It proved a miscellaneous record: the price of Stocks at various days; notes of the official assignee’s remarks in going over the books, &c. At last, however, Green’s quick eye fell upon a fainter entry in pencil; figures: 1, 4; yes, actually L. 14,000. “All right,” he said: and took the paper close to the lantern, and began to spell it out —
“‘This day Alfred told me to my face I had L. 14,000 of Captain Dodd’s. We had an angry discussion. What can he mean? Drs. Wycherley and Osmond, this same day, afflicted me with hints that he is deranged, or partly. I saw no signs of it before. Wrote to my brother entreating him to give me L. 200 to replace the sum which I really have wronged this respectable and now most afflicted family of. I had better withdraw ——’” Here Mr. Hardie interrupted him with sorrowful dignity: “These are mere family matters; if you are a man, respect them.”
Green went reading on like Fate: “‘Better withdraw my opposition to the marriage, or else it seems my own flesh and blood will go about the place blackening my reputation.’”
Mr. Hardie stamped on the ground. “I tell you, on my honour as a gentleman, there’s no money there but my grandfather’s guinea. My money is all in my waistcoat pocket, where you will not look.”
A flutter of uneasiness seemed to come over the detective: he darkened his lantern, and replaced the pocket-book hurriedly in the prisoner’s breast, felt him all over in a minute, and to keep up the farce, robbed him.
“Only eight yellow boys,” said he contemptuously to his mates. He then shipped the money back into Hardie’s coat-pocket, and conducted him to his own gate, tied him to it by the waist, and ordered him not to give the alarm for ten minutes on pain of death.
“I consent,” said Mr. Hardie, “and thank you for abstaining from violence.”
“All right, my tulip,” said Mr. Green cheerfully, and drew his companions quietly away. But the next moment he began to run, and making a sudden turn, dived into a street then into a passage, and so winded and doubled till he got to a small public-house: he used some flash word, and they were shown a private room. “Wait here an hour for me,” he whispered; “I must see who liberates him, and whether he is really as innocent as he reads, or we have been countermined by the devil’s own tutor.”
The unexpected turn the evidence had taken — evidence of their own choosing, too — cleared Mr. Hardie with the unprofessionals. Edward embraced this conclusion as a matter of course, and urged the character of that gentleman’s solitary traducer: Alfred was a traitor, and therefore why not a slanderer?
Even Sampson, on the whole, inclined to a similar conclusion.
At this crisis of the discussion a red-haired pedlar, with very large whiskers and the remains of a black eye, put his head in, and asked whether Tom Green was there. “No,” said the Doctor stoutly, not desiring company of this stamp. “Don’t know the lad.”
The pedlar laughed: “There is not many that do know him at all hours; however, he is here, sir.” And he whipped off the red hair, and wiped off the black eye, and ho, Green ipse. He received their compliments on his Protean powers, and told them he had been just a minute too late. Mr. Hardie was gone, and so he had lost the chance of seeing who came to help him, and of hearing the first words that passed between the two. This, he said, was a very great pity; for it would have shown him in one moment whether certain suspicions of his were correct. Pressed as to what these suspicions were, he begged to be excused saying any more for the present. The Doctor, however, would not let him off so, but insisted on his candid opinion.
“Well, sir,” said Green, “I never was more puzzled in my life, owing to not being near hand when he was untied. It looks all square, however. There’s one little thing that don’t fit somehow.”
They both asked in a breath what that was.
“The sovs. were all marked.”
They asked how he knew; and had he got them in his pocket to show?
Green uttered a low chuckling laugh: “What, me fake the beans, now I live on this side of the hedge? Never knew a cove mix his liquors that way but it hurt his health soon or late. No, I took them out of one pocket and felt of them as I slipped them into the other. Ye see, gents, to do any good on my lay, a man must train his senses as well as his mind: he must have a hare’s ear, and a hawk’s eye, a bloodhound’s nose, and a lady’s hand with steel fingers and a silk skin. Now look at that bunch of fives,” continued the master; and laid a hand white and soft as a duchess’s on the table: “it can put the bracelets on a giant, or find a sharper’s nail-mark on the back of the knave of clubs. The beans were marked. Which it is a small thing, but it don’t fit the rest. Here’s an unsuspicious gent took by surprise, in moonlight meditation fancy free, and all his little private family matters found in his innocent bosom, quite promiscuous; but his beans marked. That don’t dovetail nohow. Gents, did ever you hear of the man that went to the bottom of the bottomless pit to ease his mind? Well, he was the head of my family. I must go to the bottom whether there’s one or not. And just now I see but one way.”
“And what is that?” inquired both his companions in some alarm.
“Oh, I mustn’t threaten it,” said Green, “or I shall never have the stomach to do it. But dear me, this boozing ken is a very unfit place for you — you are champagne-gents, not dog’s nose ones. Now you part and make tracks for home, one on foot and one in a fly. You won’t see me, nor hear of me again, till I’ve something fresh.”
And so the confederates parted, and Sampson and Edward met at Albion Villa; and Edward told his mother what they had done, and his conviction that Mr. Hardie was innocent, and Alfred a slanderer as well as a traitor: “And indeed,” said he, “if we had but stopped to reflect, we should have seen how unlikely the money was not to be lost in the Agra. Why, the ’Tiser says she went to pieces almost directly she struck. What we ought to have done was, not to listen to Alfred Hardie like fools, but write to Lloyd’s like people in their senses. I’ll do it this minute, and find out the surviving officers of the ship: they will be able to give us information on that head.” Mrs. Dodd approved; and said she would write to her kind correspondent Mrs. Beresford, and she did sit down to her desk at once. As for Sampson, he returned to town next morning, not quite convinced, but thoroughly staggered; and determined for once to resign his own judgment, and abide the result of Mrs. Dodd’s correspondence and Mr. Green’s sagacity. All he insisted on was, that his placard about Alfred should be continued: he left money for this, and Edward, against the grain, consented to see it done. But placards are no monopoly: in the afternoon only a section of Sampson’s was visible in most parts of the town by reason of a poster to this effect pasted half over it:—
“FIFTY GUINEAS REWARD.
“Whereas, yesterday evening at ten o’clock Richard Hardie, Esq., of Musgrove Cottage, Barkington, was assaulted at his own door by three ruffians, who rifled his pockets, and read his private memoranda, and committed other acts of violence, the shock of which has laid him on a bed of sickness, the above reward shall be paid to any person, or persons, who will give such information as shall lead to the detection of all or any one of the miscreants concerned in this outrage.
“The above reward will be paid by Mr. Thomas Hardie of Clare Court, Yorkshire.”
On this the impartial police came to Mr. Hardie’s and made inquiries. He received them in bed, and told them particulars: and they gathered from Peggy that she had heard a cry of distress, and opened the kitchen door, and that Betty and she had ventured out together, and found poor master tied to the gate with an old cord: this she produced, and the police inspected and took it away with them.
At sight of that Notice, Edward felt cold and then hot and realised the false and perilous position into which he had been betrayed: “So much for being wiser than the law,” he said: “what are we now but three footpads?” This, and the insult his sister had received made the place poison to him; and hastened their departure by a day or two. The very next day (Thursday) an affiche on the walls of Albion Villa announced that Mr. Chippenham, auctioneer, would sell, next Wednesday, on the premises, the greater part of the furniture, plate, china, glass, Oriental inlaid boxes and screens, with several superb India shawls, scarfs, and dresses; also a twenty-one years’ lease of the villa, seventeen to run.
Edward took unfurnished apartments in London, near Russell Square: a locality in which, as he learned from the ’Tiser, the rooms were large and cheap. He packed just so much furniture as was essential; no knick-knacks. It was to go by rail on Monday; Mrs. Dodd and Julia were to follow on Tuesday: Edward to stay at Barkington and look after the sale.
Meantime their secret ally, Mr. Green, was preparing his threatened coup. The more he reflected t
Mrs Trevelyan found it impossible to shake her sister’s firmness, and
gone, and then came the shock.
‘Dolly, my dear, what do you think of Mr Gibson?’
d misery is, as I believe, the worst form of crime, this retention of
…………………………
名酒批发平台
红酒批发平台
本文来自网络或网友投稿，如有侵犯您的权益，请发邮件至：aisoutu@outlook.com 我们将第一时间删除。
相关素材