Grif: A Story of Australian Life
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Оглавление
Farjeon Benjamin Leopold. Grif: A Story of Australian Life
CHAPTER I. GRIF RELATES SOME OF HIS EXPERIENCES
CHAPTER II. HUSBAND AND WIFE
CHAPTER III. GRIF LOSES A FRIEND
CHAPTER IV. THE CONJUGAL NUTTALLS
CHAPTER V. THE MORAL MERCHANT ENTERTAINS HIS FRIENDS AT DINNER
CHAPTER VI. FATHER AND DAUGHTER
CHAPTER VII. GRIF PROMISES TO BE HONEST
CHAPTER VIII. GRIF IS SET UP IN LIFE AS A MORAL SHOEBLACK
CHAPTER IX. A BANQUET IS GIVEN TO THE MORAL MERCHANT
CHAPTER X. ON THE ROAD TO EL DORADO
CHAPTER XI. WELSH TOM
CHAPTER XII. THE NEW RUSH
CHAPTER XIII. OLD FLICK
CHAPTER XIV. LITTLE PETER IS PROVIDED FOR
CHAPTER XV. A HOT DAY IN MELBOURNE
CHAPTER XVI. POOR MILLY
CHAPTER XVII. BAD LUCK
CHAPTER XVIII. HONEST STEVE
CHAPTER XIX. THE WELSHMAN READS HIS LAST CHAPTER IN THE. OLD WELSH BIBLE
CHAPTER XX. THE TENDER-HEARTED OYSTERMAN TRAPS HIS GAME
CHAPTER XXI. THE MORAL MERCHANT CALLS A MEETING OF HIS CREDITORS
CHAPTER XXII. ALICE AND GRIF MEET FRIENDS UPON THE ROAD
CHAPTER XXIII. THE STORY OF SILVER-HEADED JACK
CHAPTER XXIV. MRS. NICHOLAS NUTTALL TAKES POSSESSION
CHAPTER XXV. MRS. NICHOLAS NUTTALL RECEIVES VISITORS
CHAPTER XXVI. A NIGHT OF ADVENTURES
CHAPTER XXVII. GRIF BEARS FALSE WITNESS
Отрывок из книги
The rain pattered down, faster and faster, as the night wore on, and still the two strange companions sat, silent and undisturbed, before the fire. At intervals sounds of altercation from without were heard, and occasionally a woman's drunken shriek or a ruffian's muttered curse was borne upon the angry wind. A step upon the creaking stairs would cause the girl's face to assume an expression of watchfulness: for a moment only; the next, she would relapse into dreamy listlessness. Grif had thrown himself upon the floor at her feet. He was not asleep, but dozing; for at every movement that Alice made, he opened his eyes, and watched. The declaration of friendship he had made to her had something sacramental in it. When he said that he would be true and faithful to her, he meant it with his whole heart and soul. The better instincts of the boy had been brought into play by contact with the pure nature of a good woman. He had never met any one like Alice. The exquisite tenderness and unselfishness exhibited by her in every word and in every action, filled him with a kind of adoration, and he vowed fealty to her with the full strength of his uncultivated nature. His vow might be depended on. He was rough, and dirty, and ugly, and a thief; but he was faithful and true. Some glimpse of a better comprehension appeared to pass into his face as he lay and watched. And so the hours lagged on until midnight, when a change took place.
A sudden change-a change that transformed the hitherto quiet house into a den of riotous vice and drunkenness. It seemed as though the house had been forced into by a band of ruffianly bacchanals. They came up the stairs, laughing, and singing, and screaming. A motley throng-about a dozen in all-but strangely contrasted in appearance. Men upon whose faces rascality had set its seal; women in whose eyes there struggled the modesty of youth with the depravity of shame. Most of the men were middle-aged; the eldest of the women could scarcely have counted twenty winters from her birth: many of them, even in their childhood, had seen but little of life's summer. With the men, moleskin trousers, pea-jackets, billycock hats, and dirty pipes, predominated. But the women were expensively dressed, as if they sought to hide their shame by a costly harmony of colours. How strange are the groupings we see, yet do not marvel at, in the kaleidoscope of life!
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"Yes, I've been in quod, I have," said Grif, feeling, for the first time in his life, slightly ashamed of the circumstance.
"And you say," Richard said, bitterly, as the boy slunk back to his corner, "that this is not degradation!"
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