【英文原著类】THE GREAT HOGGARTY DIAMOND(大钻石).pdf

THE GREAT HOGGARTY DIAMOND
THE GREAT
HOGGARTY DIAMOND
By Thackeray
1
THE GREAT HOGGARTY DIAMOND
CHAPTER I
GIVES AN ACCOUNT OF OUR VILLAGE AND THE FIRST
GLIMPSE OF THE DIAMOND
When I came up to town for my second year, my aunt Hoggarty made
me a present of a diamond-pin; that is to say, it was not a diamond- pin
then, but a large old-fashioned locket, of Dublin manufacture in the year
1795, which the late Mr. Hoggarty used to sport at the Lord Lieutenant's
balls and elsewhere. He wore it, he said, at the battle of Vinegar Hill,
when his club pigtail saved his head from being taken off,--but that is
neither here nor there.
In the middle of the brooch was Hoggarty in the scarlet uniform of the
corps of Fencibles to which he belonged; around it were thirteen locks of
hair, belonging to a baker's dozen of sisters that the old gentleman had;
and, as all these little ringlets partook of the family hue of brilliant auburn,
Hoggarty's portrait seemed to the fanciful view like a great fat red round
of beef surrounded by thirteen carrots. These were dished up on a plate
of blue enamel, and it was from the GREAT HOGGARTY DIAMOND (as
we called it in the family) that the collection of hairs in question seemed as
it were to spring.
My aunt, I need not say, is rich; and I thought I might be her heir as
well as another. During my month's holiday, she was particularly pleased
with me; made me drink tea with her often (though there was a certain
person in the village with whom on those golden summer evenings I
should have liked to have taken a stroll in the hayfields); promised every
time I drank her bohea to do something handsome for me when I went
back to town,--nay, three or four times had me to dinner at three, and to
whist or cribbage afterwards. I did not care for the cards; for though we
always played seven hours on a stretch, and I always lost, my losings were
never more than eenpence a night: but there was some infernal sour
black-c