The Adventures of Roderick Random

The Uncle’s Rebuke

The young ladies, feeling too concerned to contain themselves, raised their voices against the uncle, calling him a scurvy companion, saucy tarpaulin, and rude, impertinent fellow. The judge commanded silence and calmly rebuked the uncle for his unmannerly behavior, which he said he would excuse on account of the uncle’s education. He claimed he had been very kind to the boy, having kept him at school seven or eight years, although he had been informed the boy made no progress and was addicted to all manner of vice. The uncle hotly contested these claims, declaring that the narrator was actually the best scholar of his age in all the country, and that he had been left like a wreck at the mercy of the wind and weather by the grandfather’s neglect. When the judge offered to bind the narrator apprentice to a tradesman, the uncle roundly refused, saying he would rather see the boy hanged than apprenticed to a tailor.

Departure from the House

With defiance, the uncle declared he perceived how the land lay, affirmed that while he had a shilling the narrator should not want a tester, and pronounced the old gentleman bound for the other world but damnably ill-provided for the voyage. Thus ended their visit. They returned to the village, the uncle muttering curses all the way against the old shark and the young fry that surrounded him.

第四章

This is Chapter IV of the work, chronicling the final days, death, and posthumous estate proceedings of the narrator’s grandfather, along with the varied reactions of his extended family to the terms of his will.