The Moonstone: Prologue–First Period: Chapter XI

by Wilkie Collins
Colonel Herncastle pillages a sacred diamond from India and gives it to his niece. When the diamond goes missing at her eighteenth birthday party, detective Sergeant Cuff takes up the case. Read the full text here.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Prologue–First Period: Chapter XI, First Period: Chapters XII–XXIII, Second Period: First–Second Narratives, Second Period: Third Narrative–Epilogue
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. deity
    a supernatural being worshipped as controlling the world
    Partly from its peculiar colour, partly from a superstition which represented it as feeling the influence of the deity whom it adorned, and growing and lessening in lustre with the waxing and waning of the moon, it first gained the name by which it continues to be known in India to this day—the name of THE MOONSTONE.
  2. rapine
    the act of despoiling a country in warfare
    At his command havoc and rapine were let loose once more among the temples of the worship of Brahmah.
  3. sacrilege
    blasphemous behavior
    the warrior who had committed the sacrilege perished miserably
  4. deplorable
    bringing or deserving severe rebuke or censure
    The camp-followers committed deplorable excesses; and, worse still, the soldiers found their way, by a guarded door, into the treasury of the Palace, and loaded themselves with gold and jewels.
  5. bandy
    discuss lightly
    All sorts of rough jests and catchwords were bandied about among them; and the story of the Diamond turned up again unexpectedly, in the form of a mischievous joke.
  6. pillage
    the act of stealing valuable things from a place
    While I was still vainly trying to establish order, I heard a frightful yelling on the other side of the courtyard, and at once ran towards the cries, in dread of finding some new outbreak of the pillage in that direction.
  7. travail
    use of physical or mental energy; hard work
    Now the Diamond could never have been in our house, where it was lost, if it had not been made a present of to my lady’s daughter; and my lady’s daughter would never have been in existence to have the present, if it had not been for my lady who (with pain and travail) produced her into the world.
  8. bailiff
    officer of the court employed to execute writs and processes
    My lady got me put under the bailiff, and I did my best, and gave satisfaction, and got promotion accordingly.
  9. wheedle
    influence or urge by gentle urging, caressing, or flattering
    My lady had discovered that I was getting old before I had discovered it myself, and she had come to my cottage to wheedle me (if I may use such an expression) into giving up my hard out-of-door work as bailiff, and taking my ease for the rest of my days as steward in the house.
  10. perturbation
    a disposition that is confused or nervous and upset
    The perturbation in my mind, in regard to thinking about it, being truly dreadful after my lady had gone away, I applied the remedy which I have never yet found to fail me in cases of doubt and emergency.
  11. sieve
    a strainer for separating lumps from powdered material
    His mother’s fortune (seven hundred a year) fell to him when he came of age, and ran through him, as it might be through a sieve.
  12. upshot
    a phenomenon that is caused by some previous phenomenon
    The upshot of it was, that Rosanna Spearman had been a thief, and not being of the sort that get up Companies in the City, and rob from thousands, instead of only robbing from one, the law laid hold of her, and the prison and the reformatory followed the lead of the law.
  13. slovenly
    negligent of neatness especially in dress and person
    I am a slovenly old man, and a good deal of my meat and drink gets splashed about on my clothes.
  14. executor
    a person appointed to carry out the terms of the will
    “The Colonel’s Diamond left to Miss Rachel!” says I. “And your father, sir, the Colonel’s executor! Why, I would have laid any bet you like, Mr. Franklin, that your father wouldn’t have touched the Colonel with a pair of tongs!”
  15. blackguard
    someone who is morally reprehensible
    He was, I honestly believe, one of the greatest blackguards that ever lived.
  16. carouse
    celebrate or enjoy something in a noisy or wild way
    Sometimes they said he was given up to smoking opium and collecting old books; sometimes he was reported to be trying strange things in chemistry; sometimes he was seen carousing and amusing himself among the lowest people in the lowest slums of London.
  17. edifying
    enlightening or uplifting so as to encourage improvement
    Second, that he had forgiven everybody else, and had made a most edifying end.
  18. abominable
    unequivocally detestable
    I am firmly persuaded, at the same time, that the devil remained in undisturbed possession of the Honourable John, and that the last abominable act in the life of that abominable man was (saving your presence) to take the clergyman in!
  19. dissipate
    spend frivolously and unwisely
    The Colonel had dissipated the greater part of his fortune in his chemical investigations.
  20. transmogrify
    change completely the nature or appearance of
    He had his French side, and his German side, and his Italian side—the original English foundation showing through, every now and then, as much as to say, “Here I am, sorely transmogrified, as you see, but there’s something of me left at the bottom of him still.”
  21. dabble
    work with in an amateurish manner
    You dabbled in nasty mud, and made pies, when you were a child; and you dabble in nasty science, and dissect spiders, and spoil flowers, when you grow up.
  22. contradiction
    opposition between two conflicting forces or ideas
    Study your wife closely, for the next four-and-twenty hours. If your good lady doesn’t exhibit something in the shape of a contradiction in that time, Heaven help you!—you have married a monster.
  23. prodigious
    great in size, force, extent, or degree
    He was very rich and very respectable, and he begot a prodigious large family—all in his favour, so far.
  24. barrister
    a British lawyer who speaks in the higher courts of law
    He was a barrister by profession; a ladies’ man by temperament; and a good Samaritan by choice.
  25. destitution
    a state without money or prospects
    Female benevolence and female destitution could do nothing without him.
  26. mystified
    totally perplexed and mixed up
    “Miss Rachel has led you off on a false scent, my dear,” I replied; “but MY nose is not so easily mystified.
  27. effigy
    a representation of a person
    Every morning—as Penelope herself owned to me—there was the man whom the women couldn’t do without, looking on, in effigy, while Miss Rachel was having her hair combed.
  28. imprudence
    a lack of caution in practical affairs
    I suspect some imprudence of Mr. Franklin’s on the Continent—with a woman or a debt at the bottom of it—had followed him to England.
  29. impudent
    marked by casual disrespect
    She was, after that, once or twice impudent to me, when I gave her a well-meant general hint to be careful in her conduct; and, worse still, she was not over-respectful now, on the few occasions when Miss Rachel accidentally spoke to her.
  30. obligation
    a legal agreement specifying a payment or action
    Nothing had happened to justify us in alarming my lady on the subject of the jewel; and nothing could alter the legal obligation that now lay on Mr. Franklin to put it in his cousin’s possession.
  31. cavalcade
    a procession of people traveling by foot, horse, or vehicles
    I was aroused from what I am inclined to think must have been, not a nap, but a reverie, by the clatter of horses’ hoofs outside; and, going to the door, received a cavalcade comprising Mr. Franklin and his three cousins, escorted by one of old Mr. Ablewhite’s grooms.
  32. supplant
    take the place or move into the position of
    “A nasty sly fellow! I hate him for trying to supplant Mr. Franklin!”
  33. zealous
    marked by active interest and enthusiasm
    My lady, listening with rather a careworn expression on her face, seemed to wish that the doctor had been in earnest, and that he could have found Miss Rachel zealous enough in the cause of science to sacrifice her birthday gift.
  34. blight
    a state or condition being devastated or run-down
    Looking back at the birthday now, by the light of what happened afterwards, I am half inclined to think that the cursed Diamond must have cast a blight on the whole company.
  35. amends
    something done or paid to make up for a wrong
    Earth had some very objectionable people in it; but, to make amends for that, all the women in heaven would be members of a prodigious committee that never quarrelled, with all the men in attendance on them as ministering angels.
  36. dispute
    a disagreement or argument about something important
    In this way, they kept it going briskly, cut and thrust, till they both of them got hot—Mr. Candy, in particular, so completely losing his self-control, in defence of his profession, that my lady was obliged to interfere, and forbid the dispute to go on.
  37. caste
    a hereditary social class among Hindus
    I can’t doubt, after what you have told me, that the restoration of the Moonstone to its place on the forehead of the Indian idol, is the motive and the justification of that sacrifice of caste which I alluded to just now.
  38. vagabond
    a wanderer with no established residence or means of support
    But, as it was just possible, when the police came to investigate the matter, that discoveries affecting the jugglers might be made, he would contrive, by committing them as rogues and vagabonds, to keep them at our disposal, under lock and key, for a week.
  39. preposterous
    inviting ridicule
    The idea of any of the servants being in league with the Indians is a preposterous absurdity, in my opinion.
  40. tamper
    intrude in other people's affairs or business
    The examination, conducted carefully, and at great length, had ended in nothing; not the shadow of a reason being discovered for suspecting the jugglers of having tampered with any of our servants.
Created on Mon Jan 16 19:19:03 EST 2017 (updated Tue Apr 09 12:30:11 EDT 2019)

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