We stole and plucked him by the hand,
Because we loved him with the love
That knows but cannot understand.
And when the roaring hillside broke,
And all our world fell down in rain,
We saved him, we the Little Folk;
But lo! he does not come again!
Mourn now, we saved him for the sake
Of such poor love as wild ones may.
Mourn ye! Our brother will not wake,
And his own kind drive us away!
Dirge1 of the Langurs.
There was once a man in India who was Prime Minister of one of the semi-independent native States in the north-western part of the country. He was a Brahmin, so high-caste that caste ceased to have any particular meaning for him; and his father had been an important official in the gay-coloured tag-rag and bobtail of an old-fashioned Hindu Court. But as Purun Dass grew up he felt that the old order of things was changing, and that if any one wished to get on in the world he must stand well with the English, and imitate all that the English believed to be good. At the same time a native official must keep his own master’s favour. This was a difficult game, but the quiet, close-mouthed young Brahmin, helped by a good English education at a Bombay University, played it coolly, and rose, step by step, to be Prime Minister of the kingdom. That is to say, he held more real power than his master the Maharajah.
When the old king — who was suspicious of the English, their railways and telegraphs — died, Purun Dass stood high with his young successor, who had been tutored by an Englishman; and between them, though he always took care that his master should have the credit, they established schools for little girls, made roads, and started State dispensaries and shows of agricultural implements2, and published a yearly blue-book on the “Moral and Material Progress of the State,” and the Foreign Office and the Government of India were delighted. Very few native States take up English progress altogether, for they will not believe, as Purun Dass showed he did, that what was good for the Englishman must be twice as good for the Asiatic. The Prime Minister became the honoured friend of Viceroys, and Governors, and Lieutenant–Governors, and medical missionaries3, and common missionaries, and hard-riding English officers who came to shoot in the State preserves, as well as of whole hosts of tourists who travelled up and down India in the cold weather, showing how things ought to be managed. In his spare time he would endow scholarships for the study of medicine and manufactures on strictly4 English lines, and write letters to the “Pioneer”, the greatest Indian daily paper, explaining his master’s aims and objects.
At last he went to England on a visit, and had to pay enormous sums to the priests when he came back; for even so high-caste a Brahmin as Purun Dass lost caste by crossing the black sea. In London he met and talked with every one worth knowing — men whose names go all over the world — and saw a great deal more than he said. He was given honorary degrees by learned universities, and he made speeches and talked of Hindu social reform to English ladies in evening dress, till all London cried, “This is the most fascinating man we have ever met at dinner since cloths were first laid.”
When he returned to India there was a blaze of glory, for the Viceroy himself made a special visit to confer upon the Maharajah the Grand Cross of the Star of India — all diamonds and ribbons and enamel5; and at the same ceremony, while the cannon6 boomed, Purun Dass was made a Knight7 Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire; so that his name stood Sir Purun Dass, K.C.I.E.
That evening, at dinner in the big Viceregal tent, he stood up with the badge and the collar of the Order on his breast, and replying to the toast of his master’s health, made a speech few Englishmen could have bettered.
Next month, when the city had returned to its sun-baked quiet, he did a thing no Englishman would have dreamed of doing; for, so far as the world’s affairs went, he died. The jewelled order of his knighthood went back to the Indian Government, and a new Prime Minister was appointed to the charge of affairs, and a great game of General Post began in all the subordinate appointments. The priests knew what had happened, and the people guessed; but India is the one place in the world where a man can do as he pleases and nobody asks why; and the fact that Dewan Sir Purun Dass, K.C.I.E., had resigned position, palace, and power, and taken up the begging-bowl and ochre-coloured dress of a Sunnyasi, or holy man, was considered nothing extraordinary. He had been, as the Old Law recommends, twenty years a youth, twenty years a fighter — though he had never carried a weapon in his life — and twenty years head of a household. He had used his wealth and his power for what he knew both to be worth; he had taken honour when it came his way; he had seen men and cities far and near, and men and cities had stood up and honoured him. Now he would let those things go, as a man drops the cloak he no longer needs.
Behind him, as he walked through the city gates, an antelope8 skin and brass-handled crutch9 under his arm, and a begging-bowl of polished brown coco-demer in his hand, barefoot, alone, with eyes cast on the ground — behind him they were firing salutes10 from the bastions in honour of his happy successor. Purun Dass nodded. All that life was ended; and he bore it no more ill-will or good-will than a man bears to a colourless dream of the night. He was a Sunnyasi — a houseless, wandering mendicant11, depending on his neighbours for his daily bread; and so long as there is a morsel12 to divide in India, neither priest nor beggar starves. He had never in his life tasted meat, and very seldom eaten even fish. A five-pound note would have covered his personal expenses for food through any one of the many years in which he had been absolute master of millions of money. Even when he was being lionised in London he had held before him his dream of peace and quiet — the long, white, dusty Indian road, printed all over with bare feet, the incessant13, slow-moving traffic, and the sharp-smelling wood smoke curling up under the fig-trees in the twilight14, where the wayfarers15 sit at their evening meal.
When the time came to make that dream true the Prime Minister took the proper steps, and in three days you might more easily have found a bubble in the trough of the long Atlantic seas, than Purun Dass among the roving, gathering16, separating millions of India.
At night his antelope skin was spread where the darkness overtook him — sometimes in a Sunnyasi monastery17 by the roadside; sometimes by a mud-pillar shrine18 of Kala Pir, where the Jogis, who are another misty19 division of holy men, would receive him as they do those who know what castes and divisions are worth; sometimes on the outskirts20 of a little Hindu village, where the children would steal up with the food their parents had prepared; and sometimes on the pitch of the bare grazing-grounds, where the flame of his stick fire waked the drowsy21 camels. It was all one to Purun Dass — or Purun Bhagat, as he called himself now. Earth, people, and food were all one. But unconsciously his feet drew him away northward22 and eastward23; from the south to Rohtak; from Rohtak to Kurnool; from Kurnool to ruined Samanah, and then up-stream along the dried bed of the Gugger river that fills only when the rain falls in the hills, till one day he saw the far line of the great Himalayas.
Then Purun Bhagat smiled, for he remembered that his mother was of Rajput Brahmin birth, from Kulu way — a Hill-woman, always home-sick for the snows — and that the least touch of Hill blood draws a man in the end back to where he belongs.
“Yonder,” said Purun Bhagat, breasting the lower slopes of the Sewaliks, where the cacti24 stand up like seven-branched candlesticks-“yonder I shall sit down and get knowledge”; and the cool wind of the Himalayas whistled about his ears as he trod the road that led to Simla.
The last time he had come that way it had been in state, with a clattering25 cavalry26 escort, to visit the gentlest and most affable of Viceroys; and the two had talked for an hour together about mutual27 friends in London, and what the Indian common folk really thought of things. This time Purun Bhagat paid no calls, but leaned on the rail of the Mall, watching that glorious view of the Plains spread out forty miles below, till a native Mohammedan policeman told him he was obstructing28 traffic; and Purun Bhagat salaamed29 reverently30 to the Law, because he knew the value of it, and was seeking for a Law of his own. Then he moved on, and slept that night in an empty hut at Chota Simla, which looks like the very last end of the earth, but it was only the beginning of his journey. He followed the Himalaya–Thibet road, the little ten-foot track that is blasted out of solid rock, or strutted31 out on timbers over gulfs a thousand feet deep; that dips into warm, wet, shut-in valleys, and climbs out across bare, grassy32 hill-shoulders where the sun strikes like a burning-glass; or turns through dripping, dark forests where the tree-ferns dress the trunks from head to heel, and the pheasant calls to his mate. And he met Thibetan herdsmen with their dogs and flocks of sheep, each sheep with a little bag of borax on his back, and wandering wood-cutters, and cloaked and blanketed Lamas from Thibet, coming into India on pilgrimage, and envoys33 of little solitary34 Hill-states, posting furiously on ring-streaked and piebald ponies35, or the cavalcade36 of a Rajah paying a visit; or else for a long, clear day he would see nothing more than a black bear grunting37 and rooting below in the valley. When he first started, the roar of the world he had left still rang in his ears, as the roar of a tunnel rings long after the train has passed through; but when he had put the Mutteeanee Pass behind him that was all done, and Purun Bhagat was alone with himself, walking, wondering, and thinking, his eyes on the ground, and his thoughts with the clouds.
One evening he crossed the highest pass he had met till then — it had been a two-day’s climb — and came out on a line of snow-peaks that banded all the horizon — mountains from fifteen to twenty thousand feet high, looking almost near enough to hit with a stone, though they were fifty or sixty miles away. The pass was crowned with dense38, dark forest — deodar, walnut39, wild cherry, wild olive, and wild pear, but mostly deodar, which is the Himalayan cedar40; and under the shadow of the deodars stood a deserted41 shrine to Kali — who is Durga, who is Sitala, who is sometimes worshipped against the smallpox42.
Purun Dass swept the stone floor clean, smiled at the grinning statue, made himself a little mud fireplace at the back of the shrine, spread his antelope skin on a bed of fresh pine-needles, tucked his bairagi — his brass-handled crutch — under his armpit, and sat down to rest.
Immediately below him the hillside fell away, clean and cleared for fifteen hundred feet, where a little village of stone-walled houses, with roofs of beaten earth, clung to the steep tilt43. All round it the tiny terraced fields lay out like aprons44 of patchwork45 on the knees of the mountain, and cows no bigger than beetles46 grazed between the smooth stone circles of the threshing-floors. Looking across the valley, the eye was deceived by the size of things, and could not at first realise that what seemed to be low scrub, on the opposite mountain-flank, was in truth a forest of hundred-foot pines. Purun Bhagat saw an eagle swoop47 across the gigantic hollow, but the great bird dwindled48 to a dot ere it was half-way over. A few bands of scattered49 clouds strung up and down the valley, catching50 on a shoulder of the hills, or rising up and dying out when they were level with the head of the pass. And “Here shall I find peace,” said Purun Bhagat.
Now, a Hill-man makes nothing of a few hundred feet up or down, and as soon as the villagers saw the smoke in the deserted shrine, the village priest climbed up the terraced hillside to welcome the stranger.
When he met Purun Bhagat’s eyes — the eyes of a man used to control thousands — he bowed to the earth, took the begging-bowl without a word, and returned to the village, saying, “We have at last a holy man. Never have I seen such a man. He is of the Plains — but pale-coloured — a Brahmin of the Brahmins.” Then all the housewives of the village said, “Think you he will stay with us?” and each did her best to cook the most savoury meal for the Bhagat. Hill-food is very simple, but with buckwheat and Indian corn, and rice and red pepper, and little fish out of the stream in the valley, and honey from the flue-like hives built in the stone walls, and dried apricots, and turmeric, and wild ginger51, and bannocks of flour, a devout52 woman can make good things, and it was a full bowl that the priest carried to the Bhagat. Was he going to stay? asked the priest. Would he need a chela — a disciple53 — to beg for him? Had he a blanket against the cold weather? Was the food good?
Purun Bhagat ate, and thanked the giver. It was in his mind to stay. That was sufficient, said the priest. Let the begging-bowl be placed outside the shrine, in the hollow made by those two twisted roots, and daily should the Bhagat be fed; for the village felt honoured that such a man — he looked timidly into the Bhagat’s face — should tarry among them.
That day saw the end of Purun Bhagat’s wanderings. He had come to the place appointed for him — the silence and the space. After this, time stopped, and he, sitting at the mouth of the shrine, could not tell whether he were alive or dead; a man with control of his limbs, or a part of the hills, and the clouds, and the shifting rain and sunlight. He would repeat a Name softly to himself a hundred hundred times, till, at each repetition, he seemed to move more and more out of his body, sweeping54 up to the doors of some tremendous discovery; but, just as the door was opening, his body would drag him back, and, with grief, he felt he was locked up again in the flesh and bones of Purun Bhagat.
Every morning the filled begging-bowl was laid silently in the crutch of the roots outside the shrine. Sometimes the priest brought it; sometimes a Ladakhi trader, lodging55 in the village, and anxious to get merit, trudged56 up the path; but, more often, it was the woman who had cooked the meal overnight; and she would murmur57, hardly above her breath. “Speak for me before the gods, Bhagat. Speak for such a one, the wife of so-and-so!” Now and then some bold child would be allowed the honour, and Purun Bhagat would hear him drop the bowl and run as fast as his little legs could carry him, but the Bhagat never came down to the village. It was laid out like a map at his feet. He could see the evening gatherings58, held on the circle of the threshing-floors, because that was the only level ground; could see the wonderful unnamed green of the young rice, the indigo59 blues60 of the Indian corn, the dock-like patches of buckwheat, and, in its season, the red bloom of the amaranth, whose tiny seeds, being neither grain nor pulse, make a food that can be lawfully61 eaten by Hindus in time of fasts.
When the year turned, the roofs of the huts were all little squares of purest gold, for it was on the roofs that they laid out their cobs of the corn to dry. Hiving and harvest, rice-sowing and husking, passed before his eyes, all embroidered62 down there on the many-sided plots of fields, and he thought of them all, and wondered what they all led to at the long last.
Even in populated India a man cannot a day sit still before the wild things run over him as though he were a rock; and in that wilderness63 very soon the wild things, who knew Kali’s Shrine well, came back to look at the intruder. The langurs, the big gray-whiskered monkeys of the Himalayas, were, naturally, the first, for they are alive with curiosity; and when they had upset the begging-bowl, and rolled it round the floor, and tried their teeth on the brass-handled crutch, and made faces at the antelope skin, they decided64 that the human being who sat so still was harmless. At evening, they would leap down from the pines, and beg with their hands for things to eat, and then swing off in graceful65 curves. They liked the warmth of the fire, too, and huddled66 round it till Purun Bhagat had to push them aside to throw on more fuel; and in the morning, as often as not, he would find a furry67 ape sharing his blanket. All day long, one or other of the tribe would sit by his side, staring out at the snows, crooning and looking unspeakably wise and sorrowful.
After the monkeys came the barasingh, that big deer which is like our red deer, but stronger. He wished to rub off the velvet68 of his horns against the cold stones of Kali’s statue, and stamped his feet when he saw the man at the shrine. But Purun Bhagat never moved, and, little by little, the royal stag edged up and nuzzled his shoulder. Purun Bhagat slid one cool hand along the hot antlers, and the touch soothed69 the fretted70 beast, who bowed his head, and Purun Bhagat very softly rubbed and ravelled off the velvet. Afterward71, the barasingh brought his doe and fawn72 — gentle things that mumbled73 on the holy man’s blanket — or would come alone at night, his eyes green in the fire-flicker, to take his share of fresh walnuts74. At last, the musk-deer, the shyest and almost the smallest of the deerlets, came, too, her big rabbity ears erect75; even brindled76, silent mushick-nabha must needs find out what the light in the shrine meant, and drop out her moose-like nose into Purun Bhagat’s lap, coming and going with the shadows of the fire. Purun Bhagat called them all “my brothers,” and his low call of “Bhai! Bhai!” would draw them from the forest at noon if they were within ear shot. The Himalayan black bear, moody77 and suspicious — Sona, who has the V-shaped white mark under his chin — passed that way more than once; and since the Bhagat showed no fear, Sona showed no anger, but watched him, and came closer, and begged a share of the caresses78, and a dole79 of bread or wild berries. Often, in the still dawns, when the Bhagat would climb to the very crest80 of the pass to watch the red day walking along the peaks of the snows, he would find Sona shuffling81 and grunting at his heels, thrusting, a curious fore-paw under fallen trunks, and bringing it away with a WHOOF of impatience82; or his early steps would wake Sona where he lay curled up, and the great brute83, rising erect, would think to fight, till he heard the Bhagat’s voice and knew his best friend.
Nearly all hermits84 and holy men who live apart from the big cities have the reputation of being able to work miracles with the wild things, but all the miracle lies in keeping still, in never making a hasty movement, and, for a long time, at least, in never looking directly at a visitor. The villagers saw the outline of the barasingh stalking like a shadow through the dark forest behind the shrine; saw the minaul, the Himalayan pheasant, blazing in her best colours before Kali’s statue; and the langurs on their haunches, inside, playing with the walnut shells. Some of the children, too, had heard Sona singing to himself, bear-fashion, behind the fallen rocks, and the Bhagat’s reputation as miracle-worker stood firm.
Yet nothing was farther from his mind than miracles. He believed that all things were one big Miracle, and when a man knows that much he knows something to go upon. He knew for a certainty that there was nothing great and nothing little in this world: and day and night he strove to think out his way into the heart of things, back to the place whence his soul had come.
So thinking, his untrimmed hair fell down about his shoulders, the stone slab85 at the side of the antelope skin was dented86 into a little hole by the foot of his brass-handled crutch, and the place between the tree-trunks, where the begging-bowl rested day after day, sunk and wore into a hollow almost as smooth as the brown shell itself; and each beast knew his exact place at the fire. The fields changed their colours with the seasons; the threshing-floors filled and emptied, and filled again and again; and again and again, when winter came, the langurs frisked among the branches feathered with light snow, till the mother-monkeys brought their sad-eyed little babies up from the warmer valleys with the spring. There were few changes in the village. The priest was older, and many of the little children who used to come with the begging-dish sent their own children now; and when you asked of the villagers how long their holy man had lived in Kali’s Shrine at the head of the pass, they answered, “Always.”
Then came such summer rains as had not been known in the Hills for many seasons. Through three good months the valley was wrapped in cloud and soaking mist — steady, unrelenting downfall, breaking off into thunder-shower after thunder-shower. Kali’s Shrine stood above the clouds, for the most part, and there was a whole month in which the Bhagat never caught a glimpse of his village. It was packed away under a white floor of cloud that swayed and shifted and rolled on itself and bulged87 upward, but never broke from its piers88 — the streaming flanks of the valley.
All that time he heard nothing but the sound of a million little waters, overhead from the trees, and underfoot along the ground, soaking through the pine-needles, dripping from the tongues of draggled fern, and spouting89 in newly-torn muddy channels down the slopes. Then the sun came out, and drew forth90 the good incense91 of the deodars and the rhododendrons, and that far-off, clean smell which the Hill people call “the smell of the snows.” The hot sunshine lasted for a week, and then the rains gathered together for their last downpour, and the water fell in sheets that flayed92 off the skin of the ground and leaped back in mud. Purun Bhagat heaped his fire high that night, for he was sure his brothers would need warmth; but never a beast came to the shrine, though he called and called till he dropped asleep, wondering what had happened in the woods.
It was in the black heart of the night, the rain drumming like a thousand drums, that he was roused by a plucking at his blanket, and, stretching out, felt the little hand of a langur. “It is better here than in the trees,” he said sleepily, loosening a fold of blanket; “take it and be warm.” The monkey caught his hand and pulled hard. “Is it food, then?” said Purun Bhagat. “Wait awhile, and I will prepare some.” As he kneeled to throw fuel on the fire the langur ran to the door of the shrine, crooned and ran back again, plucking at the man’s knee.
“What is it? What is thy trouble, Brother?” said Purun Bhagat, for the langur’s eyes were full of things that he could not tell. “Unless one of thy caste be in a trap — and none set traps here — I will not go into that weather. Look, Brother, even the barasingh comes for shelter!”
The deer’s antlers clashed as he strode into the shrine, clashed against the grinning statue of Kali. He lowered them in Purun Bhagat’s direction and stamped uneasily, hissing93 through his half-shut nostrils94.
“Hai! Hai! Hai!” said the Bhagat, snapping his fingers, “Is THIS payment for a night’s lodging?” But the deer pushed him toward the door, and as he did so Purun Bhagat heard the sound of something opening with a sigh, and saw two slabs95 of the floor draw away from each other, while the sticky earth below smacked96 its lips.
“Now I see,” said Purun Bhagat. “No blame to my brothers that they did not sit by the fire to-night. The mountain is falling. And yet — why should I go?” His eye fell on the empty begging-bowl, and his face changed. “They have given me good food daily since — since I came, and, if I am not swift, tomorrow there will not be one mouth in the valley. Indeed, I must go and warn them below. Back there, Brother! Let me get to the fire.”
The barasingh backed unwillingly97 as Purun Bhagat drove a pine torch deep into the flame, twirling it till it was well lit. “Ah! ye came to warn me,” he said, rising. “Better than that we shall do; better than that. Out, now, and lend me thy neck, Brother, for I have but two feet.”
He clutched the bristling98 withers99 of the barasingh with his right hand, held the torch away with his left, and stepped out of the shrine into the desperate night. There was no breath of wind, but the rain nearly drowned the flare100 as the great deer hurried down the slope, sliding on his haunches. As soon as they were clear of the forest more of the Bhagat’s brothers joined them. He heard, though he could not see, the langurs pressing about him, and behind them the uhh! uhh! of Sona. The rain matted his long white hair into ropes; the water splashed beneath his bare feet, and his yellow robe clung to his frail101 old body, but he stepped down steadily102, leaning against the barasingh. He was no longer a holy man, but Sir Purun Dass, K.C.I.E., Prime Minister of no small State, a man accustomed to command, going out to save life. Down the steep, plashy path they poured all together, the Bhagat and his brothers, down and down till the deer’s feet clicked and stumbled on the wall of a threshing-floor, and he snorted because he smelt103 Man. Now they were at the head of the one crooked104 village street, and the Bhagat beat with his crutch on the barred windows of the blacksmith’s house, as his torch blazed up in the shelter of the eaves. “Up and out!” cried Purun Bhagat; and he did not know his own voice, for it was years since he had spoken aloud to a man. “The hill falls! The hill is falling! Up and out, oh, you within!”
“It is our Bhagat,” said the blacksmith’s wife. “He stands among his beasts. Gather the little ones and give the call.”
It ran from house to house, while the beasts, cramped105 in the narrow way, surged and huddled round the Bhagat, and Sona puffed106 impatiently.
The people hurried into the street — they were no more than seventy souls all told — and in the glare of the torches they saw their Bhagat holding back the terrified barasingh, while the monkeys plucked piteously at his skirts, and Sona sat on his haunches and roared.
“Across the valley and up the next hill!” shouted Purun Bhagat. “Leave none behind! We follow!”
Then the people ran as only Hill folk can run, for they knew that in a landslip you must climb for the highest ground across the valley. They fled, splashing through the little river at the bottom, and panted up the terraced fields on the far side, while the Bhagat and his brethren followed. Up and up the opposite mountain they climbed, calling to each other by name — the roll-call of the village — and at their heels toiled107 the big barasingh, weighted by the failing strength of Purun Bhagat. At last the deer stopped in the shadow of a deep pinewood, five hundred feet up the hillside. His instinct, that had warned him of the coming slide, told him he would he safe here.
Purun Bhagat dropped fainting by his side, for the chill of the rain and that fierce climb were killing108 him; but first he called to the scattered torches ahead, “Stay and count your numbers”; then, whispering to the deer as he saw the lights gather in a cluster: “Stay with me, Brother. Stay — till — I— go!”
There was a sigh in the air that grew to a mutter, and a mutter that grew to a roar, and a roar that passed all sense of hearing, and the hillside on which the villagers stood was hit in the darkness, and rocked to the blow. Then a note as steady, deep, and true as the deep C of the organ drowned everything for perhaps five minutes, while the very roots of the pines quivered to it. It died away, and the sound of the rain falling on miles of hard ground and grass changed to the muffled109 drum of water on soft earth. That told its own tale.
Never a villager — not even the priest — was bold enough to speak to the Bhagat who had saved their lives. They crouched110 under the pines and waited till the day. When it came they looked across the valley and saw that what had been forest, and terraced field, and track-threaded grazing-ground was one raw, red, fan-shaped smear111, with a few trees flung head-down on the scarp. That red ran high up the hill of their refuge, damming back the little river, which had begun to spread into a brick-coloured lake. Of the village, of the road to the shrine, of the shrine itself, and the forest behind, there was no trace. For one mile in width and two thousand feet in sheer depth the mountain-side had come away bodily, planed clean from head to heel.
And the villagers, one by one, crept through the wood to pray before their Bhagat. They saw the barasingh standing112 over him, who fled when they came near, and they heard the langurs wailing113 in the branches, and Sona moaning up the hill; but their Bhagat was dead, sitting cross-legged, his back against a tree, his crutch under his armpit, and his face turned to the north-east.
The priest said: “Behold a miracle after a miracle, for in this very attitude must all Sunnyasis be buried! Therefore where he now is we will build the temple to our holy man.”
They built the temple before a year was ended — a little stone-and-earth shrine — and they called the hill the Bhagat’s hill, and they worship there with lights and flowers and offerings to this day. But they do not know that the saint of their worship is the late Sir Purun Dass, K.C.I.E., D.C.L., Ph.D., etc., once Prime Minister of the progressive and enlightened State of Mohiniwala, and honorary or corresponding member of more learned and scientific societies than will ever do any good in this world or the next.
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1
dirge
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| n.哀乐，挽歌，庄重悲哀的乐曲 | |
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implements
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| n.工具( implement的名词复数 )；家具；手段；[法律]履行（契约等）v.实现( implement的第三人称单数 )；执行；贯彻；使生效 | |
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missionaries
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| n.传教士( missionary的名词复数 ) | |
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strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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enamel
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| n.珐琅，搪瓷，瓷釉；(牙齿的)珐琅质 | |
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cannon
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| n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮 | |
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knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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antelope
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| n.羚羊；羚羊皮 | |
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crutch
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| n.T字形拐杖；支持，依靠，精神支柱 | |
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salutes
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| n.致敬，欢迎，敬礼( salute的名词复数 )v.欢迎，致敬( salute的第三人称单数 )；赞扬，赞颂 | |
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mendicant
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| n.乞丐；adj.行乞的 | |
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12
morsel
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| n.一口，一点点 | |
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13
incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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14
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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wayfarers
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| n.旅人，（尤指）徒步旅行者( wayfarer的名词复数 ) | |
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16
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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17
monastery
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| n.修道院，僧院，寺院 | |
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18
shrine
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| n.圣地，神龛，庙；v.将...置于神龛内，把...奉为神圣 | |
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19
misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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20
outskirts
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| n.郊外，郊区 | |
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21
drowsy
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| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
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22
northward
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| adv.向北；n.北方的地区 | |
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23
eastward
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| adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部 | |
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24
cacti
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| n.（复）仙人掌 | |
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25
clattering
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| 发出咔哒声（clatter的现在分词形式） | |
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26
cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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27
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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28
obstructing
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| 阻塞( obstruct的现在分词 )； 堵塞； 阻碍； 阻止 | |
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29
salaamed
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| 行额手礼( salaam的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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30
reverently
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| adv.虔诚地 | |
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31
strutted
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| 趾高气扬地走，高视阔步( strut的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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32
grassy
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| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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33
envoys
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| 使节( envoy的名词复数 )； 公使； 谈判代表； 使节身份 | |
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34
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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35
ponies
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| 矮种马，小型马( pony的名词复数 )； ￡25 25 英镑 | |
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36
cavalcade
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| n.车队等的行列 | |
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37
grunting
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| 咕哝的，呼噜的 | |
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38
dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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39
walnut
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| n.胡桃，胡桃木，胡桃色，茶色 | |
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40
cedar
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| n.雪松，香柏(木) | |
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41
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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42
smallpox
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| n.天花 | |
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43
tilt
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| v.(使)倾侧；(使)倾斜；n.倾侧；倾斜 | |
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44
aprons
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| 围裙( apron的名词复数 )； 停机坪，台口（舞台幕前的部份） | |
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45
patchwork
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| n.混杂物；拼缝物 | |
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46
beetles
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| n.甲虫( beetle的名词复数 ) | |
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47
swoop
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| n.俯冲，攫取；v.抓取，突然袭击 | |
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48
dwindled
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| v.逐渐变少或变小( dwindle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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49
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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50
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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51
ginger
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| n.姜，精力，淡赤黄色；adj.淡赤黄色的；vt.使活泼，使有生气 | |
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52
devout
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| adj.虔诚的，虔敬的，衷心的 (n.devoutness) | |
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53
disciple
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| n.信徒，门徒，追随者 | |
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54
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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55
lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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56
trudged
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| vt.& vi.跋涉，吃力地走（trudge的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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57
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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58
gatherings
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| 聚集( gathering的名词复数 )； 收集； 采集； 搜集 | |
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59
indigo
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| n.靛青，靛蓝 | |
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60
blues
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| n.抑郁，沮丧；布鲁斯音乐 | |
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61
lawfully
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| adv.守法地，合法地；合理地 | |
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62
embroidered
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| adj．绣花的 | |
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63
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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64
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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65
graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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66
huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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67
furry
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| adj.毛皮的；似毛皮的；毛皮制的 | |
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68
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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69
soothed
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| v.安慰( soothe的过去式和过去分词 )；抚慰；使舒服；减轻痛苦 | |
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70
fretted
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| 焦躁的，附有弦马的，腐蚀的 | |
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71
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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72
fawn
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| n.未满周岁的小鹿；v.巴结，奉承 | |
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73
mumbled
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| 含糊地说某事，叽咕，咕哝( mumble的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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74
walnuts
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| 胡桃（树）( walnut的名词复数 )； 胡桃木 | |
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75
erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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76
brindled
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| adj.有斑纹的 | |
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77
moody
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| adj.心情不稳的，易怒的，喜怒无常的 | |
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78
caresses
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| 爱抚，抚摸( caress的名词复数 ) | |
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79
dole
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| n.救济，（失业）救济金；vt.（out）发放，发给 | |
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80
crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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81
shuffling
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| adj. 慢慢移动的, 滑移的 动词shuffle的现在分词形式 | |
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82
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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83
brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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84
hermits
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| （尤指早期基督教的）隐居修道士，隐士，遁世者( hermit的名词复数 ) | |
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85
slab
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| n.平板，厚的切片；v.切成厚板，以平板盖上 | |
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86
dented
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| v.使产生凹痕( dent的过去式和过去分词 )；损害；伤害；挫伤（信心、名誉等） | |
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87
bulged
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| 凸出( bulge的过去式和过去分词 )； 充满； 塞满（某物） | |
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88
piers
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| n.水上平台( pier的名词复数 )；（常设有娱乐场所的）突堤；柱子；墙墩 | |
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89
spouting
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| n.水落管系统v.（指液体）喷出( spout的现在分词 )；滔滔不绝地讲；喋喋不休地说；喷水 | |
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90
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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91
incense
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| v.激怒；n.香，焚香时的烟，香气 | |
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92
flayed
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| v.痛打( flay的过去式和过去分词 )；把…打得皮开肉绽；剥（通常指动物）的皮；严厉批评 | |
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93
hissing
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| n. 发嘶嘶声, 蔑视 动词hiss的现在分词形式 | |
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94
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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95
slabs
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| n.厚板，平板，厚片( slab的名词复数 )；厚胶片 | |
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96
smacked
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| 拍，打，掴( smack的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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97
unwillingly
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| adv.不情愿地 | |
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98
bristling
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| a.竖立的 | |
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99
withers
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| 马肩隆 | |
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100
flare
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| v.闪耀，闪烁；n.潮红；突发 | |
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101
frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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102
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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103
smelt
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| v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼 | |
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104
crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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105
cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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106
puffed
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| adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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107
toiled
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的过去式和过去分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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108
killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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109
muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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110
crouched
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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111
smear
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| v.涂抹；诽谤，玷污；n.污点；诽谤，污蔑 | |
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112
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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113
wailing
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的现在分词 )；沱 | |
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