Still less is any of them likely to forget the day that followed.
As dancing only ceased when the sun was about rising, before-breakfast bathing was declared off for that day, and they arranged to meet later on and stroll quietly down to Dixcart Bay during the morning and all bathe together there. Charles Svendt laughingly prepared them for an exhibition of incompetence1 by stating that his swimming wasn't a patch on his dancing, but that he could get along. Miss Penny gaily2 gave him points as to her own peculiar3 methods of swimming, which, as we know, demanded instant and easy touch of sand or stone at any moment of the halting progression. He confessed to a like prejudice in favour of something solid within reach of his sinking capacity, and they agreed to help one another.
They called for him at the hotel about eleven o'clock, and went joking through the sunny lanes of Petit Dixcart, crossed the brook4 that runs out of Hart's-Tongue Valley, and followed it by the winding5 path along the side of the cliff, among the gorse and ferns, down into the bay.
They had a right merry bathe with no grave casualties. Miss Penny, indeed, got out of her depth twice, to the extent of quite two inches, and shrieked6 for help, which Charles Svendt gallantly7 hastened to render; while Graeme and Margaret swam across from head to head, watched enviously8 by the paddlers in shallow waters.
They went home by the climbing path up the hillside, rested on The Quarter-deck while Charles Svendt got his breath back, and so, by the old Dixcart hotel, and the new one nestling among its flowers and trees, and up the Valley, to the Vicarage.
The Vicar was basking9 in the shade of the trees in front of the house.
"Ah-ha—Mr. and Mrs. Graeme! Good-morning! You are none the worse for being married? Non?" as he shook hands joyously10 all round, with both hands at once.
"Not a bit," laughed Graeme. "We're all as happy as sandboys."
"Comment donc—sandboys? What is that?"
"Happy little boys who dispense11 with clothes and paddle all day in the sand and water."
"Ah—you have been bathing! What energie! And you danced till—?"
"About four o'clock, I suppose. The sun was just thinking of rising as we were thinking of retiring."
"But it is marvellous! And you are not tired?"
"The bathe has freshened us all up," said Margaret.
Then Mrs. Vicar came out at sound of their voices, and felicitated them, and begged them to rest a while in the shade. But they were all hungry, and Charles Svendt laughingly asserted that he had swallowed so much salt-water, in rescuing Miss Penny from a watery12 grave, that his constitution absolutely needed a tiny tot of whisky, or the consequences might be serious.
So they went laughingly on their way, and Charles tried his best to get Miss Penny to go and show him the way to the Bel-Air, pleading absolute confusion still as to the points of the compass and the lie of the land.
He was to lunch with them at the Red House, but insisted on going home first to straighten up and make himself presentable. So they led him to the Avenue, and set his face straight down it, and bade him follow his nose and turn neither to the right hand nor to the left, and then they turned off through the fields by their own short-cut, and went merrily home.
点击收听单词发音
1 incompetence | |
n.不胜任,不称职 | |
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2 gaily | |
adv.欢乐地,高兴地 | |
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3 peculiar | |
adj.古怪的,异常的;特殊的,特有的 | |
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4 brook | |
n.小河,溪;v.忍受,容让 | |
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5 winding | |
n.绕,缠,绕组,线圈 | |
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6 shrieked | |
v.尖叫( shriek的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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7 gallantly | |
adv. 漂亮地,勇敢地,献殷勤地 | |
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8 enviously | |
adv.满怀嫉妒地 | |
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9 basking | |
v.晒太阳,取暖( bask的现在分词 );对…感到乐趣;因他人的功绩而出名;仰仗…的余泽 | |
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10 joyously | |
ad.快乐地, 高兴地 | |
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11 dispense | |
vt.分配,分发;配(药),发(药);实施 | |
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12 watery | |
adj.有水的,水汪汪的;湿的,湿润的 | |
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