It was early in December, a showery, blustry afternoon; but I was sitting out of doors in the hay. The men had been cutting away the great rick in the haggard; they had taken a slice off it, down almost to the ground, and I had burrowed1 myself a comfortable bed among the soft trusses, with my back against the bristling2, newly shorn wall of hay that towered above me like a gable. The dogs were standing4 beside me in different attitudes of intensest{240} attention, their eyes fixed5, like mine, upon a hole in the foundations of the rick, from which at this moment a pair of legs in corduroys and gaiters were protruding6.
“Have you come to them yet?” I called out.
A muffled7 grunt8 was all that I could hear in answer; but after a moment or two, the body belonging to the legs was drawn9 out of the hole.
“I’ve got one of the brutes,” said Willy, holding up his hand, with a ferret hanging limply from it. “I don’t know how I’ll get the other; those rats must be miles back in the rick. I’ll have to go up for one of the young Sweenys to help me to move some of the stones under the rick.”
“I think in that case I shall go home,” I said. “I suppose you’ll take hours over it.”
“Oh no! Do wait a bit; we won’t be{241} any time. You can have my coat if you’re cold,” said Willy, dropping the reclaimed10 ferret into its bag. “I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
He climbed the wall of the haggard, and took a short cut across the field to where the whitewashed11 walls of Sweeny’s cottage showed through the red twigs12 of the leafless fuchsia hedge that incongruously surrounded it.
I took out my watch as soon as he had started, and saw that it was half-past three. Willy seemed to have forgotten that this Tuesday afternoon was the one on which Nugent had said he would come over. I had taken care to say something about it at breakfast, but had done it so lamely13 and inopportunely that I was not sure whether Willy had heard me; and a kind of awkwardness had prevented me from reminding him of it when he had asked me{242} after luncheon14 to come out with him to the haggard, where a thriving colony of rats had been that morning discovered.
Willy and I were now on terms of the most absolute intimacy15. His daily companionship had become second nature to me—something which I accepted as a matter of course, which gave me no trouble, and was in all ways pleasant. But, for all that, I had begun to find out that in some occult way I was a little afraid of him. He was unexpectedly and minutely observant, and, where I was concerned, appeared to be able to take in my doings with the back of his head. It was this gift, combined with his unostentatious acuteness, that made me sometimes feel foolish when I least wished it, and lately had made any mention of Nugent’s name a difficulty to me.
At all events, at this particular moment I did not feel disposed to explain matters,{243} and I settled myself again in the hay, hoping that the capture of the ferret would allow me, by the natural course of things, to get home in time without having to remind Willy of my expected visitor.
The demesne16 farm, as it was called, was at some distance from the house—at least ten minutes’ walk down a stony17 lane, worn into deep ruts by the passing of the carts of hay; and now that the ruts had been turned into pools by heavy showers, it was anything but a pleasant walk. The boreen passed through the fields in which Willy had schooled Alaska; it came out into the road near the lodge18, and thence led directly to the house, whose gleaming slate19 roof and tall chimneys I could see from where I was sitting, above the trees of the plantation20. The short December day was already beginning to close in; the setting sun was level with my eyes, and was{244} sending broad rays up the long slope that lay between the farm and the sea. Everything for the moment was transfigured; all the wet stones and straw lying about the yard shone and glistened21. The pigs were splashing through pools of liquid gold; and the geese, who were gabbling in an undertone near the hayrick, looked blue on the shadow side, and silver-yellow on the side next the sun—one could believe them capable of laying nothing but golden eggs. The wind was going down with the sun, and it seemed as if we should have no more rain; but there was a dangerous-looking black cloud over Croaghkeenen. I wondered if Nugent had come. That cloud certainly meant rain; perhaps it would serve as an excuse to get home.
Willy was as good as his word about coming back quickly, and brought with him not one, but two small sons of the{245} house of Sweeny, with shock heads of hair, as fluffy22 as dandelion seed, and almost as white, and big grey eyes that looked doubtfully at me from under the blackest lashes23 and out of the dirtiest faces I had ever seen in my life.
“Come, Timsy,” said Willy to the smaller of the two, “in you go; and if you get a grip of him at all, hold on to him, no matter if he eats the nose off your face.”
In no wise discouraged by this injunction, Timsy crawled into the hole, until nothing but the muddy soles of his bare feet were visible. But the ferret was evidently beyond human reach. I sat impatiently enough, looking on, and trying to summon up courage to say that I would go home, when I felt a drop or two of rain on my hand, and saw that the heavy cloud now shut Croaghkeenen altogether out of view,{246} and that a thick shower was coming across the sea and along the slopes of Durrus. In another instant we were enveloped24 in a gusty25 whirl of rain.
“Run to the Sweenys’, Theo!” cried Willy, jumping up from his knees, and abandoning his attempt to push little Sweeny deeper into the hole; “we must shelter there.”
“Couldn’t we get home?” I said, standing undecidedly in the downpour, and thinking with despair that my deserted26 visitor was possibly arriving at Durrus now.
“No; you’d be drowned getting there. Come on.”
We ran up the lane as fast as was possible from the nature of it, with the mud splashing up at every step, the rain trickling27 down the backs of our necks, and the dogs racing28 along with us, getting{247} very much in the way by ridiculous jumps at the bag in which Willy carried the ferret, and evidently believing that this unusual rushing through the mud was only a prelude29 to something far more thrilling. I picked my way after Willy through the Sweenys’ yard, along a path which ran precariously30 between a manure31 heap and a pool of dirty water, and saw Mrs. Sweeny flinging open her door to receive us.
“Oh, ye craytures! ye’re dhrowned! Come in asthore. Get out, ye divil!”—slapping the bony flanks of a calf32 which was trying to thrust itself into the house. “Turn them hins out, Batty! Indeed, ’tis a disgrace to ask ye into that dirty little house, and me afther plucking a goose.”
We entered the low, narrow doorway33; and the hens, seeing that they were hemmed34 in, and disdaining35 even at this{248} extreme moment to yield to Batty’s practised pursuit, took to their wings, and flew past our heads through the doorway with varying notes of consternation36.
“Did anny wan37 iver see the like of thim hins?” demanded Mrs. Sweeny, dramatically, while she dragged forward a greasy-looking kitchen chair. “I’m fairly heart-scalded with them—the monkeys of the world! Sit down, ochudth, sit down why!” she went on, addressing me, her broad red face beaming with pride and hospitality. “Indeed, me little place isn’t fit for the likes of ye! Sure, wouldn’t ye sit down, Masther Willy, till I get ye a dhrink of milk? Run away, Bridgie”—this in an undertone to a grimy little girl—“and dhrive in the cows.”
She produced another chair for Willy, the discrepancy38 in the length of whose legs was corrected by a convenient dip in{249} the mud floor of the cottage, and Willy sat down, and at once began a diffuse39 and cheerful conversation with her.
The fates certainly seemed to be against me. This shower would probably last for some time, and it would be impossible to say that I wanted to go home until it was over. I looked at my watch; it was already nearly four. Nugent would very likely come early—he had said that he would be over some time before tea—and would hear that I had gone out, and had left no message or explanation of any kind for him. It was very exasperating40, but, as long as this deluge41 of rain lasted, all I could do was to sit still and possess my soul in as much patience as possible.
The cabin had more occupants than, in its doubtful light, I had at first noticed. In the smoky shadow of the overhanging{250} chimney-place was huddled42, on a three-legged stool, a very small old man in knee-breeches and a tail-coat, who was smoking a short pipe, and still held in his hand the battered43 tall hat which he had taken off on our entrance. He was our hostess’s father-in-law, one of the oldest tenants44 on the estate, and he sat, as I had often seen the old country men in the cabins sit, smoking and dozing45 over the fire, and looking hardly more alive to what was going on than the grey, smouldering lumps of turf on the hearth46. In the dusky recess47 at the foot of a four-poster bed, which blocked up one of the small windows, Batty and two other children were hiding behind each other, and were staring at us as young birds might. Pat and Jinny were vulgarly snuffing among Mrs. Sweeny’s pots and pans, with an affectation of starvation which but ill-assorted with what I knew of their{251} recent luncheon. Now they had come, with stunning48 unexpectedness, on a cat, crouched49 on the dresser, and, when called off by Willy on the very eve of battle, remained for the rest of their visit in agonized50 contemplation of her security. From a hencoop in the corner by the bed came faint cluckings; the goose which Mrs. Sweeny had been plucking lay with its legs tied beside the red earthen pan, in which it might have seen its own breast feathers, and tried to console itself by pecking feebly at the yellow meal which had been spilt on the ground in front of the chickens’ coop.
Mrs. Sweeny was sitting on a kind of rough settle, between the other window and the door of an inner room. She was a stout51, comfortable-looking woman of about forty, with red hair and quick blue eyes, that roved round the cabin, and{252} silenced with a glance the occasional whisperings that rose from the children.
“And how’s the one that had the bad cough?” asked Willy, pursuing his conversation with her with his invariable ease and dexterity52. “Honor her name is, isn’t it?”
“See, now, how well he remembers!” replied Mrs. Sweeny. “Indeed, she’s there back in the room, lyin’ these three days. Faith, I think ’tis like the decline she have, Masther Willy.”
“Oh, indeed, Docthor Kelly’s afther givin’ her a bottle, but shure I wouldn’t let her put it into her mouth at all. God knows what’d be in it. Wasn’t I afther throwin’ a taste of it on the fire to thry what’d it do, and Phitz! says it, and up{253} with it up the chimbley! Faith, I’d be in dread54 to give it to the child. Shure, if it done that in the fire, what’d it do in her inside?”
“Well, you’re a greater fool than I thought you were,” said Willy, politely.
“Maybe I am, faith,” replied Mrs. Sweeny, with a loud laugh of enjoyment55. “But if she’s for dyin’, the crayture, she’ll die aisier without thim thrash of medicines; and if she’s for livin’, ’tisn’t thrusting to them she’ll be. Shure, God is good—God is good——”
“Divil a betther!” interjected old Sweeny, unexpectedly.
It was the first time he had spoken, and having delivered himself of this trenchant56 observation, he relapsed into silence and the smackings at his pipe.
“Don’t mind him at all, your honour, miss,” said his daughter-in-law, seeing my{254} ill-concealed amusement. “Shure, he’s only a silly owld man.”
“He’s a good deal more sensible than you are,” said Willy, returning to the subject of Honor.
The rain poured steadily57 down. I thought of Nugent, and could fancy his surprise at hearing that I was not at home. It was not, I argued to myself, so much that I was sorry to miss him, as that I hated being rude; and it certainly was rude to have gone out on the day he had settled to come, without even leaving a message. What an amazing gift of the gab3 Willy had! Rain or no rain, it was clear that he and Mrs. Sweeny meant to talk to one another for the rest of the afternoon.
The old man in the chimney-corner had watched me during all this time, and muttered to himself every now and then—what, I could not understand. We must{255} have been sitting there for ten minutes at least, when the two boys whom Willy had left to look for the ferret came dripping in, with the object of their search safely housed in a bag, and silently stationed themselves along with their brothers and sisters in the corner by the bed.
“Is the rain nearly over?” I asked the elder.
“I dunno, miss,” he replied, bashfully rubbing the sole of his foot up and down the shin of the other leg.
“I can tell you that,” said Willy, getting up and going to the door. “I don’t think it looks like clearing for another quarter of an hour.”
“Then I don’t know what I can do,” I said, in unguarded consternation.
“Why,” said Willy, turning round and looking at me with his hands in his pockets, “what’s the hurry?{256}”
“There is no hurry exactly,” I said, feeling very small and cowardly; “but I thought you knew—at least, I think I told you this morning, that Mr. O’Neill said he would come over to-day.”
I wondered if this simple sentence gave any indication of the effort it was to me to say it.
“I can’t say I remember anything about it,” Willy answered, in what I am sure he thought a crushingly chilly58 voice.
“Oh yes, indeed I did tell you,” I said, getting up and following him to the door; “but you sneezed just as I was saying it, and the voice is not yet created that could be heard through one of your sneezes.”
I knew that he was rather proud than otherwise of his noisy sneezes, and I laughed servilely, and looked up, hoping that he would laugh too. But there was nothing approaching to amusement in his{257} face. It was red and forbidding, as he looked out into the rain that was thrashing down in the dirty yard. He had still a good deal of hay and hayseed about his coat and hat, and altogether I thought it was not one of his most becoming moments.
“I don’t know if you’d like to start in that,” he said; “but if you would, I’m quite ready to go with you.”
If I had been alone, I should probably have faced a wetting in order to get back to the house; but now I was both too proud and too shy to accept Willy’s offer.
“I think I shall wait a little longer,” I said, going back to my chair by the fire.
“Himself’s afther sayin’,” said Mrs. Sweeny, as I sat down, “that he’d think ’twas your father he was lookin’ at, an’ you sittin’ there a while ago.”
Old Sweeny removed his pipe from his lips, and cleared his throat.{258}
“Manny’s the time I seen the young masther sit there,” he said, in a sort of harsh whisper, turning his bleared and filmy old eyes towards me—“the way she”—he pointed59 a crooked60 forefinger61 at me—“is now, afther he bein’ out shootin’ or the like o’ that; ‘Be domned to ye, Sweeny, ye blagyard,’ he’d say to me, ‘dickens a shnipe is there left on yer land with your dhraining; I’ll have ye run out of the place,’ he’d say. That’s the very way he’d talk to me, as civil and pleasant as yerself. Begob, ye have the very two eyes of him, an’ the grand long nose of him!”
I acknowledged the compliment as well as I knew how, and old Sweeny went on again, punctuating62 his sentences with long and noisy pulls at his pipe.
“Faith, there was manny a wan of the Durrus tinants would rather ’twas their{259} own son was goin’ to Ameriky than him when he went; and manny a wan too that’d have walked to Cork63 to go to his funeral. That was the quare comin’ home that he had—to die an’ be berrid in the town o’ Cork. I’ll niver forget that time. Shure the night he died in Cork—’twas the night before the owld masther dyin’ too—I wasn’t in me bed, but out in the shed with a cow that was sick. There was carridges dhriving the Durrus avenue that night,” he said, his voice getting lower and huskier; “I heard them goin’ the road, an’ it one o’clock in the morning! And the big shnow comminced afther that agin.”
“What carriages were they?” I asked, with a little superstitious64 shiver.
“God knows!” he said mysteriously; “God knows! But they say there do be{260} them that wait for the Sarsfields agin they’re dyin’. There was wan that seen the black coach and four horses goin’ wesht the road, over the bog66, the time the owld man—that’s Theodore’s father—died; and wansht,” he went on impressively, “there was a Sarsfield out, that time the Frinch landed beyond in Banthry Bay, and the English cot him an’ hung him; but those people took him and dhragged him through hell and through det’th, and me mother’s father heard the black coach taking him wesht to Myross Churchyard.”
Old Sweeny had let his pipe go out during the telling of the story, and he left me to make what I could of it, while he poked67 about for a piece of burning turf wherewith to rekindle68 his pipe. Willy was still standing by the door.
“I think it’s cleared up enough for you to start now,” he said coldly, “and if you{261} want to get back to the house, you’d better start before it comes on heavy again.”
“Oh, very well, if you like,” I answered, with equal indifference69. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Sweeny.”
Mrs. Sweeny was taking a bowl from the dresser, from which haven of refuge she had driven her cat with one swing of her brawny70 arm. It shot past Willy out of the door, followed by a flying white streak71, which inference rather than eyesight told me was composed of the pursuing Pat and Jinny.
“Look at that, now!” remarked the cat’s mistress; “that overbearin’ owld cat’d be sittin’ there, thwarting72 thim dogs, and she well able to run for thim; an’ I wouldn’t begridge them to ketch her nayther. She’s a little wandhering divil that have no call to the place.” She came forward with the bowl in her hand.{262} “See here, Masther Willy; here’s eight beautiful pullet’s eggs, the first she iver laid, an’ you’ll carry them wesht to the house for Miss Sarsfield to ate for her brekfish—mind that, now!” She gave him a slap on the back. “Och, there’s no fear but he’ll mind!” she said, winking73 at me. “He’d do more than that for yourself, and small blame to him!”
Willy took the bowl from her without taking any notice either of the innuendo74 or the slap which accompanied it, and marched out of the house with sulky dignity.
点击收听单词发音
1 burrowed | |
v.挖掘(洞穴),挖洞( burrow的过去式和过去分词 );翻寻 | |
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2 bristling | |
a.竖立的 | |
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3 gab | |
v.空谈,唠叨,瞎扯;n.饶舌,多嘴,爱说话 | |
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4 standing | |
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的 | |
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5 fixed | |
adj.固定的,不变的,准备好的;(计算机)固定的 | |
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6 protruding | |
v.(使某物)伸出,(使某物)突出( protrude的现在分词 );凸 | |
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7 muffled | |
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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8 grunt | |
v.嘟哝;作呼噜声;n.呼噜声,嘟哝 | |
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9 drawn | |
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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10 reclaimed | |
adj.再生的;翻造的;收复的;回收的v.开拓( reclaim的过去式和过去分词 );要求收回;从废料中回收(有用的材料);挽救 | |
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11 whitewashed | |
粉饰,美化,掩饰( whitewash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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12 twigs | |
细枝,嫩枝( twig的名词复数 ) | |
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13 lamely | |
一瘸一拐地,不完全地 | |
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14 luncheon | |
n.午宴,午餐,便宴 | |
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15 intimacy | |
n.熟悉,亲密,密切关系,亲昵的言行 | |
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16 demesne | |
n.领域,私有土地 | |
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17 stony | |
adj.石头的,多石头的,冷酷的,无情的 | |
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18 lodge | |
v.临时住宿,寄宿,寄存,容纳;n.传达室,小旅馆 | |
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19 slate | |
n.板岩,石板,石片,石板色,候选人名单;adj.暗蓝灰色的,含板岩的;vt.用石板覆盖,痛打,提名,预订 | |
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20 plantation | |
n.种植园,大农场 | |
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21 glistened | |
v.湿物闪耀,闪亮( glisten的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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22 fluffy | |
adj.有绒毛的,空洞的 | |
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23 lashes | |
n.鞭挞( lash的名词复数 );鞭子;突然猛烈的一击;急速挥动v.鞭打( lash的第三人称单数 );煽动;紧系;怒斥 | |
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24 enveloped | |
v.包围,笼罩,包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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25 gusty | |
adj.起大风的 | |
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26 deserted | |
adj.荒芜的,荒废的,无人的,被遗弃的 | |
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27 trickling | |
n.油画底色含油太多而成泡沫状突起v.滴( trickle的现在分词 );淌;使)慢慢走;缓慢移动 | |
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28 racing | |
n.竞赛,赛马;adj.竞赛用的,赛马用的 | |
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29 prelude | |
n.序言,前兆,序曲 | |
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30 precariously | |
adv.不安全地;危险地;碰机会地;不稳定地 | |
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31 manure | |
n.粪,肥,肥粒;vt.施肥 | |
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32 calf | |
n.小牛,犊,幼仔,小牛皮 | |
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33 doorway | |
n.门口,(喻)入门;门路,途径 | |
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34 hemmed | |
缝…的褶边( hem的过去式和过去分词 ); 包围 | |
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35 disdaining | |
鄙视( disdain的现在分词 ); 不屑于做,不愿意做 | |
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36 consternation | |
n.大为吃惊,惊骇 | |
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37 wan | |
(wide area network)广域网 | |
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38 discrepancy | |
n.不同;不符;差异;矛盾 | |
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39 diffuse | |
v.扩散;传播;adj.冗长的;四散的,弥漫的 | |
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40 exasperating | |
adj. 激怒的 动词exasperate的现在分词形式 | |
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41 deluge | |
n./vt.洪水,暴雨,使泛滥 | |
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42 huddled | |
挤在一起(huddle的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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43 battered | |
adj.磨损的;v.连续猛击;磨损 | |
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44 tenants | |
n.房客( tenant的名词复数 );佃户;占用者;占有者 | |
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45 dozing | |
v.打瞌睡,假寐 n.瞌睡 | |
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46 hearth | |
n.壁炉炉床,壁炉地面 | |
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47 recess | |
n.短期休息,壁凹(墙上装架子,柜子等凹处) | |
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48 stunning | |
adj.极好的;使人晕倒的 | |
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49 crouched | |
v.屈膝,蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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50 agonized | |
v.使(极度)痛苦,折磨( agonize的过去式和过去分词 );苦斗;苦苦思索;感到极度痛苦 | |
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52 dexterity | |
n.(手的)灵巧,灵活 | |
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53 haven | |
n.安全的地方,避难所,庇护所 | |
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54 dread | |
vt.担忧,忧虑;惧怕,不敢;n.担忧,畏惧 | |
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55 enjoyment | |
n.乐趣;享有;享用 | |
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56 trenchant | |
adj.尖刻的,清晰的 | |
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57 steadily | |
adv.稳定地;不变地;持续地 | |
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58 chilly | |
adj.凉快的,寒冷的 | |
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59 pointed | |
adj.尖的,直截了当的 | |
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60 crooked | |
adj.弯曲的;不诚实的,狡猾的,不正当的 | |
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61 forefinger | |
n.食指 | |
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62 punctuating | |
v.(在文字中)加标点符号,加标点( punctuate的现在分词 );不时打断某事物 | |
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63 cork | |
n.软木,软木塞 | |
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64 superstitious | |
adj.迷信的 | |
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65 furtively | |
adv. 偷偷地, 暗中地 | |
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66 bog | |
n.沼泽;室...陷入泥淖 | |
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67 poked | |
v.伸出( poke的过去式和过去分词 );戳出;拨弄;与(某人)性交 | |
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68 rekindle | |
v.使再振作;再点火 | |
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69 indifference | |
n.不感兴趣,不关心,冷淡,不在乎 | |
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70 brawny | |
adj.强壮的 | |
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71 streak | |
n.条理,斑纹,倾向,少许,痕迹;v.加条纹,变成条纹,奔驰,快速移动 | |
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72 thwarting | |
阻挠( thwart的现在分词 ); 使受挫折; 挫败; 横过 | |
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73 winking | |
n.瞬眼,目语v.使眼色( wink的现在分词 );递眼色(表示友好或高兴等);(指光)闪烁;闪亮 | |
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74 innuendo | |
n.暗指,讽刺 | |
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