It was a surprising valley. You came from the west over the storm-swept, treeless table-land that drives into the Atlantic like a wedge and is beaten upon by three seas, came with clamorous7 salt gales8 buffeting9 you this way and that, pelting10 you with black showers of rain, came suddenly to the valley rim11 and dropped downhill into a different climate, a serene12, warm place of trees with nothing to break the peace but the gentle chatter13 of the stream. When the wind set roundabouts of south it was not so quiet. The cove men had a saw—
“When the river calls the sea,
Fishing there will be;
When the sea calls the river,
Bosula stood at the apex15 of the angle, guarded on all sides, but when the wind set southerly and strong the boom of the breakers on the Twelve Apostles reef came echoing up the valley in deep, tremendous organ peals16. So clear did they sound that one would imagine the sea had broken inland and that inundation17 was imminent18.
The founder19 of the family was a tin-streamer from Crowan, who, noting that the old men had got their claws into every inch of payable20 dirt in the parish, loaded his implements21 on a donkey and went westward22 looking for a stream of his own. In due course he and his ass23 meandered24 down Keigwin Valley and pitched camp in the elbow. On the fourth day Penhale the First, soil-stained and unkempt, approached the lord of the manor25 and proposed washing the stream on tribute. He held out no hopes, but was willing to give it a try, being out of work. The lord of the manor knew nothing of tin or tinners, regarded the tatterdemalion with casual contempt and let him draw up almost what terms he liked. In fifteen years Penhale had taken a small fortune out of the valley, bought surrounding land and built a house on the site of his original camp. From thenceforth the Penhales were farmers, and each in his turn added something, a field, a bit of moorland, a room to the house.
When John Penhale took possession the estate held three hundred acres of arable26 land, to say nothing of stretches of adjoining bog27 and heather, useful for grazing cattle. The buildings formed a square, with the yard in the center, the house on the north and the stream enclosing the whole on three sides, so that the place was serenaded with eternal music, the song of running water, tinkling28 among bowlders, purling over shallows, splashing over falls.
Penhale, the tinner, built a two-storied house of four rooms, but his successor had seven children, and an Elizabethan, attuning29 himself to a prolific30 age, thirteen. The first of these added a couple of rooms, the second four. Since building forwards encroached on the yard and building backwards31 would bring them into the stream they, perforce, extended sideways and westwards. In John Penhale’s time the house was five rooms long and one thick, with the front door stranded32 at the east end and the thatch33 coming down so low the upper windows had the appearance of old men’s eyes peering out under arched and shaggy brows. There was little distinctive34 about the house save the chimneys, which were inordinately35 high, and the doorway36 which was carved. Penhale the First, who knew something of smelting37 and had ideas about draught38, had set the standard in chimney pots, but the Elizabethan was responsible for the doorway. He pulled a half-drowned sailor out of the cove one dawn, brought him home, fed and clothed him. The castaway, a foreigner of some sort, being unable to express gratitude39 in words, picked up a hammer and stone chisel40 and decorated his rescuer’s doorway—until then three plain slabs41 of granite42. He carved the date on the lintel and a pattern of interwoven snakes on the uprights, culminating in two comic little heads, one on either side of the door, intended by the artist as portraits of his host and hostess, but which they, unflattered, and doubtless prompted by the pattern below, had passed down to posterity43 as Adam and Eve.
The first Penhale was a squat44, burly man and built his habitation to fit himself, but the succeeding generations ran to height and were in constant danger of braining themselves against the ceilings. They could sit erect45, but never rose without glancing aloft, and when they stood up their heads well-nigh disappeared among the deep beams. This had inculcated in them the habit of stooping instinctively46 on stepping through any door. A Dean of Gwithian used to swear that the Penhale family entered his spacious47 church bent48 double.
The first Penhale, being of small stature49, made his few windows low down; the subsequent Penhales had to squat to see out of them. Not that the Penhales needed windows to look out of; they were an open-air breed who only came indoors to eat and sleep. The ugly, cramped50 old house served their needs well. They came home from the uplands or the bottoms at the fall of night, came in from plowing51, shooting, hedging or driving cattle, came mud-plastered, lashed52 by the winter winds, saw Bosula lights twinkling between the sheltering trees, bowed their tall heads between Adam and Eve and, entering the warm kitchen, sat down to mighty53 meals of good beef and good vegetables, stretched their legs before the open hearth54, grunting55 with full-fed content, and yawned off to bed and immediate56 sleep, lulled57 by the croon of the brook58 and the whisper of the wind in the treetops. Gales might skim roofs off down in the Cove, ships batter59 to matchwood on the Twelve Apostles, upland ricks be scattered60 over the parish, the Penhales of Bosula slept sound in the lap of the hills, snug61 behind three-foot walls.
In winter, looking down from the hills, you could barely see Bosula for trees, in summer not at all. They filled the valley from side to side and for half a mile above and below the house, oak, ash, elm and sycamore with an undergrowth of hazel and thorn. Near the house the stream, narrowed to a few feet, ran between banks of bowlders piled up by the first Penhale and his tinners. They had rooted up bowlders everywhere and left them lying anyhow, on their ends or sides, great uneven62 blocks of granite, now covered with an emerald velvet63 of moss64 or furred with gray and yellow lichen65. Between these blocks the trees thrust, flourishing on their own leaf mold. The ashes and elms went straight up till they met the wind leaping from hill to hill and then stopped, nipped to an even height as a box-hedge is trimmed by shears66; but the thorns and hazels started crooked67 and grew crooked all the way, their branches writhing69 and tangling70 into fantastic clumps71 and shapes to be overgrown and smothered72 in toils73 of ivy74 and honeysuckle.
In spring the tanglewood valley was a nursery of birds. Wrens75, thrushes, chiffchaffs, greenfinches and chaffinches built their nests in scented76 thickets77 of hawthorn78 and may; blue and oxeye tits kept house in holes in the apple and oak trees. These added their songs to that of the brook. In spring the bridal woods about Bosula rippled79 and thrilled with liquid and debonair80 melody. But it was the owls that were the feature of the spot. Winter or summer they sat on their boughs81 and hooted82 to each other across the valley, waking the woods with startling and eerie83 screams. “To-whoo, wha-aa, who-hoo!” they would go, amber84 eyes burning, and then launch themselves heavily from their perches85 and beat, gray and ghostly, across the moon. “Whoo, wha-hoo!”
Young lovers straying up the valley were apt to clasp each other the tighter and whisper of men murdered and evil hauntings when they heard the owls, but the first Penhale in his day, camped with his ass in the crook68 of the stream, took their banshee salutes86 as a good omen87. He lay on his back in the leaves listening to them and wondering at their number.
“Bos hula enweer ew’n teller88 na,” said he in Cornish, as he rolled over to sleep. “Truly this is the owls’ house.”
点击收听单词发音
1 owls | |
n.猫头鹰( owl的名词复数 ) | |
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2 backbone | |
n.脊骨,脊柱,骨干;刚毅,骨气 | |
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3 monks | |
n.修道士,僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
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4 cove | |
n.小海湾,小峡谷 | |
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5 willow | |
n.柳树 | |
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6 gorge | |
n.咽喉,胃,暴食,山峡;v.塞饱,狼吞虎咽地吃 | |
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7 clamorous | |
adj.吵闹的,喧哗的 | |
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8 gales | |
龙猫 | |
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9 buffeting | |
振动 | |
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10 pelting | |
微不足道的,无价值的,盛怒的 | |
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11 rim | |
n.(圆物的)边,轮缘;边界 | |
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12 serene | |
adj. 安详的,宁静的,平静的 | |
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13 chatter | |
vi./n.喋喋不休;短促尖叫;(牙齿)打战 | |
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14 foul | |
adj.污秽的;邪恶的;v.弄脏;妨害;犯规;n.犯规 | |
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15 apex | |
n.顶点,最高点 | |
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16 peals | |
n.(声音大而持续或重复的)洪亮的响声( peal的名词复数 );隆隆声;洪亮的钟声;钟乐v.(使)(钟等)鸣响,(雷等)发出隆隆声( peal的第三人称单数 ) | |
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17 inundation | |
n.the act or fact of overflowing | |
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18 imminent | |
adj.即将发生的,临近的,逼近的 | |
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19 Founder | |
n.创始者,缔造者 | |
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20 payable | |
adj.可付的,应付的,有利益的 | |
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21 implements | |
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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22 westward | |
n.西方,西部;adj.西方的,向西的;adv.向西 | |
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23 ass | |
n.驴;傻瓜,蠢笨的人 | |
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24 meandered | |
(指溪流、河流等)蜿蜒而流( meander的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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25 manor | |
n.庄园,领地 | |
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26 arable | |
adj.可耕的,适合种植的 | |
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27 bog | |
n.沼泽;室...陷入泥淖 | |
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28 tinkling | |
n.丁当作响声 | |
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29 attuning | |
v.使协调( attune的现在分词 );调音 | |
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30 prolific | |
adj.丰富的,大量的;多产的,富有创造力的 | |
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31 backwards | |
adv.往回地,向原处,倒,相反,前后倒置地 | |
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32 stranded | |
a.搁浅的,进退两难的 | |
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33 thatch | |
vt.用茅草覆盖…的顶部;n.茅草(屋) | |
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34 distinctive | |
adj.特别的,有特色的,与众不同的 | |
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35 inordinately | |
adv.无度地,非常地 | |
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36 doorway | |
n.门口,(喻)入门;门路,途径 | |
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37 smelting | |
n.熔炼v.熔炼,提炼(矿石)( smelt的现在分词 ) | |
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38 draught | |
n.拉,牵引,拖;一网(饮,吸,阵);顿服药量,通风;v.起草,设计 | |
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39 gratitude | |
adj.感激,感谢 | |
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40 chisel | |
n.凿子;v.用凿子刻,雕,凿 | |
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41 slabs | |
n.厚板,平板,厚片( slab的名词复数 );厚胶片 | |
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42 granite | |
adj.花岗岩,花岗石 | |
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43 posterity | |
n.后裔,子孙,后代 | |
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44 squat | |
v.蹲坐,蹲下;n.蹲下;adj.矮胖的,粗矮的 | |
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45 erect | |
n./v.树立,建立,使竖立;adj.直立的,垂直的 | |
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46 instinctively | |
adv.本能地 | |
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47 spacious | |
adj.广阔的,宽敞的 | |
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48 bent | |
n.爱好,癖好;adj.弯的;决心的,一心的 | |
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49 stature | |
n.(高度)水平,(高度)境界,身高,身材 | |
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50 cramped | |
a.狭窄的 | |
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51 plowing | |
v.耕( plow的现在分词 );犁耕;费力穿过 | |
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52 lashed | |
adj.具睫毛的v.鞭打( lash的过去式和过去分词 );煽动;紧系;怒斥 | |
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53 mighty | |
adj.强有力的;巨大的 | |
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54 hearth | |
n.壁炉炉床,壁炉地面 | |
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55 grunting | |
咕哝的,呼噜的 | |
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56 immediate | |
adj.立即的;直接的,最接近的;紧靠的 | |
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57 lulled | |
vt.使镇静,使安静(lull的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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58 brook | |
n.小河,溪;v.忍受,容让 | |
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59 batter | |
v.接连重击;磨损;n.牛奶面糊;击球员 | |
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60 scattered | |
adj.分散的,稀疏的;散步的;疏疏落落的 | |
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61 snug | |
adj.温暖舒适的,合身的,安全的;v.使整洁干净,舒适地依靠,紧贴;n.(英)酒吧里的私房 | |
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62 uneven | |
adj.不平坦的,不规则的,不均匀的 | |
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63 velvet | |
n.丝绒,天鹅绒;adj.丝绒制的,柔软的 | |
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64 moss | |
n.苔,藓,地衣 | |
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65 lichen | |
n.地衣, 青苔 | |
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66 shears | |
n.大剪刀 | |
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67 crooked | |
adj.弯曲的;不诚实的,狡猾的,不正当的 | |
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68 crook | |
v.使弯曲;n.小偷,骗子,贼;弯曲(处) | |
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69 writhing | |
(因极度痛苦而)扭动或翻滚( writhe的现在分词 ) | |
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70 tangling | |
(使)缠结, (使)乱作一团( tangle的现在分词 ) | |
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71 clumps | |
n.(树、灌木、植物等的)丛、簇( clump的名词复数 );(土、泥等)团;块;笨重的脚步声v.(树、灌木、植物等的)丛、簇( clump的第三人称单数 );(土、泥等)团;块;笨重的脚步声 | |
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72 smothered | |
(使)窒息, (使)透不过气( smother的过去式和过去分词 ); 覆盖; 忍住; 抑制 | |
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73 toils | |
网 | |
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74 ivy | |
n.常青藤,常春藤 | |
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75 wrens | |
n.鹪鹩( wren的名词复数 ) | |
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76 scented | |
adj.有香味的;洒香水的;有气味的v.嗅到(scent的过去分词) | |
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77 thickets | |
n.灌木丛( thicket的名词复数 );丛状物 | |
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78 hawthorn | |
山楂 | |
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79 rippled | |
使泛起涟漪(ripple的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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80 debonair | |
adj.殷勤的,快乐的 | |
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81 boughs | |
大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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82 hooted | |
(使)作汽笛声响,作汽车喇叭声( hoot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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83 eerie | |
adj.怪诞的;奇异的;可怕的;胆怯的 | |
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84 amber | |
n.琥珀;琥珀色;adj.琥珀制的 | |
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85 perches | |
栖息处( perch的名词复数 ); 栖枝; 高处; 鲈鱼 | |
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86 salutes | |
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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87 omen | |
n.征兆,预兆;vt.预示 | |
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88 teller | |
n.银行出纳员;(选举)计票员 | |
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