Now it is a woodland country, of broad wooded common and low undulating Downs crowned or fringed by woods: this is “Swineherd’s County” according to the gypsies. Houses are few and stand either well off the road or with scarcely a dividing line between their gardens and the commons from which they have been filched18. Their linen19 and red flannel20 flap under enormous beeches where an old track makes its way betwixt them. The children living here, the generations of them who have been bred in the little flint house, are children of the woods, their minds half made by the majestic21 but dark and deep-voiced trees that stand over them day and night and by the echoes—you may hear them summoning the echoes at evening out of the glades22 and see them pause as if dazed by the wild reply. Opposite the door is a close untrodden tangle23 of brier and thorn and bramble under oaks where the dead leaves of many autumns lie untouched even by the wind—so dense24 is the underwood—that sighs continually in the topmost boughs25: at the edge nettles26 with translucent27 leaves waver and nod above mossy banks. Not far off is a Woodland Farm, a group of houses and barns and sheds built of flint and wood and thatched, aloof30. A man enters one of the cavernous sheds with a pail; a thick, bent31, knotty32 man, with bushy dark hair and beard and bright black eyes, a farmer, the son’s son of[212] one who rebuilt the house when the woods were darker and huger still. Life is a dark simple matter for him; three-quarters of his living is done for him by the dead; merely to look at him is to see a man live generations thick, so to speak, and neither Nature nor the trumpery34 modern man can easily disturb a human character of that density35. As I watch him going to and fro I lose sight of everything away from his rude house and the tall woods, because they and he are so powerful—he has the trees as well as his ancestors at his back—and it is no flight of fancy to see him actually cut off from all the world except the house and woods, and yet holding his own, able to keep his fire burning, his larder36 full, his back covered and his house dry. I feel but a wraith37 as I pass by. I wonder what there is worth knowing that he does not know, with his bright eyes, bright long teeth, stiff limbs capable of unceasing toil38, and that look of harmony with day and night. I see him looking on as the wounded trooper—two hundred and fifty years, a trifle, ago—drains the water just lifted from the well; look at his gallant39 face, his delicate ardour as of another race, bright dress, restless blue eyes, his helplessness after the defeat in a cavalry40 fight about nothing at all. The cornet rides away and the woodland fellow puts all his nature into the felling of a beech1 as into an object worthy41 of cold steel, and as he plies42 his axe43 he smiles at the thought of that brave, that silly face and sleek44 hair. He smiles to-day as he sees a youth go by with proud looks of command, incapable45, as he well understands, of commanding anything except perhaps a wife or a groom46 or a regiment47 of townsmen—yet his landlord.
Rough grass and scattered48 thorns and lofty groups of[213] mossy-pedestalled beeches lie on either side of the road, and grassy tracks lead to thatched cottages in the woods. A grey-clouded silver sky moves overhead. Along the road the telegraph wires go humming the one shrill49 note in this great harmony of men and woods and sky. Beyond, a broad champaign of corn and grey grass heaves from the woodland edge. The road is gay with red polished fruit and equally red soft leaves, with darkest purple and bronze and wine-red and green berries and leaves, and beam foliage50 still pure green and white. So high now are the unkempt hedges that the land is hid and only the sky appears above the coloured trees: except at a meeting of ways when a triangular51 patch of turf is sacred to burdock, ragwort and thistle and—touching the dust of the road—the lowly silverweed; an oak overhangs, yet the little open space admits a vision of the elephantine Downs going west in the rain. In a moment the world is once again this narrow one of the high-hedged lane, where I see and touch with the eye and enjoy the shapes of each bole and branch in turn, their bone-like shapes, their many colours of the wood itself, wrinkled and grooved52, or overlaid by pale green mould, silver lichen53 or dark green moss28. Each bend in the road is different. At one all the leaves are yellow but green-veined, the bramble, the hazel, the elder; and there is a little chalk pit below, fresh white and overhung by yew54 and the dark purple elder berries, small but distinct: at another there is a maple55 of exquisite56 small leaves and numerous accordingly, a fair-built tree in a lovely attitude and surmounted57 by a plume58, only a small plume, of traveller’s-joy. In Swineherd’s County they call it “Angel’s hair.”
[214]
Suddenly there is a village of thatched roofs, phlox in the gardens, good spaces of green and of sycamore-trees between one house and the next, and a green-weeded crystal river pervading60 all with its flash and sound. The anvil61 rings and the fire glows in the black smithy. The wheel-wright’s timber leans outside his thatched shed against an ancient elder, etherealized by lucent yellow leaves. Before the inn a jolly ostler with bow legs and purple neck washes the wheels of a cart, ever and anon filling his pail from the stream and swishing the bright water over the wheels as they spin. A decent white-haired old man stands and watches, leaning on his stick held almost at arm’s length so as to make an archway underneath62 which a spaniel sprawls63 in the sun. The men are all at the corn and he does not know what to do. Can he read? asks the ostler, knowing the answer very well. No! We all read now, chuckles64 the ostler as he flings a pailful over the wheel. The old man is proud at least to have lived into such a notable day: “Yes, man reads now almost as well as master—quite as well. They used to be dummies65, the working class people, yes, that they was. You can’t tell what will happen now.” Meantime the ostler fills his pail and the old man having too many thoughts to say any more, lays his blackthorn on the bench and calls for his glass of fourpenny ale.
Close by there is an entrance to the more open Downs. The uncut hedges are so thick that the lane seems a cutting through a wood, and soon it becomes a grassy track of great breadth under ash-trees and amidst purple dogwood and crimson66-hearted traveller’s-joy, and finally it is a long broad field full of wild carrot and scabious through which many paths meander67 side by side until the[215] last gate gives a view, under oak and hazel sprays, on to the green undulations of hill and coombe, their sides studded with juniper and thorn, with something of oceanic breadth in the whole, as far as the utmost bound, leagues away, where a line of small trees stands against the sky in the manner of ships. The hedges in this downland are low or broken. A few ricks stand at the borders of stubble and grass. Sheep munch68 together in square pens. There is no house, and the rain has wiped out everything that moved save its own perpendicular69 fringes waving along the hills. This solitude70 of grey and brown is completed by the owner’s notice, on a frail71 and tottering72 post: “Trespassers will be prosecuted73 with the utmost rigour of the law.” Towards the farther verge74 compact copses of beech begin to saddle the ridges75 and invade the hollows so as to form cliffy dark sides to the friths of pale stubble or turf amongst them. And then the green way runs into a Roman road, and in the twilight77 and rain I can see many other narrow ancient tracks winding78 into the white road as straight as a sword, losing themselves in it like children in a dragon’s mouth. The turf alongside is mounded by tumuli; and against the hedge a gypsy family pretend to shelter from the windy rain; the man stands moody80, holding the pony81, the women crouch82 with chins upon knees, the children laugh and will not be still. They belong to the little roads that are dying out: they hate the sword-like shelterless road, the booming cars that go straight to the city in the vale below. They are less at home there than the swallows that haunt the leeward83 sides of the sycamores, ever rushing up towards the trees and ever beaten back, like children playing “I’m the king of the castle,” at the[216] verge of the city. There, by the inn piano, soldiers and their friends and women sing with vague pathos84 songs about “Mother” and “Dear Love” and “Farewell” and “Love is all” and “The girls,” while the streets glitter and gurgle with rain. Just before night the sky clears. It is littered with small dark clouds upon rose, like rocks on a wild and solitary85 coast of after-tempest calm, and it is infinitely86 remote and infinitely alluring87. Those clouds are the Islands of the Blest. Even so alluring might be this life itself, this world, if I were out of it. For a moment I fancy how I might lean and watch it all, being dead. For a moment only, since the poverty of death is such that we cannot hope from it such a gift of contemplation from afar, cannot hope even that once out of the world we may turn round and look at it and feel that we are not of it any more, nor hope that we shall know ourselves to be dead and be satisfied. Rain shrouds88 the islands of the sky: the singers find them in their song.
In the morning the ground is beautiful with blue light from one white-clouded pane89 of sky that will not be hidden by the tumultuous rain. Outside the city the new thatch29 of the ricks shines pale in the sodden90 land, which presently gives way to a great water with leaning masts and a majestic shadowy sweep of trees down to the flat shore, to level green marsh91 and bridges crossing the streams that are announced by ripples92 in the sun, by swishing sedge, by willows93 blenching95. Beyond is forest again. First, scattered cottages and little yellow apples beaming pale on crooked96 trees; then solitudes97 of heather and bracken, traversed and lighted by blue waters, ponds and streams among flats of rushes; and beyond, at either hand, woods on low and high land endlessly changing[217] from brightness to gloom under windy clouds. The roads are yellow, and oaks and beeches hang over them in whispering companies. The wind reigns98, in the high magnificent onset99 of the clouds, in the surging trees, in the wings of rooks and daws, in bowing sedges and cotton grass, in quivering heather and grass, in rippling100 water, in wildly flying linen; yet in the open there is a strange silence because the roar in my ears as I walk deafens101 me to all sound.
White ponies102 graze by dark waters and stir the fragrance103 of the bog104 myrtle. The rises of the heathery moor105 are scarred yellow where the gravel106 is exposed. Sometimes great beeches, plated with green lichen and grey, wave their stiffening107 foliage overhead; or there is a group of old hollies108 encircled by coeval109 ivy110 whose embraces make them one, and both seem of stone. Sometimes the yellow road runs green-edged among heather and gorse, shadowed by pines that shake and plunge111 in the wind but are mute. A white fungus112 shines damp in the purple moor. There are a myriad113 berried hawthorns114 here, more gorse, more heather and bracken. The tiny pools beneath are blown into ripples like a swarming115 of bees, but the infuriate streams cannot trouble the dark water and broad lily leaves in their bays. Other pools again are tranquil116 and lucid117 brown over submerged moss and pennywort and fallen leaves, worlds to themselves with a spirit indwelling in the pure element. Presently, denser118 trees hold back the wind save in their tempestuous119 crests120, and now the road is carpeted with pine needles and nothing can be seen or felt but the engulfing121 sound of wind and rain. The pines are interrupted by tall bracken, hollies and thorns, by necks of turf and isolated122 hawthorns[218] thereon; and far away the light after rain billows grandly over the mounded forest. Many a golden stream pours through the dark trees. Oaks succeed, closing in lichened123 multitudes about a grassy-rutted ferny road, but suddenly giving way to beeches pallid124 and huge. One lies prone125 across the road, still green of leaf, having torn up a mound79 of earth and bracken and bramble as large as a house in its upheaval126. Others have lost great branches, and the mossy earth is ploughed by their fall. They seem to have fought in the night and to be slumbering127 with dreams of battle to come; and their titanic128 passions keep far away the influence of the blue sky and silver clouds that laugh out unconcerned after the rain.
After them birches and birchlings grow out of the heather backed by a solid wall of oaks. And again there are many beeches over mossy golden turf, and one tree of symmetrical rounded foliage makes a circle of shade where nothing grows, but all about it a crowd of dwarf129 brackens twinkle and look like listeners at an oracle130. Beyond, countless131 pillars of dark pines tower above green grass. Then the road forks; a shapely oak, still holding up dead arms through clouds of greenery, stands at one side; at the other a green road wanders away under beeches in stately attitudes and at ceremonious distance from one another: straight ahead, open low meadows surround a reedy water where coot and moorhen cry to each other among willow94 islets and the reflex of a bright and windy heaven. And yet once more the road pierces the dense woodland roar, form and colour buried as it were in sound, except where a space of smoothest turf expands from the road, and out of the crimson berries of an old thorn comes the voice of a robin132 singing persist[219]ently; and past that, inevitably133, is a cottage among the beeches. More cottages are set in the moorland that rolls to an horizon of ridgy134 oak away from small green meadows behind the cottages. These give way to treeless undulations like gigantic long barrows, coloured by sand, by burnt gorse and by bracken; farther away a wooded hump all dark under threatenings of storm; and farthest of all, the Downs, serene135 and pale. The plough begins to invade the forest. The undulations sink to rest in a land of corn and cloud, of dark green levels, of windy whitened abeles, and a shining flood gilded136 by a lofty western sky of gold and grey. Beside the darkling waters couches an old town with many windows looking under thatch and tile upon grave streets, ending in a spread of the river where great horses wading137 lift their knees high as they splash under a long avenue of aspens and alarm the moorhens. Beautiful looks the running river under the night’s hunting of the clouds and the few bright stars, and beautiful again, broad blue, or streaked138, or shadowy, or glittering, or reed-reflecting, beside a white mill or company of willows, under the breezes and pearl of dawn; and I wish there were a form for saluting139 a new country’s gods and the adhuc ignota ... flumina.
Two roads go northward140 against the stream; the main road straight or in long curves on one side of the river, the other on the opposite bank in a string of fragments zigzagging141 east and west and north. These fragments connect houses or groups of houses with one another, and it looks as if only by accident they had made the whole which now connects two towns. Their chief business is to serve the wheels and feet of those bound upon domestic or hamlet but not urban business. Seen upon[220] the map the road sets out straight for a town far north; but in two miles the hospitality of a great house seems to draw it aside, then of “The Plough”; emerging again it wanders awhile before returning to its northward line; and this it does time after time, and as often as it pauses a lesser143 road runs out of it to the great road across the river. There are scores of such parallel roads—sometimes the lesser is in part, or entirely144, a footpath—in England, and in avoiding the dust, the smell, the noise, the insolence145 of the new traffic, the lesser are an invaluable146 aid. This one proceeds without rise or fall through the green river levels, but looks up to a ridge76 of white-scarred purple moor away from the stream, with oak and thatched cottages below the heather. It creeps in and out like an old cottage woman at a fair and sees everything. It sees all the farms and barns. It sees the portly brick house and its gardens bounded by high fruit walls and its walnut147-trees in front, on the bank of a golden brook148 that sings under elms and sallows; the twenty-four long white windows, the decent white porch, the large lawns, the pond and its waterfowl sounding in the reeds, the oaks and acacias, the horse mowing149 the lawn lazily, the dogs barking behind the Elizabethan stables. It sees the broad grassy borders—for this is not a road cut by a skimping150 tailor—and the woods of oak and ash and hazel which the squirrel owns, chiding151, clucking and angrily flirting152 his tail at those who would like to share his nuts. At every crossing road these grassy borders, which are in places as broad as meadows so that cattle graze under their elms, spread out into a green; and round about are yellow thatched cottages with gardens full of scarlet bean flowers and yellow dahlias; and a pond reflects the[221] blue and white sky, wagtails flutter at the edge and geese launch themselves as if for a voyage. The only sound upon the road is made by the baker’s cart carrying a fragrant153 load.
After ten miles the road crosses the river and wanders even farther from the highway. Here there are more woods of hazel and oak, and borders where sloe and blackberry shine, polished by rain, among herbage of yellow ragwort and flea-bane, purple knapweed, yellowing leaves. The gateways154 show steep meadows between the woods. One shows two lovers of sixteen years old gathering156 nuts in the warm sun, the silence, the solitude. The boy bends down and she steps quickly and carelessly upon his back to reach a cluster of six, and then descending157 looks away for a little while and turns her left cheek to him, softly smiling wordless things to herself, so that her lover could not but lean forward and kiss her golden skin where it is most beautiful beneath her ear and her looped black hair. There is a maid whose ways are so wonderful and desirable that it would not be more wonderful and desirable if Helen had never grown old and Demeter had kept Persephone. For a day white-throated convolvulus hides all the nettles of life. Of all the delicate passing things I have seen and heard—the slow, languid, gracious closing and unclosing of a pewit’s rounded wings as it chooses a clod to alight on; the sound of poplar leaves striving with the sound of rain in a windy summer shower; the glow of elms where an autumn rainbow sets a foot amongst them; the first fire of September lighted among men and books and flowers—not one survives to compare with this gateway155 vision of a moment on a road I shall never travel again. To rescue[222] such scenes from time is one of the most blessed offices of books, and it is a book that I remember now as I think of that maiden158 smiling, a book[5] which says—
And I could tell thee stories that would make thee laugh at all thy trouble, and take thee to a land of which thou hast never dreamed. Where the trees have ever blossoms, and are noisy with the humming of intoxicated160 bees. Where by day the suns are never burning, and by night the moon-stones ooze161 with nectar in the rays of the camphor-laden moon. Where the blue lakes are filled with rows of silver swans, and where, on steps of lapis-lazuli, the peacocks dance in agitation162 at the murmur163 of the thunder in the hills. Where the lightning flashes without harming, to light the way to women, stealing in the darkness to meetings with their lovers, and the rainbow hangs for ever like an opal on the dark blue curtain of the clouds. Where, on the moonlit roofs of crystal palaces, pairs of lovers laugh at the reflection of each other’s lovesick faces in goblets164 of red wine, breathing as they drink air heavy with the fragrance of the sandal, wafted165 from the mountain of the south. Where they play and pelt166 each other with emeralds and rubies167, fetched at the churning of the ocean from the bottom of the sea. Where rivers, whose sands are always golden, flow slowly past long lines of silent cranes that hunt for silver fishes in the rushes on their banks. Where men are true, and maidens168 love for ever, and the lotus never fades....
The great old books do the same a hundred times. Take The Arabian Nights for example. They are full of persons, places and events depicted169 with so strong an appeal to our eyes and to that part of our intelligence[223] which by its swiftness and simplicity170 corresponds to our eyes, that no conceivable malversation by a translator can matter much. They are proof against it, just as our tables and chairs and walking-sticks are proof against the man who tears our books and cracks our glass cases of artificial grapes or stuffed kingfishers when we move to a new house. This group of women is beyond the reach of time or an indifferent style—
Ten female slaves approached with a graceful171 and conceited172 gait, resembling moons, dazzling the sight, and confounding the imagination. They stood in ranks, looking like the black-eyed damsels of Paradise; and after them came ten other female slaves, with lutes in their hands, and other instruments of diversion and mirth; and they saluted173 the two guests, and played upon the lutes, and sang verses; and every one of them was a temptation to the servants of God....
A hundred others flock to my mind, competing for mention like a company of doves for a mere33 pinch of seed—Rose-in-Bloom sitting at a lattice to watch the young men playing at ball, and throwing an apple to Ansal Wajoud, “bright in countenance174, with laughing teeth, generous, wide-shouldered”; or that same girl letting herself down from her prison and escaping over the desert in her most magnificent apparel and a necklace of jewels on her neck; Sindbad returning home rich from every voyage, and as often, in the midst of the luxuries of his rest, going down to the river by Bagdad and seeing a fair new ship and embarking175 for the sake of profit and of beholding176 the countries and islands of the world.
These clear appeals come into the tales like white[224] statues suddenly carven to our sight among green branches. But they are also something more than a satisfaction to our love of what is large, bright, coloured, in high relief. Every one knows how, at a passage like that in the ?neid, when the exiled ?neas sees upon the new walls of the remote city of Carthage pictures of that strife178 about Troy in which he was a great part, or at a verse in a ballad179 like—
“It was na in the ha’, the ha’;
But it was in the good greenwood,
Amang the lily flower.”
—how the cheek flushes and the heart leaps up with a pleasure which the incidents themselves hardly justify181. We seem to recognize in them symbols or images of ideas which are important to mortal minds. They are of a significance beyond allegories. They are as powerful, and usually as mysterious in their power, as the landscape at sight of which the gazer sighs in his joy, he knows not why. In such passages the Nights abound183.
One of the finest is in Seifelmolouk and Bedia Eljemal. The hero and his memlooks were captured by a gigantic Ethiopian king. Some were eaten. The survivors184 so pleased the king by the sweetness of their voices while they were crying and lamenting185 that they were hung up in cages for the king to hear them. Seifelmolouk and three of his companions the king gave to his daughter, and when the youth sat thinking of the happy past, and crying over it, she was overjoyed at the singing of her little captive. Perhaps more pleasing still is the door in the grass which has only to be removed to discover a splendid subterranean186 palace and a “woman whose aspect[225] banished187 from the heart all anxiety and grief and affliction,” even when the finder is the son of a king cutting wood in a forest, far from his lost home and from those who know him as the son of a king. The incognito188 appearances of the great Caliph make scenes of the same class. A young man sits with his mistress, and the sound of her lovely singing draws four darwishes to the door; he descends189 and lets them in; they promise to do him an immense and undreamed-of service—
“Now these darwishes,” says the tale, “were the Khalifeh Harun Er-Rashid, and the Wezir Ja’far El-Barmeki, and Abu-Nuwas El-Hasan, the son of Hani, and Mesrur the Executioner.”
Then there is that page where Nimeh and the Persian sage177 open a shop in Damascus, and stock it with costly190 things, and the sage sits with the astrolabe before him, “in the apparel of sages182 and physicians”—to wait for Nimeh’s lover, or some one who has news of her, to appear. Of a more subtly appealing charm is a sentence in the story of “Ala-ed-din,” where a man tells the father of one who is supposed to have been executed that another was actually slain191 in his stead, “for I ransomed192 him, by substituting another, from among such as deserved to be put to death.” A good book might be made of the stories of such poor unknown men in famous books as this prisoner who was of those that deserved to die.
Lofty, strange, and infinite in its suggestiveness is the tale of Kamar-ez-Zeman and the Princess Budur. Two demons193, an Efrit and an Efritch, contend as to the superiority in beauty of a youth and a girl whom they watch asleep in widely remote parts of the earth; and[226] they carry them through the midnight sky and lay the two side by side to judge. On the morrow, the youth longs for the girl and the girl for the youth. Of their dreams, the King, the father of the youth, says: “Probably it was a confused dream that thou sawest in sleep,” and the father of the girl chains her up as mad. But in the end, after many wanderings and impediments, they transcend194 the separation of space and are married. Noblest of all, perhaps, is one of the short “Anecdotes” about the discovery of a terrestrial paradise.
Abd-allah went out to seek a straying camel, and chanced upon a superb and high-walled city lying silent in the desert. And when the Caliph inquired about that city, a learned man told him that it was built by Sheddad, the King. This prince was fond of ancient books, and took delight in nothing so much as in descriptions of Paradise, so that his heart enticed195 him to make one like it on the earth. Under him were a hundred thousand kings, and under each of them were a hundred thousand soldiers, and he furnished them with the measurements and set them to collect the materials of gold and silver and ruby196 and pearl and chrysolite. For twenty years they collected. Then he sought a fit place among rivers on a vast open plain. In twenty years they built the city and finished its impregnable fortifications. For twenty years he laboured in equipping himself, his viziers, his harem and his troops for the occupation of this Paradise. Then when he was rejoicing on his way, “God sent down upon him and upon the obstinate197 infidels who accompanied him a loud cry from the heaven of his power, and it destroyed them all by the vehemence198 of its sound. Neither Sheddad nor any of those who[227] were with him arrived at the city or came in sight of it, and God obliterated199 the traces of the road that led to it; but the city remaineth as it was in its place until the hour of the judgment200.”...
Beyond the gateway the Downland and the corn begins, and with it the rain, so that the great yellow-banded bee hangs long pensive201 on the lilac flower of the scabious. Hereby is a farm with a wise look in its narrow window on either side of the white door under the porch; the walls of the garden and the farmyard are topped with thatch; opposite rises up a medlar tree, russet-fruited: and those two eyes of the little farm peep out at the stranger. From the next hill-top the land spreads out suddenly—an immense grey hedgeless land of pasture and ploughland and stubble with broadcast shadows of clouds and lines, and clumps202 of dark-blue trees a league apart. These woods are of pine and thorn and elder and beam, and some yew and juniper, haunted by the hare and the kestrel, by white butterflies going in and out, by the dandelion’s down. Sometimes under the pines a tumulus whispers a gentle siste viator and the robin sings beside. Far away, white rounds of cloud bursting with sunlight are lifted up out of the ground; born of earth they pause a little upon the ridge and then take flight into the blue profound, their trains of shadow moving over the corn sheaves, over the ploughs working along brown bands of soil, the furzy spaces, the deeply cloven grassy undulations, the lines of yews203 and of corn-stacks. Slowly a spire204 like a lance-head is thrust up through the Downs into the sky.
Beyond the spire a huge woody mound rises up from the low flowing land, huge and carved all round by an[228] entrenchment205 as if by the weight of a crown that it had worn for ages. Certainly it wears no crown to-day. Not a human being lives there; they have all fled to the riverside and the spire, leaving their ancient home to the triumphs of the wide-flowering traveller’s-joy, to the play of children on the sward within its walls, and to the arch?ologist: and very sad and very noble it looks at night when it and the surrounding Downs lift up their dark domes142 of wood among the mountains of the sky, and the great silence hammers upon the ears.
Then a hedgeless road traverses without interrupting the long Downs. One after another, lines of trees thin and dark and old come out against the pale bright sky of late afternoon and file away, beyond the green turf and roots and the grey or yellow stubble. As the sun sets, dull crimson, at the foot of a muslin of grey and gold which his course has crimsoned206, the low clouds on the horizon in the north become a deathly blue white belonging neither to day nor to night, while overhead the light-combed cloudlets are touched faintly with flame. Now the glory and the power of the colour in the west, and now the pallid north, fill the brain to overflowing208 with the mingling209 of distance, of sublime210 motion, and of hue211, and intoxicate159 it and give it wings, until at last when the west is crossed by long sloping strata212 as of lava213 long cooled they seem the bars of a cage impassable. But even they are at last worn away and the sky is as nothing compared with earth. For there, as I move, the infinite greys and yellows of the crops, the grass, the bare earth, the clumps of firs, the lines of beeches and oaks, play together in the twilight, and the hills meet and lose their lines and flow into one another and build up beautiful lines anew, the[229] outward and visible signs of a great thought. Out of the darkness in which they are submerged starts a crying of pewits and partridges; and overhead and close together the wild duck fly west into the cold gilded blue.
At dawn a shallow crystal river runs over stones and waves green hair past ancient walls of flint, tall towers and many windows, with vines about the mullions, past desolate214 grass of old elmy meads, high-gated, and umbrageous215 roads winding white by carven gateways, under sycamore and elm and ash and many alders216 and haughty217 avenues of limes, past an old great church, past a park where elms and oaks and bushy limes hide a ruin among nettles and almost hide a large stone house from which peacocks shout, past a white farm, red-tiled, that stands with a village of its own thatched barns, cart-lodges and sheds under walnut and elm, enclosed within a circuit of old brick with a tower that looks along the waters. It is a place where man has known how to aid his own stateliness by that of Nature. The trees are grand and innumerable, but they stand about in aristocratic ways; the bright young water does not flout218 the old walls but takes the shadow of antiquity219 from them and lends them dew-dropping verdure in return. The pebbles220 under the waves are half of them fallen from the walls; the curves round which they bend are of masonry221; so that it is unapparent and indifferent whether the masonry has been made to fit the stream or the stream persuaded to admit the masonry. As I look, I think of it as Statius thought of the Surrentine villa59 when he prayed that Earth would be kind to it and not throw off that ennobling yoke222. Everywhere the river rushes and shines, or roars unseen behind trees. The sun is warm and the[230] golden light hangs as if it were fruit among the leaves over the ripples.
Above the stream the elms open apart and disclose a wandering grey land and clumps of beeches, a grey windy land and a grey windy sky in which the dark clumps are islanded. Flocks of sheep move to and fro, and with them the swallows. Two shepherds, their heavy grey overcoats slung223 about their shoulders and the sleeves dangling224, their flat rush baskets on their backs, stand twenty yards apart to talk, leaning on their sticks, while their swallow-haunted flocks go more slowly and their two dogs converse225 and walk round one another.
The oats have been trampled226 by rain, and two men are reaping it by hand. They are not men of the farm, but rovers who take their chance and have done other things than reaping in their time. One is a Hampshire man, but fought with the Wiltshires against “Johnny Boer”—he liked the Boers ... “they were very much like a lot of working men.... We never beat ’em.... No, we never beat ’em.” He is a man of heroic build; tall, lean, rather deep-chested than broad-shouldered, narrow in the loins, with goodly calves227 which his old riding breeches perfectly228 display; his head is small, his hair short and crisp and fair, his cheeks and neck darkly tanned, his eye bright blue and quick-moving, his features strong and good, except his mouth, which is over large and loose; very ready to talk, which he does continually in a great proud male voice, however hard he is working. A man as lean and hard and bright as his reaping hook. First he snicks off a dozen straws and lays them on the ground for a bond, then he slashes229 fast along the edge of the corn for two or three yards, gathers up what is cut into his hook and[231] lays it across the straws: when a dozen sheaves are prepared in the same way he binds230 them with the bonds and builds them into a stook of two rows leaning together. It is impossible to work faster and harder than he does in cutting and binding231; only at the end of each dozen sheaves does he stand at his full height, straight as an ash, and laugh, and round off what he has been saying even more vigorously than he began it. Then crouching232 again he slays233 twelve other sheaves. Then he goes over to the four-and-a-half-gallon cask in the hedge: it is a “fuel” that he likes, and he pays for it himself. In his walk and attitude and talk—except in his accent—there is little of the countryman. He is a citizen of the world, without wife or home or any tie except to toil—and after that pleasure—and toil again. A loose bold liver—and lover—there can be no doubt. The spirit of life is strong in him, in limbs and chest and eyes and brain, the spirit which compels one man to paint a picture, one to sacrifice his life for another, one to endure poverty for an idea, another to commit a murder. What is there for him—to be the mark for a bullet, to contract a ravenous234 disease, to bend slowly under the increasing pile of years, of work, of pleasures? He does not care. He is always seeing “a bit of life” from town to town, from county to county, a peerless fleshly man casting himself away as carelessly as Nature cast him forth235 into the world. His father before him was the same, ploughboy, circus rider, brickmaker, and day labourer again on the land, one who always “looked for a policeman when he had had a quart.” He set out on his travels again and disappeared. His wife went another way, and she is still to be met with in the summer weather, not looking as if she had ever borne such a son[232] as this reaper236. As she grows older she seems to stretch out a connecting hand to long-vanished generations, to the men and women who raised the huge earthen walls of the camps on these hills. She has a trembling small face, wrinkled and yellow like old newspaper, above a windy bunch of rags, chiefly black rags. A Welshwoman who has been in England fifty years, she remembers or thinks of chiefly those Welsh years when, as a girl, she rode a pony into Neath market. She hums a Welsh tune237 and still laughs at it because she heard it first in those days from one then poor and old and abject—she herself tall and wilful—and the words of it were: “O, my dear boy, don’t get married.” She would like once again to lie in her warm bed and hear the steady rain falling in the black night upon the mountain. She feels the sharp flint against the sole of her foot and appears not to be annoyed or indignant or resolved to be rid of the pain, but only puzzled by the flintiness of God as she travels, in the long pageant238 of those who go on living, the lonely downland road among the gorse and the foxgloves, in the hot but still misty239 morning when the grey and the chestnut240 horses, patient and huge and shining among the sheaves, wait for the reaping machine to be uncovered and the day’s work to begin.
Through the grey land goes a narrow and flat vale of grass and of thatched cottages. The river winds among willows and makes a green world, out of which the Downs rise suddenly with their wheat. Here stands a farm with dormers in its high yellow roof and a square of beeches round about. There a village, even its walls thatched, flutters white linen and blue smoke against a huge chalk scoop241 in the Downs behind. For miles only[233] the cherry-coloured clusters of the guelder-rose break through the rain and the gently changing grey of the cornland and green of the valley, until several farms of thatched brick gather together under elms and mellowing242 chestnuts243 and make a crooked hamlet. Or at a bend in the road a barn like a diminutive244 down stands among ricks and under elms; behind is a red farm and church tower embowered; in front, the threshing machine booms and smokes and an old drenched245 woman stands bent aloft receiving the sheaves in her blue stiff claws. Close by, a man leads a horse away from a field and its companion looks over the gate with longing207, and turns away and again returning almost jumps it, but failing through fearfulness at seeing the other so near the bend in the road, races down the hedge and back and stands listening to the other’s whinny, and then scattering246 the turf dashes into an orchard247 beyond and whinnies as he gallops248.
In majesty249, rigid250 and black, the steam ploughs are working up against the treeless sky; and, just seen in the rain, the white horse carved upon the hill seems a living thing, but of mist.
Now, as if for the sake of the evening bells and the gleaners, the rain withholds251 itself, and over the drenching252 stubble the women and children, in black and grey and dirty white, crawl, doubled up, careless of the bells and of the soft moist gold of the sun that envelops253 them, as of the rain and wind that after a little while cover up the gold upon the field and the green and rose of the sky.
And so to the inn. Why do not inns have a regular tariff254 for the poorish man without a motor-car? Let inn-keepers bleed the rich, by all means, but why should they charge me one shilling and ninepence for a cod255 steak or a[234] chop or the uneatable cold roast beef of new England, and then charge the same sum for the best part of a duckling and cheese and a pint256 of ale? I once asked the most enterprising publisher in London whether he would print a book that should tell the sober truth about some of our English inns, and he said that he dared not do anything so horrible. For fear of ruining my publisher I will not mention names, but simply say that at nine inns out of ten the charges are incalculable and excessive unless the traveller makes a point of asking beforehand what they are going to be, a course that provokes discomfort257 in his relation to the host outweighing258 what is saved. The tea room, on the other hand, is inexpensive. It lies behind a shop and there is a slaughter-house adjacent—even now the butcher can be heard parting the warm hide from the flesh. Inside, the room is green and the little light and the rain also come sickly through windows of stained glass and fall upon a piano, a bicycle, an embroidered259 deck chair, vases of dead grass on a marble-topped table, a screen pasted over with scraps260 from the newspapers, and, upon the walls, a calendar from the butcher depicting261 a well-dressed love scene, a text or two, pictures of well-dressed children and their animals, and upon the floor, oilcloth odorous and wet. Here, as at the inns, the adornments are dictated262 by a taste begotten263 by the union of peasant taste and town taste, and are entirely pretentious264 and unrelated to the needs of the host or of the guests.
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1
beech
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| n.山毛榉；adj.山毛榉的 | |
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beeches
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| n.山毛榉( beech的名词复数 )；山毛榉木材 | |
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strings
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| n.弦 | |
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scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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stony
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| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
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hurdled
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| vi.克服困难（hurdle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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laurels
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| n.桂冠，荣誉 | |
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beholds
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| v.看，注视( behold的第三人称单数 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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iceberg
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| n.冰山，流冰，冷冰冰的人 | |
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grassy
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| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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farmhouse
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| n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房） | |
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bereaved
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| adj.刚刚丧失亲人的v.使失去（希望、生命等）( bereave的过去式和过去分词)；（尤指死亡）使丧失（亲人、朋友等）；使孤寂；抢走（财物） | |
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poultry
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| n.家禽，禽肉 | |
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bungalows
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| n.平房( bungalow的名词复数 )；单层小屋，多于一层的小屋 | |
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hanger
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| n.吊架，吊轴承；挂钩 | |
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complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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drooping
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| adj. 下垂的，无力的 动词droop的现在分词 | |
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filched
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| v.偷（尤指小的或不贵重的物品）( filch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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flannel
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| n.法兰绒；法兰绒衣服 | |
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majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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glades
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| n.林中空地( glade的名词复数 ) | |
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tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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nettles
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| n.荨麻( nettle的名词复数 ) | |
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translucent
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| adj.半透明的；透明的 | |
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moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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thatch
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| vt.用茅草覆盖…的顶部；n.茅草(屋) | |
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30
aloof
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| adj.远离的；冷淡的，漠不关心的 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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knotty
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| adj.有结的，多节的，多瘤的，棘手的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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trumpery
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| n.无价值的杂物；adj.（物品）中看不中用的 | |
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density
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| n.密集，密度，浓度 | |
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larder
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| n.食物贮藏室，食品橱 | |
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wraith
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| n.幽灵；骨瘦如柴的人 | |
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toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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plies
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| v.使用（工具）( ply的第三人称单数 )；经常供应（食物、饮料）；固定往来；经营生意 | |
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axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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44
sleek
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| adj.光滑的，井然有序的；v.使光滑，梳拢 | |
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45
incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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46
groom
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| vt.给（马、狗等）梳毛，照料，使...整洁 | |
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47
regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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48
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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49
shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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50
foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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51
triangular
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| adj.三角（形）的，三者间的 | |
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52
grooved
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| v.沟( groove的过去式和过去分词 )；槽；老一套；（某种）音乐节奏 | |
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53
lichen
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| n.地衣, 青苔 | |
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yew
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| n.紫杉属树木 | |
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maple
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| n.槭树，枫树，槭木 | |
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56
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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57
surmounted
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| 战胜( surmount的过去式和过去分词 )； 克服（困难）； 居于…之上； 在…顶上 | |
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plume
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| n.羽毛；v.整理羽毛，骚首弄姿，用羽毛装饰 | |
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villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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pervading
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| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的现在分词 ) | |
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61
anvil
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| n.铁钻 | |
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underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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sprawls
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| n.（城市）杂乱无序拓展的地区( sprawl的名词复数 )；随意扩展；蔓延物v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的第三人称单数 )；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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64
chuckles
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的名词复数 ) | |
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dummies
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| n.仿制品( dummy的名词复数 )；橡皮奶头；笨蛋；假传球 | |
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66
crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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67
meander
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| n.河流的曲折，漫步，迂回旅行；v.缓慢而弯曲地流动，漫谈 | |
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68
munch
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| v.用力嚼，大声咀嚼 | |
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perpendicular
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| adj.垂直的，直立的；n.垂直线，垂直的位置 | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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72
tottering
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| adj.蹒跚的，动摇的v.走得或动得不稳( totter的现在分词 )；踉跄；蹒跚；摇摇欲坠 | |
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prosecuted
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| a.被起诉的 | |
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verge
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| n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临 | |
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75
ridges
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| n.脊( ridge的名词复数 )；山脊；脊状突起；大气层的)高压脊 | |
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ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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77
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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79
mound
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| n.土墩，堤，小山；v.筑堤，用土堆防卫 | |
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80
moody
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| adj.心情不稳的，易怒的，喜怒无常的 | |
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81
pony
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| adj.小型的；n.小马 | |
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82
crouch
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| v.蹲伏，蜷缩，低头弯腰；n.蹲伏 | |
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83
leeward
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| adj.背风的；下风的 | |
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84
pathos
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| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
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85
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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86
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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87
alluring
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| adj.吸引人的，迷人的 | |
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88
shrouds
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| n.裹尸布( shroud的名词复数 )；寿衣；遮蔽物；覆盖物v.隐瞒( shroud的第三人称单数 )；保密 | |
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89
pane
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| n.窗格玻璃，长方块 | |
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90
sodden
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| adj.浑身湿透的；v.使浸透；使呆头呆脑 | |
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91
marsh
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| n.沼泽，湿地 | |
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92
ripples
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| 逐渐扩散的感觉( ripple的名词复数 ) | |
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93
willows
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| n.柳树( willow的名词复数 )；柳木 | |
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94
willow
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| n.柳树 | |
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95
blenching
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| v.（因惊吓而）退缩，惊悸( blench的现在分词 )；（使）变白，（使）变苍白 | |
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96
crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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97
solitudes
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| n.独居( solitude的名词复数 )；孤独；荒僻的地方；人迹罕至的地方 | |
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98
reigns
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| n.君主的统治( reign的名词复数 )；君主统治时期；任期；当政期 | |
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99
onset
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| n.进攻，袭击，开始，突然开始 | |
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100
rippling
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| 起涟漪的，潺潺流水般声音的 | |
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101
deafens
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| 使聋( deafen的第三人称单数 )； 使隔音 | |
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102
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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103
fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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104
bog
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| n.沼泽；室...陷入泥淖 | |
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105
moor
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| n.荒野，沼泽；vt.(使)停泊；vi.停泊 | |
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106
gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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107
stiffening
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| n. (使衣服等)变硬的材料, 硬化 动词stiffen的现在分词形式 | |
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108
hollies
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| n.冬青（常绿灌木，叶尖而硬，有光泽，冬季结红色浆果）( holly的名词复数 )；（用作圣诞节饰物的）冬青树枝 | |
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109
coeval
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| adj.同时代的；n.同时代的人或事物 | |
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110
ivy
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| n.常青藤，常春藤 | |
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111
plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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112
fungus
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| n.真菌，真菌类植物 | |
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113
myriad
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| adj.无数的；n.无数，极大数量 | |
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114
hawthorns
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| n.山楂树( hawthorn的名词复数 ) | |
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115
swarming
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| 密集( swarm的现在分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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116
tranquil
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| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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117
lucid
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| adj.明白易懂的，清晰的，头脑清楚的 | |
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118
denser
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| adj. 不易看透的, 密集的, 浓厚的, 愚钝的 | |
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119
tempestuous
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| adj.狂暴的 | |
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120
crests
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| v.到达山顶（或浪峰）( crest的第三人称单数 )；到达洪峰，达到顶点 | |
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121
engulfing
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| adj.吞噬的v.吞没，包住( engulf的现在分词 ) | |
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122
isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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123
lichened
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| adj.长满地衣的，长青苔的 | |
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124
pallid
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| adj.苍白的，呆板的 | |
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125
prone
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| adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的 | |
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126
upheaval
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| n.胀起，(地壳)的隆起；剧变，动乱 | |
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127
slumbering
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| 微睡，睡眠（slumber的现在分词形式） | |
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128
titanic
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| adj.巨人的，庞大的，强大的 | |
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129
dwarf
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| n.矮子，侏儒，矮小的动植物；vt.使…矮小 | |
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130
oracle
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| n.神谕，神谕处，预言 | |
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131
countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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132
robin
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| n.知更鸟，红襟鸟 | |
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133
inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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134
ridgy
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| adj.有脊的；有棱纹的；隆起的；有埂的 | |
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135
serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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136
gilded
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| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
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137
wading
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| （从水、泥等）蹚，走过，跋( wade的现在分词 ) | |
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138
streaked
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| adj.有条斑纹的，不安的v.快速移动( streak的过去式和过去分词 )；使布满条纹 | |
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139
saluting
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| v.欢迎，致敬( salute的现在分词 )；赞扬，赞颂 | |
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140
northward
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| adv.向北；n.北方的地区 | |
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141
zigzagging
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| v.弯弯曲曲地走路，曲折地前进( zigzag的现在分词 )；盘陀 | |
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142
domes
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| n.圆屋顶( dome的名词复数 )；像圆屋顶一样的东西；圆顶体育场 | |
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143
lesser
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| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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144
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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145
insolence
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| n.傲慢；无礼；厚颜；傲慢的态度 | |
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146
invaluable
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| adj.无价的，非常宝贵的，极为贵重的 | |
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147
walnut
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| n.胡桃，胡桃木，胡桃色，茶色 | |
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148
brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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149
mowing
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| n.割草，一次收割量，牧草地v.刈，割( mow的现在分词 ) | |
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150
skimping
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| v.少用( skimp的现在分词 )；少给；克扣；节省 | |
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151
chiding
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| v.责骂，责备( chide的现在分词 ) | |
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152
flirting
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| v.调情，打情骂俏( flirt的现在分词 ) | |
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153
fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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154
gateways
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| n.网关( gateway的名词复数 )；门径；方法；大门口 | |
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155
gateway
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| n.大门口，出入口，途径，方法 | |
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156
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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157
descending
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|
| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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158
maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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159
intoxicate
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| vt.使喝醉，使陶醉，使欣喜若狂 | |
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160
intoxicated
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| 喝醉的，极其兴奋的 | |
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161
ooze
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| n.软泥，渗出物；vi.渗出，泄漏；vt.慢慢渗出，流露 | |
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162
agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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163
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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164
goblets
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| n.高脚酒杯( goblet的名词复数 ) | |
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165
wafted
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| v.吹送，飘送，（使）浮动( waft的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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166
pelt
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| v.投掷，剥皮，抨击，开火 | |
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167
rubies
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| 红宝石( ruby的名词复数 )； 红宝石色，深红色 | |
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168
maidens
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| 处女( maiden的名词复数 )； 少女； 未婚女子； （板球运动）未得分的一轮投球 | |
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169
depicted
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| 描绘，描画( depict的过去式和过去分词 )； 描述 | |
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170
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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171
graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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172
conceited
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| adj.自负的，骄傲自满的 | |
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173
saluted
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| v.欢迎，致敬( salute的过去式和过去分词 )；赞扬，赞颂 | |
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174
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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175
embarking
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| 乘船( embark的现在分词 )； 装载； 从事 | |
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176
beholding
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| v.看，注视( behold的现在分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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177
sage
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| n.圣人，哲人；adj.贤明的，明智的 | |
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178
strife
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| n.争吵，冲突，倾轧，竞争 | |
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179
ballad
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| n.歌谣，民谣，流行爱情歌曲 | |
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180
bower
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| n.凉亭，树荫下凉快之处；闺房；v.荫蔽 | |
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181
justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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182
sages
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| n.圣人( sage的名词复数 )；智者；哲人；鼠尾草（可用作调料） | |
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183
abound
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| vi.大量存在；(in，with)充满，富于 | |
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184
survivors
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| 幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 ) | |
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185
lamenting
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| adj.悲伤的，悲哀的v.（为…）哀悼，痛哭，悲伤( lament的现在分词 ) | |
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186
subterranean
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| adj.地下的，地表下的 | |
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187
banished
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| v.放逐，驱逐( banish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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188
incognito
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| adv.匿名地；n.隐姓埋名；adj.化装的，用假名的，隐匿姓名身份的 | |
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189
descends
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| v.下来( descend的第三人称单数 )；下去；下降；下斜 | |
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190
costly
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| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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191
slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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192
ransomed
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| 付赎金救人，赎金( ransom的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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193
demons
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| n.恶人( demon的名词复数 )；恶魔；精力过人的人；邪念 | |
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194
transcend
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| vt.超出，超越(理性等)的范围 | |
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195
enticed
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| 诱惑，怂恿( entice的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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196
ruby
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| n.红宝石，红宝石色 | |
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197
obstinate
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| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
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198
vehemence
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| n.热切；激烈；愤怒 | |
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199
obliterated
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| v.除去( obliterate的过去式和过去分词 )；涂去；擦掉；彻底破坏或毁灭 | |
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200
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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201
pensive
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| a.沉思的,哀思的,忧沉的 | |
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202
clumps
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| 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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203
yews
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| n.紫杉( yew的名词复数 ) | |
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204
spire
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| n.(教堂)尖顶，尖塔，高点 | |
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205
entrenchment
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| n.壕沟，防御设施 | |
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206
crimsoned
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| 变为深红色（crimson的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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207
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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208
overflowing
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| n. 溢出物,溢流 adj. 充沛的，充满的 动词overflow的现在分词形式 | |
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209
mingling
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| adj.混合的 | |
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210
sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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211
hue
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| n.色度；色调；样子 | |
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212
strata
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| n.地层（复数）；社会阶层 | |
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213
lava
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| n.熔岩，火山岩 | |
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214
desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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215
umbrageous
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| adj.多荫的 | |
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216
alders
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| n.桤木( alder的名词复数 ) | |
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217
haughty
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| adj.傲慢的，高傲的 | |
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218
flout
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| v./n.嘲弄，愚弄，轻视 | |
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219
antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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220
pebbles
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| [复数]鹅卵石； 沙砾； 卵石，小圆石( pebble的名词复数 ) | |
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221
masonry
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| n.砖土建筑；砖石 | |
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222
yoke
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| n.轭；支配；v.给...上轭，连接，使成配偶 | |
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223
slung
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| 抛( sling的过去式和过去分词 )； 吊挂； 遣送； 押往 | |
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224
dangling
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| 悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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225
converse
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| vi.谈话，谈天，闲聊；adv.相反的，相反 | |
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226
trampled
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| 踩( trample的过去式和过去分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯 | |
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227
calves
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| n.(calf的复数)笨拙的男子，腓；腿肚子( calf的名词复数 )；牛犊；腓；小腿肚v.生小牛( calve的第三人称单数 )；（冰川）崩解；生（小牛等），产（犊）；使（冰川）崩解 | |
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228
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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229
slashes
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| n.（用刀等）砍( slash的名词复数 )；（长而窄的）伤口；斜杠；撒尿v.挥砍( slash的第三人称单数 )；鞭打；割破；削减 | |
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230
binds
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| v.约束( bind的第三人称单数 )；装订；捆绑；（用长布条）缠绕 | |
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231
binding
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| 有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的 | |
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232
crouching
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的现在分词 ) | |
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233
slays
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的第三人称单数 ) | |
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234
ravenous
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| adj.极饿的，贪婪的 | |
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235
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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236
reaper
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| n.收割者，收割机 | |
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237
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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238
pageant
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| n.壮观的游行；露天历史剧 | |
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239
misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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240
chestnut
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| n.栗树，栗子 | |
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241
scoop
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| n.铲子，舀取，独家新闻；v.汲取，舀取，抢先登出 | |
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242
mellowing
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| 软化，醇化 | |
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243
chestnuts
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| n.栗子( chestnut的名词复数 )；栗色；栗树；栗色马 | |
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244
diminutive
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| adj.小巧可爱的，小的 | |
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245
drenched
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| adj.湿透的；充满的v.使湿透( drench的过去式和过去分词 )；在某人（某物）上大量使用（某液体） | |
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246
scattering
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| n.[物]散射；散乱，分散；在媒介质中的散播adj.散乱的；分散在不同范围的；广泛扩散的；（选票）数量分散的v.散射(scatter的ing形式)；散布；驱散 | |
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247
orchard
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| n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场 | |
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248
gallops
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| （马等）奔驰，骑马奔驰( gallop的名词复数 ) | |
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249
majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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250
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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251
withholds
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| v.扣留( withhold的第三人称单数 )；拒绝给予；抑制（某事物）；制止 | |
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252
drenching
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| n.湿透v.使湿透( drench的现在分词 )；在某人（某物）上大量使用（某液体） | |
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253
envelops
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的第三人称单数 ) | |
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254
tariff
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| n.关税，税率；(旅馆、饭店等)价目表，收费表 | |
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255
cod
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| n.鳕鱼；v.愚弄；哄骗 | |
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256
pint
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| n.品脱 | |
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257
discomfort
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| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
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258
outweighing
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| v.在重量上超过( outweigh的现在分词 )；在重要性或价值方面超过 | |
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259
embroidered
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| adj．绣花的 | |
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260
scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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261
depicting
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| 描绘，描画( depict的现在分词 )； 描述 | |
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262
dictated
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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263
begotten
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| v.为…之生父( beget的过去分词 )；产生，引起 | |
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264
pretentious
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| adj.自命不凡的，自负的，炫耀的 | |
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