Old England

 Towards winter’s end on a high, big, bare down, in the south of England, John Plowman was plowing². He was plowing the brown field at the top of the hill, good soil of the clay; a few yards lower down was nothing but chalk, with shallow flinty soil and steep to plow¹; so they let briars grow there. For generations his forbears had plowed³ on the top of that hill. John did not know how many. The hills were very old; it might have been always.

 

He scarcely looked to see if his furrow⁴ was going straight. The work he was doing was so much in his blood that he could almost feel if furrows⁵ were straight or not. Year after year they moved on the same old landmarks⁶; thorn trees and briars mostly guided the plow, where they stood on the untamed land beyond; the thorn trees grew old at their guiding, and still the furrows varied⁷ not by the breadth of a hoof-mark.

 

John, as he plowed, had leisure to meditate⁸ on much besides the crops; he knew so much of the crops that his thoughts could easily run free from them; he used to meditate on who they were that lived in briar and thorn tree, and danced as folk said all through midsummer night, and sometimes blessed and sometimes harmed the crops; for he knew that in Old England were wonderful ancient things, odder and older things than many folks knew. And his eyes had leisure to see much beside the furrows, for he could almost feel the furrows going straight.

 

One day at his plowing, as he watched the thorn ahead, he saw the whole big hill besides, looking south, and the lands below it; one day he saw in the bright sun of late winter a horseman riding the road through the wide lands below. The horseman shone as he rode, and wore white linen⁹ over what was shining, and on the linen was a big red cross. “One of them knights,” John Plowman said to himself or his horse, “going to them crusades.” And he went on with his plowing all that day satisfied, and remembered what he had seen for years, and told his son.

 

For there is in England, and there always was, mixed with the needful things that feed or shelter the race, the wanderer-feeling for romantic causes that runs deep and strange through the other thoughts, as the Gulf¹¹ Stream runs through the sea. Sometimes generations of John Plowman’s family would go by and no high romantic cause would come to sate¹² that feeling. They would work on just the same though a little sombrely, as though some good thing had been grudged¹³ them. And then the Crusades had come, and John Plowman had seen the Red Cross knight¹⁰ go by, riding towards the sea in the morning, and Jon Plowman was satisfied.

 

Some generations later a man of the same name was plowing the same hill. They still plowed the brown clay at the top and left the slope wild, though there were many changes. And the furrows were wonderfully straight still. And half he watched a thorn tree ahead as he plowed and half he took in the whole hill sloping south and the wide lands below it, far beyond which was the sea. They had a railway now down in the valley. The sunlight glittering near the end of winter shone on a train that was marked with great white squares and red crosses on them.

 

John Plowman stopped his horses and looked at the train. “An ambulance train,” he said, “coming up from the coast.” He thought of the lads he knew and wondered if any were there. He pitied the men in that train and envied them. And then there came to him the thought of England’s cause and of how those men had upheld it, at sea and in crumbling¹⁴ cities. He thought of the battle whose echoes reached sometimes to that field, whispering to furrows and thorn trees that had never heard them before. He thought of the accursed tyrant’s cruel might, and of the lads that had faced it. He saw the romantic splendour of England’s cause. He was old but had seen the glamour¹⁵ for which each generation looked. Satisfied in his heart and cheered with a new content he went on with his age-old task in the business of man with the hills.

The End

1 plow   

n.犁，耕地，犁过的地；v.犁，费力地前进[英]plough

参考例句：

• At this time of the year farmers plow their fields.每年这个时候农民们都在耕地。
• We will plow the field soon after the last frost.最后一场霜过后，我们将马上耕田。

2 plowing   

v.耕( plow的现在分词 )；犁耕；费力穿过

参考例句：

• "There are things more important now than plowing, Sugar. "如今有比耕种更重要的事情要做呀，宝贝儿。 来自飘（部分）
• Since his wife's death, he has been plowing a lonely furrow. 从他妻子死后，他一直过着孤独的生活。 来自辞典例句

3 plowed   

v.耕( plow的过去式和过去分词 )；犁耕；费力穿过

参考例句：

• They plowed nearly 100,000 acres of virgin moorland. 他们犁了将近10万英亩未开垦的高沼地。 来自辞典例句
• He plowed the land and then sowed the seeds. 他先翻土，然后播种。 来自辞典例句

4 furrow   

n.沟；垄沟；轨迹；车辙；皱纹

参考例句：

• The tractor has make deep furrow in the loose sand.拖拉机在松软的沙土上留下了深深的车辙。
• Mei did not weep.She only bit her lips,and the furrow in her brow deepened.梅埋下头，她咬了咬嘴唇皮，额上的皱纹显得更深了。

5 furrows   

n.犁沟( furrow的名词复数 )；（脸上的）皱纹v.犁田，开沟( furrow的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• I could tell from the deep furrows in her forehead that she was very disturbed by the news. 从她额头深深的皱纹上，我可以看出她听了这个消息非常不安。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Dirt bike trails crisscrossed the grassy furrows. 越野摩托车的轮迹纵横交错地布满条条草沟。 来自辞典例句

6 landmarks   

n.陆标( landmark的名词复数 )；目标；（标志重要阶段的）里程碑 ~ (in sth)；有历史意义的建筑物（或遗址）

参考例句：

• The book stands out as one of the notable landmarks in the progress of modern science. 这部著作是现代科学发展史上著名的里程碑之一。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The baby was one of the big landmarks in our relationship. 孩子的出世是我们俩关系中的一个重要转折点。 来自辞典例句

7 varied   

adj.多样的，多变化的

参考例句：

• The forms of art are many and varied.艺术的形式是多种多样的。
• The hotel has a varied programme of nightly entertainment.宾馆有各种晚间娱乐活动。

8 meditate   

v.想，考虑，（尤指宗教上的）沉思，冥想

参考例句：

• It is important to meditate on the meaning of life.思考人生的意义很重要。
• I was meditating,and reached a higher state of consciousness.我在冥想，并进入了一个更高的意识境界。

9 linen   

n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的

参考例句：

• The worker is starching the linen.这名工人正在给亚麻布上浆。
• Fine linen and cotton fabrics were known as well as wool.精细的亚麻织品和棉织品像羊毛一样闻名遐迩。

10 knight   

n.骑士，武士；爵士

参考例句：

• He was made an honourary knight.他被授予荣誉爵士称号。
• A knight rode on his richly caparisoned steed.一个骑士骑在装饰华丽的马上。

11 gulf   

n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂

参考例句：

• The gulf between the two leaders cannot be bridged.两位领导人之间的鸿沟难以跨越。
• There is a gulf between the two cities.这两座城市间有个海湾。

12 sate   

v.使充分满足

参考例句：

• Nothing could sate the careerist's greed for power.什么也满足不了这个野心家的权力欲。
• I am sate with opera after listening to it for a whole weekend.听了整整一个周末的歌剧，我觉得腻了。

13 grudged   

怀恨（grudge的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• The mean man grudged the food his horse ate. 那个吝啬鬼舍不得喂马。
• He grudged the food his horse ate. 他吝惜马料。

14 crumbling   

adj.摇摇欲坠的

参考例句：

• an old house with crumbling plaster and a leaking roof 一所灰泥剥落、屋顶漏水的老房子
• The boat was tied up alongside a crumbling limestone jetty. 这条船停泊在一个摇摇欲坠的石灰岩码头边。

15 glamour   

n.魔力，魅力；vt.迷住

参考例句：

• Foreign travel has lost its glamour for her.到国外旅行对她已失去吸引力了。
• The moonlight cast a glamour over the scene.月光给景色增添了魅力。