At that moment he was dealing8 with the case of one Pinner, an extremely stupid boy of seventeen in a low form, whose mother wrote saying she would like him to begin at once to specialise with a view to entering the Indian Civil Service later on.
Suddenly Mrs. Wentworth laid down her book and sat listening.
"Isn't that one of the children?" she asked.
Dr. Wentworth, deep in the demolition9 of Pinner's prospects10, did not answer.
"I'm sure it's one of the children," Mrs. Wentworth repeated, and hastened upstairs.
Dismal11 wails13 smote14 upon her ear as she neared the night nurseries, and she found Punch sitting up in bed flushed and tearful, and not to be pacified15 by his devoted16 nurse who was standing17 by his cot alternately soothing18 and remonstrating19.
"Hush20, Punch! you'll wake Pris and Prue in the next room. What is the matter? Did you have a bad dream? Were you frightened?"
"No," Punch proclaimed in a muffled21 sort of roar, "I'm not fitened, but I can't sleep because she won't sing Kevin. I can't mimember it and I can't sleep. Oh, do sing Kevin."
"I don't know what he means, mum," nurse exclaimed distractedly. "Is it a hymn22, do you think?"
"No," bawled23 Punch indignantly; "t'int a hymn. Oh, do sing Kevin," he wailed24, standing up in his cot with his arms round his mother's neck and his hot, tear-stained little face pressed against hers.
"But, Punch, dear, what is Kevin? Of course I'll sing it if you'll only explain."
"But you can't," lamented25 Punch; and inconsequent as inconsolable he reiterated26, "Oh, do sing Kevin."
"But who can sing this song?" Mrs. Wentworth asked. "Where have you heard it?"
"Lallie singed27 it. Oh, do get Lallie. Lallie knows Kevin."
"I can't get Lallie to come and sing for you in the middle of the night. You mustn't be unreasonable28. You must wait until next time you see her--perhaps to-morrow--then you can ask her to sing for you."
"T'int the miggle of the night," Punch retorted scornfully, "or you'd be wearing a nighty gown. Please, dear mudger, get Lallie, ven she'll sing Kevin and I'll go to sleep."
Mrs. Wentworth and the nurse exchanged glances across the cot.
"'Tis but a step across the playground to B. House," the nurse said in a low voice. "I know the young lady would pop over. He's been goin' on like this for over an hour."
Punch had ceased to wail12; now he loosed his arms from about his mother's neck, sat back on his pillow, and looked from one to the other of the anxious faces on either side of him.
"He's such a obstinate29 boy," she murmured. "He'll never give up wanting it, and she can sing Kevin."
Mrs. Wentworth tried hard to look stern.
"Daddie wouldn't like it; and what would Lallie think to be fetched out at this time of night to sing to a tiresome30 little boy who ought to have been asleep hours ago."
Punch screwed up his face and prepared to wail again, but caught his breath and stopped in the middle of the first note to listen to his adoring nurse as she suggested in a whisper:
"I'll pop over for her, mum, and she'll be here directly. I'm quite worried about him. It seems to have got on his nerves; he's so feverish31."
Mrs. Wentworth felt one of the hot little hands and stroked his damp hair back from his forehead. Punch stared unblinkingly at her, and repeated mournfully:
"He's fevish, very fevish; but," more hopefully, "he won't be if Lallie's feshed, 'cos then she'll sing Kevin."
"I know Daddie would disapprove," Mrs. Wentworth said weakly; "and, Nana, imagine what people will say. What will Miss Foster think?"
"I'm sure the young lady's not one to go talking," said Nana stoutly32, "and she so fond of Master Punch and all. And he really has been frettin' something dreadful, and we none of us can sing that outlandish song; and you know how he keeps on, mum."
"Nobody knows it but Lallie," Punch repeated. "Lallie can sing Kevin. Oh, do sing Kevin."
Mrs. Wentworth nodded to the nurse, who departed hastily.
Punch sat on his pillow, wide-eyed and wakeful, with flushed round face and tired, unblinking eyes.
"Would you like to come and sit on my knee in the day nursery for a bit, Sonnie? Then perhaps you'll feel sleepy. I'll sing you anything you like."
"I'll come and sit on your knee till Lallie comes, then she'll sing Kevin. I don't want no other song."
"How do you know Lallie will come? She may be dining out; she may not be there."
"I fought you said it was the miggle of the night," Punch said sternly. "If it is she'll be back again."
"It is the middle of the night for little boys."
"But not for Lallie; I fink she'll come."
Mrs. Wentworth arrayed him in his blue dressing-gown and carried him into the big day nursery. She sat down in a low chair in front of the fire, with Punch warm and cuddlesome on her knee snuggled against her shoulder. He lay quite still in her arms, staring at the red glow through the bars of the high nursery fender.
"Do you think that little boys who wear beautiful pyjama suits just like their daddie's, ought to wake up and cry in the night?" Mrs. Wentworth inquired dreamily, her chin resting on the top of Punch's head, her eyes fixed33 on the fire.
"I fink I could sleep till Lallie comes," Punch announced in particularly wide-awake tones. "Hush!"
For nearly ten minutes they sat still and silent, then Punch suddenly gave a little wriggle34 and sat up on his mother's knee, stiff and expectant: every nerve tingling35, every muscle taut36.
"I fink I hear Lallie," he cried excitedly.
There was a swish and frou-frou of skirts in the passage outside as Lallie, followed by the triumphant37 Nana, came swiftly into the room. She flung her heavy cloak on a chair, and ran across and knelt by Mrs. Wentworth, exclaiming:
"How dear of you to send! I do so sympathise with Punch; I nearly go crazy if I half remember a tune38 and there's no way of getting the rest of it."
"T'int the chune; it's it all," said Punch magisterially39. "Now you can sing Kevin."
"But do you know what he means?" Mrs. Wentworth asked.
"I should think I do. Oh, might I hold him? It's a longish song."
She was dressed in a little straight white silk dress embroidered40 with green, and her favourite green ribbon was threaded through her hair. Slender arms and neck were bare, and her cheeks flushed with her run across the playground in the cold air. She might have been Deirdre herself, product of sun and dew and woodland moss41, so fresh and sparkling was she. Punch held out his arms to her.
"I knowed you'd come," he cried triumphantly42; "an' you wouldn't be in bed, nor out, nor nuffin' like they said. I knowed you'd come."
Mrs. Wentworth gave Lallie her chair, and then Punch to cuddle, and forthwith Lallie burst into a rollicking tune and the legend:
"As Saint Kevin was a wanderin' by the shores of Glendalough,
He met one King O'Toole and he axed him for a schough;
Says the King, 'You are a sthranger and your face I've never seen,
But if you've got a bit of weed I'll lend you my dhudeen!"
To Punch the whole thing was vivid as an experience. He saw as in a vision the wind-swept shores of Glendalough. The only "lough" he had ever really seen was an ornamental43 lake in the town gardens, but Lallie had told him that King O'Toole's lough was a hundred times as big as that, so Punch pictured something very vast indeed. She had not explained what "schough" was and he had not asked, for he concluded it was some kind of bonfire from the context.
"As the Saint was lighting44 up the fire the monarch45 heaved a sigh.
'Is there anyt'ing the matter,' says the Saint, 'that makes you cry?'
Says the King, 'I had a ghander as was left me by my mother,
An' this mornin' he turned up his toes with some disase or other.'"
So Punch pictured a bonfire that crackled like those the gardner made with rubbish in the kitchen garden. The saint agrees to cure the ghander on condition that should the bird recover, he shall receive
"the bit o' land the ghander will fly round."
"'Faix I will and very welcome,' says the King, 'give what you ask,' and departs forthwith to the palace to fetch the "burd."
"So the Saint then tuk the ghander from the arrums of the King,
And first began to twig46 his beak47 and then to stretch his wing.
He cushed the bird into the air! he flew thirty miles around,
Says the Saint, 'I'll thank yer Majesty48 for that little thaste of ground!'"
But the king was in no mind to part with such a large slice of his property, and he called his "six big sons" to heave St. Kevin in a ditch.
"'Nabocklish,' says the saint, 'I'll soon finish them young urchins,' and he forthwith transformed King O'Toole and his sons into the Seven Churches of Glendalough.
Meanwhile Dr. Wentworth had finished his letter to Pinner's mother, and longed to read it to his wife, for he felt that the pill of truth was gilded49 with charity in quite angelic fashion, and he thirsted for her appreciation50 and applause. Minutes passed, and still she did not come. The house was very quiet and he felt sure she must have been mistaken about the children, and wondered what on earth she could be doing; then suddenly, into the silence, there floated a voice uplifted in most cheerful song: a melody that set the head nodding and the heels drumming.
Not for one instant did Dr. Wentworth even wonder as to the owner of the voice. No one who had heard Lallie sing once could fail to recognise her singing when he heard it again. The siren song drew him from his letters and up the stairs to the half-open door of the nursery, and there he stood watching the pretty picture by the fire.
Punch, majestic51 and satisfied at last, sat bolt upright on Lallie's knee. Her arms were round him; but she leant back in her chair that she might the better watch his serious baby face. Mrs. Wentworth and nurse stood on the other side of the hearth52, both absorbed in adoring contemplation of the small figure in the blue dressing-gown. Neither of them saw the doctor, but Lallie did, and gave him a merry nod of greeting.
"An' if ye go there any day at the hour of one o'clock,
You'll see the ghander flyin' round the Lake of Glendalough."
The song ceased, and Punch turned himself to look earnestly in Lallie's face, demanding:
"Have you seen him?"
"Well, no, I can't say I have, but then I've never been there just at that time."
"Sing it again," Punch suggested sweetly.
"NO, NO, NO," Mrs. Wentworth cried sternly; "Punch must go to bed this instant."
"I said I would if she singed it, an' I will," said Punch. "Lallie can carry me."
"NO, NO, NO," said another voice, and Punch's father came into the room. "You're far too heavy for Miss Lallie, I'll take you; but I'd like to know what you mean by being awake at this hour, and how you manage to get young ladies to sing for you?"
"I came over," Lallie replied hastily; "I was lonely and he was awake, and worrying because no one could sing St. Kevin, so I sang it, and I have enjoyed myself so much, but I must fly back now. Good-night, you darling Punch."
Dr. Wentworth escorted Lallie back to B. House, and to this day does not know that she was "feshed." Neither did Miss Foster, for she was upstairs discussing the probability of an outbreak of chicken-pox with Matron when Lallie was "feshed"; and finding the drawing-room untenanted on her return, concluded that Lallie had gone to bed, and went herself in something of a huff. It was one thing for her to leave Lallie for the whole evening, but it was quite another matter for Lallie to retire without bidding her a ceremonious good-night. Lallie crept in at the side door--Ford had left it unbolted for her--and went upstairs by the back staircase.
Punch, warm and soft, with that indescribably delicious perfume of clean flannel53 and violet powder that pervades54 cherished infancy55, had filled her heart with charity and loving-kindness towards all the world.
"I was a pig about the stairs," she said to herself; "I'll use these for the future. Perhaps if I try to be less tiresome she'll not dislike me so much. Oh, dear, why is it so easy to do what some people want? Now if Mrs. Wentworth asked me to climb up a ladder every time I went to my room I'd do it joyfully56, and poor Miss Foster asks me to use a good wooden staircase when it's a dirty day and it seems utterly57 impossible to do it. I'll really try and be nice to her--but she won't let me. Never mind, I can but try."
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
hospitable
|
|
| adj.好客的；宽容的；有利的，适宜的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
inevitable
|
|
| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
parental
|
|
| adj.父母的；父的；母的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
softening
|
|
| 变软，软化 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
asperities
|
|
| n.粗暴( asperity的名词复数 )；（表面的）粗糙；（环境的）艰苦；严寒的天气 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
ineptness
|
|
| n.荒谬，拙劣 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
maternal
|
|
| adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
dealing
|
|
| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
demolition
|
|
| n.破坏,毁坏,毁坏之遗迹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
prospects
|
|
| n.希望，前途(恒为复数) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
dismal
|
|
| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
wail
|
|
| vt./vi.大声哀号，恸哭；呼啸，尖啸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
wails
|
|
| 痛哭，哭声( wail的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
smote
|
|
| v.猛打，重击，打击( smite的过去式 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
pacified
|
|
| 使（某人）安静( pacify的过去式和过去分词 )； 息怒； 抚慰； 在（有战争的地区、国家等）实现和平 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
devoted
|
|
| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
soothing
|
|
| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
remonstrating
|
|
| v.抗议( remonstrate的现在分词 )；告诫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
hush
|
|
| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
muffled
|
|
| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
hymn
|
|
| n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
bawled
|
|
| v.大叫，大喊( bawl的过去式和过去分词 )；放声大哭；大声叫出；叫卖（货物） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
wailed
|
|
| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
lamented
|
|
| adj.被哀悼的，令人遗憾的v.（为…）哀悼，痛哭，悲伤( lament的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
reiterated
|
|
| 反复地说，重申( reiterate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
singed
|
|
| v.浅表烧焦( singe的过去式和过去分词 )；（毛发）燎，烧焦尖端[边儿] | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
unreasonable
|
|
| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
obstinate
|
|
| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
tiresome
|
|
| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
feverish
|
|
| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
stoutly
|
|
| adv.牢固地，粗壮的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
fixed
|
|
| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
wriggle
|
|
| v./n.蠕动，扭动；蜿蜒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
tingling
|
|
| v.有刺痛感( tingle的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
taut
|
|
| adj.拉紧的，绷紧的，紧张的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
triumphant
|
|
| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
tune
|
|
| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
magisterially
|
|
| adv.威严地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
embroidered
|
|
| adj．绣花的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
moss
|
|
| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
triumphantly
|
|
| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
ornamental
|
|
| adj.装饰的；作装饰用的；n.装饰品；观赏植物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
lighting
|
|
| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
monarch
|
|
| n.帝王，君主，最高统治者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
twig
|
|
| n.小树枝，嫩枝；v.理解 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
beak
|
|
| n.鸟嘴，茶壶嘴，钩形鼻 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
majesty
|
|
| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
gilded
|
|
| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
appreciation
|
|
| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
majestic
|
|
| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
hearth
|
|
| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
flannel
|
|
| n.法兰绒；法兰绒衣服 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
pervades
|
|
| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
infancy
|
|
| n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
joyfully
|
|
| adv. 喜悦地, 高兴地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
utterly
|
|
| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |