Chapter 5 The Cry In The Corridor

At first each day which passed by for Mary Lennoxwas exactly like the others. Every morning she awokein her tapestried¹ room and found Martha kneeling uponthe hearth² building her fire; every morning she ate herbreakfast in the nursery which had nothing amusing in it;and after each breakfast she gazed out of the windowacross to the huge moor³ which seemed to spread out on allsides and climb up to the sky, and after she had staredfor a while she realized that if she did not go out shewould have to stay in and do nothing--and so she went out.

　　She did not know that this was the best thing she couldhave done, and she did not know that, when she began to walkquickly or even run along the paths and down the avenue,she was stirring her slow blood and making herself strongerby fighting with the wind which swept down from the moor.

　　She ran only to make herself warm, and she hated the windwhich rushed at her face and roared and held her backas if it were some giant she could not see. But the bigbreaths of rough fresh air blown over the heather filledher lungs with something which was good for her wholethin body and whipped some red color into her cheeks andbrightened her dull eyes when she did not know anythingabout it.

　　But after a few days spent almost entirely⁴ out of doorsshe wakened one morning knowing what it was to be hungry,and when she sat down to her breakfast she did not glancedisdainfully at her porridge and push it away, but tookup her spoon and began to eat it and went on eating ituntil her bowl was empty.

　　"Tha' got on well enough with that this mornin', didn't tha'?"said Martha.

　　"It tastes nice today," said Mary, feeling a littlesurprised her self.

　　"It's th' air of th' moor that's givin' thee stomachfor tha' victuals⁵," answered Martha. "It's luckyfor thee that tha's got victuals as well as appetite.

　　There's been twelve in our cottage as had th' stomach an'

　　nothin' to put in it. You go on playin' you out o'

　　doors every day an' you'll get some flesh on your bones an'

　　you won't be so yeller.""I don't play," said Mary. "I have nothing to play with.""Nothin' to play with!" exclaimed Martha. "Our childrenplays with sticks and stones. They just runs about an'

　　shouts an' looks at things." Mary did not shout,but she looked at things. There was nothing else to do.

　　She walked round and round the gardens and wanderedabout the paths in the park. Sometimes she looked forBen Weatherstaff, but though several times she saw himat work he was too busy to look at her or was too surly.

　　Once when she was walking toward him he picked up his spadeand turned away as if he did it on purpose.

　　One place she went to oftener than to any other.

　　It was the long walk outside the gardens with the wallsround them. There were bare flower-beds on eitherside of it and against the walls ivy⁶ grew thickly.

　　There was one part of the wall where the creeping darkgreen leaves were more bushy than elsewhere. It seemedas if for a long time that part had been neglected.

　　The rest of it had been clipped and made to look neat,but at this lower end of the walk it had not been trimmedat all.

　　A few days after she had talked to Ben Weatherstaff,Mary stopped to notice this and wondered why it was so.

　　She had just paused and was looking up at a long spray of ivyswinging in the wind when she saw a gleam of scarlet⁷ andheard a brilliant chirp⁸, and there, on the top of the wall,forward perched Ben Weatherstaff's robin⁹ redbreast,tilting forward to look at her with his small head onone side.

　　"Oh!" she cried out, "is it you--is it you?" And itdid not seem at all queer to her that she spoke¹⁰ to himas if she were sure that he would understand and answer her.

　　He did answer. He twittered and chirped¹¹ and hopped¹³ alongthe wall as if he were telling her all sorts of things.

　　It seemed to Mistress Mary as if she understood him, too,though he was not speaking in words. It was as if hesaid:

　　"Good morning! Isn't the wind nice? Isn't the sun nice? Isn'teverything nice? Let us both chirp and hop¹² and twitter.

　　Come on! Come on!"Mary began to laugh, and as he hopped and took little flightsalong the wall she ran after him. Poor little thin, sallow,ugly Mary--she actually looked almost pretty for a moment.

　　"I like you! I like you!" she cried out, pattering down the walk;and she chirped and tried to whistle, which last she didnot know how to do in the least. But the robin seemedto be quite satisfied and chirped and whistled back at her.

　　At last he spread his wings and made a darting¹⁴ flightto the top of a tree, where he perched and sang loudly.

　　That reminded Mary of the first time she had seen him.

　　He had been swinging on a tree-top then and she had beenstanding in the orchard¹⁶. Now she was on the other sideof the orchard and standing¹⁵ in the path outside a wall--muchlower down--and there was the same tree inside.

　　"It's in the garden no one can go into," she said to herself.

　　"It's the garden without a door. He lives in there.

　　How I wish I could see what it is like!"She ran up the walk to the green door she had enteredthe first morning. Then she ran down the path throughthe other door and then into the orchard, and when shestood and looked up there was the tree on the other sideof the wall, and there was the robin just finishing hissong and, beginning to preen¹⁷ his feathers with his beak¹⁸.

　　"It is the garden," she said. "I am sure it is."She walked round and looked closely at that side of theorchard wall, but she only found what she had foundbefore--that there was no door in it. Then she ranthrough the kitchen-gardens again and out into the walkoutside the long ivy-covered wall, and she walked tothe end of it and looked at it, but there was no door;and then she walked to the other end, looking again,but there was no door.

　　"It's very queer," she said. "Ben Weatherstaff saidthere was no door and there is no door. But there musthave been one ten years ago, because Mr. Craven buriedthe key."This gave her so much to think of that she began to bequite interested and feel that she was not sorry that shehad come to Misselthwaite Manor¹⁹. In India she had alwaysfelt hot and too languid to care much about anything.

　　The fact was that the fresh wind from the moor had begunto blow the cobwebs out of her young brain and to wakenher up a little.

　　She stayed out of doors nearly all day, and when she satdown to her supper at night she felt hungry and drowsyand comfortable. She did not feel cross when Marthachattered away. She felt as if she rather liked to hear her,and at last she thought she would ask her a question.

　　She asked it after she had finished her supper and had satdown on the hearth-rug before the fire.

　　"Why did Mr. Craven hate the garden?" she said.

　　She had made Martha stay with her and Martha had notobjected at all. She was very young, and used to a crowdedcottage full of brothers and sisters, and she found itdull in the great servants' hall downstairs where thefootman and upper-housemaids made fun of her Yorkshirespeech and looked upon her as a common little thing,and sat and whispered among themselves. Martha likedto talk, and the strange child who had lived in India,and been waited upon by "blacks," was novelty enoughto attract her.

　　She sat down on the hearth herself without waitingto be asked.

　　"Art tha' thinkin' about that garden yet?" she said.

　　"I knew tha' would. That was just the way with me when Ifirst heard about it.""Why did he hate it?" Mary persisted.

　　Martha tucked her feet under her and made herselfquite comfortable.

　　"Listen to th' wind wutherin' round the house," she said.

　　"You could bare stand up on the moor if you was out onit tonight."Mary did not know what "wutherin'" meant until she listened,and then she understood. It must mean that hollowshuddering sort of roar which rushed round and round thehouse as if the giant no one could see were buffeting²⁰ itand beating at the walls and windows to try to break in.

　　But one knew he could not get in, and somehow it madeone feel very safe and warm inside a room with a redcoal fire.

　　"But why did he hate it so?" she asked, after shehad listened. She intended to know if Martha did.

　　Then Martha gave up her store of knowledge.

　　"Mind," she said, "Mrs. Medlock said it's not to betalked about. There's lots o' things in this place that'snot to be talked over. That's Mr. Craven's orders.

　　His troubles are none servants' business, he says.

　　But for th' garden he wouldn't be like he is. It wasMrs. Craven's garden that she had made when first theywere married an' she just loved it, an' they used to 'tendthe flowers themselves. An' none o' th' gardeners wasever let to go in. Him an' her used to go in an'

　　shut th' door an' stay there hours an' hours, readin'

　　and talkin'. An, she was just a bit of a girl an'

　　there was an old tree with a branch bent²¹ like a seaton it. An' she made roses grow over it an' she usedto sit there. But one day when she was sittin' there th'

　　branch broke an' she fell on th' ground an' was hurtso bad that next day she died. Th' doctors thought he'dgo out o' his mind an' die, too. That's why he hates it.

　　No one's never gone in since, an' he won't let any one talkabout it."Mary did not ask any more questions. She looked atthe red fire and listened to the wind "wutherin'."It seemed to be "wutherin'" louder than ever.

　　At that moment a very good thing was happening to her.

　　Four good things had happened to her, in fact, since shecame to Misselthwaite Manor. She had felt as if shehad understood a robin and that he had understood her;she had run in the wind until her blood had grown warm;she had been healthily hungry for the first time in her life;and she had found out what it was to be sorry for some one.

　　But as she was listening to the wind she began to listento something else. She did not know what it was,because at first she could scarcely distinguish it fromthe wind itself. It was a curious sound--it seemed almostas if a child were crying somewhere. Sometimes the windsounded rather like a child crying, but presently MistressMary felt quite sure this sound was inside the house,not outside it. It was far away, but it was inside.

　　She turned round and looked at Martha.

　　"Do you hear any one crying?" she said.

　　Martha suddenly looked confused.

　　"No," she answered. "It's th' wind. Sometimes itsounds like as if some one was lost on th' moor an'

　　wailin'. It's got all sorts o' sounds.""But listen," said Mary. "It's in the house--down oneof those long corridors."And at that very moment a door must have been openedsomewhere downstairs; for a great rushing draft blew alongthe passage and the door of the room they sat in was blownopen with a crash, and as they both jumped to their feetthe light was blown out and the crying sound was swept downthe far corridor so that it was to be heard more plainly thanever.

　　"There!" said Mary. "I told you so! It is some onecrying--and it isn't a grown-up person."Martha ran and shut the door and turned the key, but beforeshe did it they both heard the sound of a door in some farpassage shutting with a bang, and then everything was quiet,for even the wind ceased "wutherin'" for a few moments.

　　"It was th' wind," said Martha stubbornly.

　　"An' if it wasn't, it was little Betty Butterworth,th' scullery-maid. She's had th' toothache all day."But something troubled and awkward in her manner madeMistress Mary stare very hard at her. She did not believeshe was speaking the truth.

1 tapestried   

adj.饰挂绣帷的，织在绣帷上的v.用挂毯（或绣帷）装饰( tapestry的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

2 hearth   

n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面

参考例句：

• She came and sat in a chair before the hearth.她走过来，在炉子前面的椅子上坐下。
• She comes to the hearth,and switches on the electric light there.她走到壁炉那里，打开电灯。

3 moor   

n.荒野，沼泽；vt.(使)停泊；vi.停泊

参考例句：

• I decided to moor near some tourist boats.我决定在一些观光船附近停泊。
• There were hundreds of the old huts on the moor.沼地上有成百上千的古老的石屋。

4 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

5 victuals   

n.食物；食品

参考例句：

• A plateful of coarse broken victuals was set before him.一盘粗劣的剩余饭食放到了他的面前。
• There are no more victuals for the pig.猪没有吃的啦。

6 ivy   

n.常青藤，常春藤

参考例句：

• Her wedding bouquet consisted of roses and ivy.她的婚礼花篮包括玫瑰和长春藤。
• The wall is covered all over with ivy.墙上爬满了常春藤。

7 scarlet   

n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的

参考例句：

• The scarlet leaves of the maples contrast well with the dark green of the pines.深红的枫叶和暗绿的松树形成了明显的对比。
• The glowing clouds are growing slowly pale,scarlet,bright red,and then light red.天空的霞光渐渐地淡下去了，深红的颜色变成了绯红，绯红又变为浅红。

8 chirp   

v.(尤指鸟)唧唧喳喳的叫

参考例句：

• The birds chirp merrily at the top of tree.鸟儿在枝头欢快地啾啾鸣唱。
• The sparrows chirp outside the window every morning.麻雀每天清晨在窗外嘁嘁喳喳地叫。

9 robin   

n.知更鸟，红襟鸟

参考例句：

• The robin is the messenger of spring.知更鸟是报春的使者。
• We knew spring was coming as we had seen a robin.我们看见了一只知更鸟，知道春天要到了。

10 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

11 chirped   

鸟叫，虫鸣( chirp的过去式 )

参考例句：

• So chirped fiber gratings have broad reflection bandwidth. 所以chirped光纤光栅具有宽的反射带宽，在反射带宽内具有渐变的群时延等其它类型的光纤光栅所不具备的特点。
• The crickets chirped faster and louder. 蟋蟀叫得更欢了。

12 hop   

n.单脚跳，跳跃；vi.单脚跳，跳跃；着手做某事；vt.跳跃，跃过

参考例句：

• The children had a competition to see who could hop the fastest.孩子们举行比赛，看谁单足跳跃最快。
• How long can you hop on your right foot?你用右脚能跳多远？

13 hopped   

跳上[下]( hop的过去式和过去分词 )； 单足蹦跳； 齐足（或双足）跳行； 摘葎草花

参考例句：

• He hopped onto a car and wanted to drive to town. 他跳上汽车想开向市区。
• He hopped into a car and drove to town. 他跳进汽车，向市区开去。

14 darting   

v.投掷，投射( dart的现在分词 )；向前冲，飞奔

参考例句：

• Swallows were darting through the clouds. 燕子穿云急飞。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Swallows were darting through the air. 燕子在空中掠过。 来自辞典例句

15 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

16 orchard   

n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场

参考例句：

• My orchard is bearing well this year.今年我的果园果实累累。
• Each bamboo house was surrounded by a thriving orchard.每座竹楼周围都是茂密的果园。

17 preen   

v.（人）打扮修饰

参考例句：

• 50% of men under 35 spend at least 20 minutes preening themselves every morning in the bathroom.50%的35岁以下男性每天早上至少花20分钟在盥洗室精心打扮。
• Bill preened his beard.比尔精心修剪了他的胡须。

18 beak   

n.鸟嘴，茶壶嘴，钩形鼻

参考例句：

• The bird had a worm in its beak.鸟儿嘴里叼着一条虫。
• This bird employs its beak as a weapon.这种鸟用嘴作武器。

19 manor   

n.庄园，领地

参考例句：

• The builder of the manor house is a direct ancestor of the present owner.建造这幢庄园的人就是它现在主人的一个直系祖先。
• I am not lord of the manor,but its lady.我并非此地的领主，而是这儿的女主人。

20 buffeting   

振动

参考例句：

• The flowers took quite a buffeting in the storm. 花朵在暴风雨中备受摧残。
• He's been buffeting with misfortunes for 15 years. 15年来，他与各种不幸相博斗。

21 bent   

n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的

参考例句：

• He was fully bent upon the project.他一心扑在这项计划上。
• We bent over backward to help them.我们尽了最大努力帮助他们。