“A brook3 ran out of the hills where they were nearest to us, about half a mile away. Dark trees darkened the two springs of crystal, and the lightest wind made a sad sound in the leaves above them. Before it had travelled[129] a quarter of a mile the brook had gathered about itself a brotherhood4 of huge trees that always seemed to belong to it, and gave it pomp and mystery together, if the combination is possible. These were sunny trees, a line of towering tall black poplars that led out from the hills to the open agricultural land, a group of the mightiest5 wych-elms I have ever seen, and one ash-tree standing6 alone at the water’s edge, the only one of its kind in the neighbourhood. Three miles from its source the brook ran into the main stream of the river Uther, and beyond that I knew nothing except by rumour7 and guessing. A line drawn8 between the two ends of the crescent of hills would pass through the junction9 of brook and river and enclose the country which was mine entirely10. The long line of hills far off on the other side of the valley—bare, rounded, and cloud-like hills, whose curving ridges11 seemed to have growth and change like clouds—was the boundary of the real world, beyond which lay the phantasmal—London, the ocean, China, the Hesperides, Wineland, and all the islands and all the lands that were in books and dreams.
“The farm-houses of my country, and also the manor-house, stood on either side of the[130] brook, low down. There was a mill and a chain of ponds, hardly a mile from the source. Both the ponds and the running water were bordered thickly with sedge, which was the home of birds far more often heard than seen.
“The brook wound among little hills which were also intersected by rough roads, green lanes, footpaths12, and deserted13 trackways, watery14, and hollow and dark. As the roads never went on level ground all were more or less deeply worn, and the overhanging beeches15 above and the descending16 naked roots made them like groves17 in a forest. When a road ran into another or crossed it there was a farm. The house itself was of grey-white stone, roofed with tiles; the barn and sheds, apparently18 tumbling but never tumbledown, were of dark boards and thatch19, and surrounded by a disorderly region of nettles20, remains21 of old buildings and walls, small ponds either black in the shadow of quince bushes, or emerald with duck-weed, and a few big oaks or walnuts22 where the cart-horses and their foals and a young bull or two used to stand. A moorhen was sure to be swimming across the dark pond with a track of ripples23 like a peacock’s tail shining behind it. Fowls24 scuttered about or lay dusting themselves[131] in the middle of the road, while a big black-tailed cock perched crowing on a plough handle or a ruined shed. A cock without a head or a running fox stood up or drooped27 on the roof for a weather-vane, but recorded only the wind of some long past year which had finally disabled it. The walls of outhouses facing the road were garrulous28 with notices of sales and fairs to be held shortly or held years ago.
“At a point where one lane ran into another, as it were on an island, the inn with red blinds on its four windows looked down the road. The inn-keeper was a farmer by profession, but every day drank as much as he sold, except on a market or fair day. On an ordinary day I think he was always either looking down the road for someone to come and drink with him, or else consoling himself inside for lack of company. He seemed to me a nice man, but enormous; I always wondered how his clothes contained him; yet he could sit on the mower29 or tosser all day long in the June sun when he felt inclined. On a market or fair day there would be a flock of sheep or a lot of bullocks waiting outside while the drover smoked half a pipe and drank by the open door. And then the landlord was nowhere to be seen:[132] I suppose he was at the market or up in the orchard30. For it was the duty of his wife, a little mousy woman with mousy eyes, to draw the beer when a customer came to sit or stand among the empty barrels that filled the place. It was Called ‘The Crown.’ They said it had once been ‘The Crown and Cushion,’ but the cushion was so hard to paint, and no one knew why a crown should be cushioned or a cushion crowned, and it was such a big name for the shanty31, that it was diminished to ‘The Crown.’ But it had those four windows with crimson32 blinds, and the landlady33 was said to be a Gypsy and was followed wherever she went by a white-footed black cat that looked as if it was really a lady from a far country enchanted34 into a cat. The Gypsy was a most Christian35 body. She used to treat with unmistakeable kindness, whenever he called at the inn, a gentleman who was notoriously an atheist36 and teetotaler. When asked upbraidingly why, she said: ‘He seems a nice gentleman, and as he is going to a place where there won’t be many comforts, I think we ought to do our best to make this world as happy as possible for him.’
“Opposite to the inn was a carpenter’s shop, full of windows, and I remember seeing the[133] carpenter once at midnight there, working at a coffin37 all alone in the glare in the middle of the blackness. He was a mysterious man. He never touched ale. He had a soft face with silky grizzled hair and beard, large eyes, kind and yet unfriendly, and strange gentle lips as rosy38 as a pretty girl’s. I had an extraordinary reverence39 for him due to his likeness40 to a picture at home of the greatest of the sons of carpenters. He was tall and thin, and walked like an over-grown boy. Words were rare with him. I do not think he ever spoke41 to me, and this silence and his ceaseless work—and especially that one midnight task—fascinated me. So I would stare for an hour at a time at him and his work, my face against the window, without his ever seeming to notice me at all. He had two dogs, a majestic42 retriever named Ruskin who was eighteen years old, and a little black and white mongrel named Jimmy; and the two accompanied him and ignored one another. One day as I was idling along towards the shop, smelling one of those clusters of wild carrot seeds, like tiny birds’ nests, which are scented43 like a ripe pear sweeter and juicier than ever grew on pear-tree, the carpenter came out with a gun under one arm and a spade under[134] the other and went a short distance down the road and then into a field which belonged to him. I followed. No sooner had I begun to look over the gate than the carpenter lifted his gun and pointed44 it at the retriever who had his back turned and was burying a bone in a corner of the field. The carpenter fired, the old dog fell in a heap with blood running out of his mouth, and Jimmy burst out of the hedge, snatched the bone, and disappeared. If it had been anyone but the carpenter I should have thought this murder a presumptuous45 and cruel act; his face and its likeness taught me that it was a just act; and that, more than anything else, made justice inseparable in my mind from pain and intolerable mystery. I was overawed, and watched him from the moment when he began to dig until all that was mortal of the old dog was covered up. It seems he had been ill and a burden to himself for a long time. I thought it unjust that he should have been shot when his back was turned, and this question even drowned my indignation at the mongrel’s insolence47.
“I knew most of the farmers and labourers, and they were and are as distinct in my mind as the kings of England. They were local men[135] with names so common in the churchyard that for some time I supposed it was a storehouse, rather than a resting-place, of farmers and labourers. They took small notice of me, and I was never tired of following them about the fields, ploughing, mowing48, reaping, and in the milking sheds, in the orchards49 and the copses. Nothing is more attractive to children than a man going about his work with a kindly50 but complete indifference51 to themselves. It is a mistake to be always troubling to show interest in them, whether you feel it or not. I remember best a short, thick, dark man, with a face like a bulldog’s, broader than it was long, the under-lip sticking out and up and suggesting great power and fortitude52. Yet it was also a kind face, and when he was talking I could not take my eyes off it, smiling as it was kneaded up into an enormous smile, and watching the stages of the process by which it was smoothed again. When he was on his deathbed his son, who was a tailor, used to walk over every evening from the town for a gossip. The son had a wonderful skill in mimicry53, and a store of tales to employ it, but at last the old man, shedding tears of laughter, had to beg him not to tell his best stories because laughing hurt so much.[136] He died of cancer. No man could leave that neighbourhood and not be missed in a hundred ways; I missed chiefly this man’s smile, which I could not help trying to reproduce on my own face long afterwards. But nobody could forget him, even had there been no better reasons, because after he died his house was never again occupied. A labourer cultivated the garden, but the house was left, and the vine leaves crawled in at the broken windows and spread wanly54 into the dark rooms. A storm tumbled the chimney through the roof. No ghost was talked of. The house was part of his mortal remains decaying more slowly than the rest. The labourer in the garden never pruned55 the vine or the apple-trees, or touched the flower borders. He was a wandering, three-quarter-witted fellow who came from nowhere and had no name but Tom. His devotion to the old man had been like a dog’s. Friends or relatives or home of his own he had none, or could remember none. In fact, he had scarce any memory; when anything out of his past life came by chance into his head, he rushed to tell his master and would repeat it for days with pride and for fear of losing it, as he invariably did. One of these memories was a nonsensical[137] rigmarole of a song which he tried to sing, but it was no more singing than talking, and resembled rather the whimper of a dog in its sleep; it had to do with a squire56 and a Welshman, whose accent and mistaken English might alone have made the performance black mystery. They tried to get his ‘real’ name out of him, but he knew only Tom. Asked who gave it to him, he said it was Mr Road, a former employer, a very cruel man whom he did not like telling about. They asked him if he was ever confirmed. ‘No,’ he said, ‘they tried, but I could not confirm.’ He would do anything for his master, rise at any hour of the night though he loved his bed, and go anywhere. Summer or Winter, he would not sleep in a house, but in a barn. Except his master’s in the last illness, he would not enter any house. He was fond of beer in large quantities, but if he got drunk with it he was ashamed of himself, and might go off and not return for months: then one day he would emerge from the barn, shaking himself and smiling an awkward twisted smile and as bashful as a baby. What a place this modern world is for a man like that, now. I do not like to think he is still alive in it. All the people who could understand him are in the workhouse[138] or the churchyard. The churchyard is the only place where he would be likely to stay long. No prison, asylum57, or workhouse, could have kept him alive for many days.
“The church was like a barn except that it was nearly always empty, and only mice ever played in it. Though I went to it every Sunday I never really got over my dislike of the parson, which began in terror. He was the only man in the country who invariably wore black from top to toe. One hot, shining day I was playing in a barn, and the doors were open, so that I saw a field of poppies making the earth look as if it had caught fire in the sun; the swallows were coming in and out, and I was alone, when suddenly a black man stood in the sunny doorway58. The swallows dashed and screamed at him angrily, and I thought that they would destroy themselves, for they returned again and again to within an inch of him. I could not move. He stood still, then with a smile and a cough he went away without having said a word. The next time I saw him was in the churchyard, when I was about five, and had not yet begun to attend the Church; in fact I had never entered it to my knowledge. The nurse-girl wheeled me up to the churchyard[139] wall and stopped at the moment when the black man appeared out of the church. Behind him several men were carrying a long box between them on their shoulders, and they also were in complete black, and after them walked men, women, and children, in black; one of the older women was clinging convulsively to a stiff young man. When they had all stopped, the parson coughed and muttered something, which was followed by a rustling60 and a silence; the woman clinging to the young man sobbed61 aloud, and her hair fell all over her cheeks like rain. The nurse-girl had been chatting with a few passers-by who were watching outside the wall, but as I saw the woman’s hair fall I began to cry and I was hurried away. Through the lych-gate I saw a hole in the ground and everyone looking down into it as if they had lost something. At this I stopped crying and asked the girl what they were looking for; but she only boxed my ears and I cried again. When at last she told me that there was a man ‘dead’ in the box, and that they had put him into the ground, I felt sure that the black man was in some way the cause of the trouble. I remembered the look he had given me at the barn door, and the cough. I was filled with wonder[140] that no one had attempted to rescue the ‘dead,’ and then with fear and awe46 at the power of the black man. Whenever I saw him in the lane I ran away, he was so very black. Nor was the white surplice ever more than a subterfuge62 to make him like the boys in the choir63, while his unnatural64 voice, praying or preaching, sounded as if it came up out of the hole in the ground where the ‘dead’ had been put away.
“How glad I was always, to be back home from the church; though dinner was ready I walked round the garden, touching65 the fruit-trees one by one, stopping a minute in a corner where I could be unseen and yet look at the house and the thick smoke pouring out of the kitchen chimney. Then I rushed in and kissed my mother. The rest of the day was very still, no horses or carts going by, no sound of hoes, only the cows passing to the milkers. My father and my mother were both very silent on that day, and I felt alone and never wanted to stray far; if it was fine I kept to the garden and orchard; if wet, to the barn. The day seems in my memory to have always been either sunny or else raining with roars of wind in the woods on the hills; and I can hear the sound, as if it had been inaudible on other days, of wind and[141] rain in the garden trees. If I climbed up into the old cherry-tree that forked close to the ground I could be entirely hidden, and I used to fancy myself alone in the world, and kept very still and silent lest I should be found out. But I gave up climbing the tree after the day when I found Mrs Partridge there before me. I never made out why she was up there, so quiet.
“Mrs Partridge was a labourer’s wife who came in two or three days a week to do the rough work. I did not like her because she was always bustling66 about with a great noise and stir, and she did not like me because I was a spoilt, quiet child. She was deferential67 to all of us, and called me ‘Sir’; but if I dared to touch the peel when she was baking, or the bees-wax that she rubbed her irons on when she was ironing, she talked as if she were queen or I were naught68. While she worked she sang in a coarse, high-pitched voice or tried to carry on a conversation with my mother, though she might be up in the orchard. She was a little woman with a brown face and alarming glittering eyes. She was thickly covered with clothes, and when her skirts were hoisted69 up to her knees, as they usually were, she resembled a partridge. She was as quick and plump as a partridge. She ran[142] instead of walking, her head forward, her hands full of clothes and clothes-pegs, and her voice resounding70. No boy scrambled71 over gates or fences more nimbly. She feared nothing and nobody. She was harsh to her children, but when her one-eyed cat ate the Sunday dinner she could not bear to strike it, telling my mother, ‘I’ve had the poor creature more than seven years.’ She was full of idioms and proverbs, and talked better than any man has written since Cobbett. One of her proverbs has stayed fantastically in my mind, though I have forgotten the connection—‘As one door shuts another opens.’ It impressed me with great mystery, and as she said it the house seemed very dark, and, though it was broad daylight and summer, I heard the wind howling in the roof just as it often did at night and on winter afternoons.
“Mrs Partridge had a husband of her own size, but with hollowed cheeks the colour of leather. Though a slight man he had broad shoulders and arms that hung down well away from his body, and this, with his bowed stiff legs, gave him a look of immense strength and stability: to this day it is hard to imagine that such a man could die. When I heard his horses going[143] by on a summer morning I knew that it was six o’clock; when I saw them returning I knew that it was four. He was the carter, and he did nothing but work, except that once a week he went into the town with his wife, drank a pint72 of ale with her, and helped her to carry back the week’s provisions. He needed nothing but work, out of doors, and in the stables, and physical rest indoors; and he was equally happy in both. He never said anything to disturb his clay pipe, though that was usually out. What he thought about I do not know, and I doubt if he did; but he could always break off to address his horses by name, every minute or two, in mild rebuke73 or cheerful congratulation, as much for his own benefit as for theirs, to remind himself that he had their company. He had full responsibility for four cart-horses, a plough, a waggon74, and a dung-cart. He cared for the animals as if they had been his own: if they were restless at night he also lost his sleep. Although so busy he was never in haste, and he had time for everything save discontent. His wife did all the talking, and he had his way without taking the pipe out of his mouth. She also had her own way, in all matters but one. She was fond of dancing; he was not, and did[144] not like to see her dance. When she did so on one tempting75 occasion, and confessed it, he slept the night in the barn and she did not dance again. There was a wonderful sympathy between them, and I remember hearing that when she knew that she was going to have a baby, it was he and not she that was indisposed.
“Our house was a square one of stone and tiles, having a porch and a room over it, and all covered up in ivy76, convolvulus, honeysuckle, and roses, that mounted in a cloud far over the roof and projected in masses, threatening some day to pull down all with their weight, but never trimmed. The cherry-tree stretched out a long horizontal branch to the eaves at one side. In front stood two pear-trees, on a piece of lawn which was as neat as the porch was wild, and around their roots clustered a thicket77 of lilac and syringa, hiding the vegetable-garden beyond. These trees darkened and cooled the house, but that did not matter. In no other house did winter fires ever burn so brightly or voices sound so sweet; and outside, the sun was more brilliant than anywhere else, and the vegetable-garden was always bordered by crimson or yellow flowers. The road went close by, but it was a hollow lane, and the heads of the passers-[145]by did not reach up to the bottom of our hedge, whose roots hung down before caves that were continually being deepened by frost. This hedge, thickened by traveller’s joy, bramble, and ivy, entirely surrounded us; and as it was high as well as thick you could not look out of it except at the sky and the hills—the road, the neighbouring fields, and all houses being invisible. The gate, which was reached by a flight of steps up from the road, was half-barricaded and all but hidden by brambles and traveller’s joy, and the unkempt yew78-tree saluted79 and drenched80 the stranger—in one branch a golden-crested wren81 had a nest year after year.
“Two trees reigned82 at the bottom of the garden—at one side an apple; at the other, just above the road, a cypress83 twice as high as the house, ending in a loose plume84 like a black cock’s tail. The apple-tree was old, and wore as much green in winter as in summer, because it was wrapped in ivy, every branch was furry85 with lichen86 and moss87, and the main boughs88 bushy with mistletoe. Each autumn a dozen little red apples hung on one of its branches like a line of poetry in a foreign language, quoted in a book. The thrush used to sing there first in winter, and usually sang his last evening song there, if it was a fine[146] evening. Yet the cypress was my favourite. I thought there was something about it sinister89 to all but myself. I liked the smell of it, and when at last I went to the sea its bitterness reminded me of the cypress. Birds were continually going in and out of it, but never built in it. Only one bird sang in it, and that was a small, sad bird which I do not know the name of. It sang there every month of the year, it might be early or it might be late, on the topmost point of the plume. It never sang for long, but frequently, and always suddenly. It was black against the sky, and I saw it nowhere else. The song was monotonous90 and dispirited, so that I fancied it wanted us to go, because it did not like the cheerful garden, and my father’s loud laugh, and my mother’s tripping step: I fancied it was up there watching the clouds and very distant things in hope of a change; but nothing came, and it sang again, and waited, ever in vain. I laughed at it, and was not at all sorry to see it there, for it had stood on that perch26 in all the happy days before, and so long as it remained the days would be happy. My father did not like the bird, but he was often looking at it, and noted91 its absence as I did. The day after my sister died he threw a stone at it—the[147] one time I saw him angry—and killed it. But a week later came another, and when he heard it he burst into tears, and after that he never spoke of it but just looked up to see if it was there when he went in or out of the porch. We had taller trees in the neighbourhood, such as the wych-elms and the poplars by the brook, but this was a solitary92 stranger and could be seen several miles away like a black pillar, as the old cherry could in blossom-time, like a white dome93. You were seldom out of sight of it. It was a station for any bird flying to or from the hills. A starling stopped a minute, piped and flew off. The kestrel was not afraid to alight and look around. The nightjar used it. At twilight94 it was encircled by midges, and the bats attended them for half an hour. Even by day it had the sinister look which was not sinister to me: some of the night played truant95 and hid in it throughout the sunshine. Often I could see nothing, when I looked out of my window, but the tree and the stars that set round it, or the mist from the hills. What with this tree, and the fruit-trees, and the maples96 in the hedge, and the embowering of the house, I think the birds sometimes forgot the house. In the mornings, in bed, I saw[148] every colour on the woodpigeon, and the ring on his neck, as he flew close by without swerving97. At breakfast my father would say, ‘There’s a kestrel.’ We looked up and saw nothing, but on going to the window, there was the bird hovering98 almost above us. I suppose its shadow or its blackening of the sky made him aware of it before he actually saw it.
“Next to us—on still days we heard the soft bell rung in the yard there at noon—was the manor-house, large, but unnoticeable among its trees. I knew nothing about the inside of it, but I went all over the grounds, filled my pockets with chestnuts99, got a peach now and then from the gardener, picked up a peacock’s feather. Wonderfully beautiful ladies went in and out of that old house with the squire. A century back he would have been a pillar of the commonwealth100: he was pure rustic101 English, and his white hair and beard had an honourable102 look as if it had been granted to him for some rare service; no such beards are to be found now in country-houses. I do not know what he did: I doubt if there is anything for such a man to do to-day except sit for his portrait to an astonished modern painter. I think he knew men as well as horses; at least he knew everyone[149] in that country, had known them all when he and they were boys. He was a man as English, as true to the soil, as a Ribston pippin.
“The woods on the hills were his, or at least such rights as anybody had in them were his. As for me, I got on very well in them with no right at all. Now, home and the garden were so well known, so safe, and so filled with us, that they seemed parts of us, and I only crept a little deeper into the core when I went to bed at night, like a worm in a big sweet apple. But the woods on the hills were utterly103 different, and within them you could forget that there was anything in the world but trees and yourself, an insignificant104 self, so wide and solitary were they. The trees were mostly beeches and yews105, massed closely together. Nothing could grow under them. Except for certain natural sunny terraces not easily found, they covered the whole hills from top to bottom, even in the steepest parts where you could slide, run, and jump the whole distance down—about half a mile—in two minutes. The soil was dead branches and dead leaves of beech and yew. Many of the trees were dead: the stumps106 stood upright until they were so rotten that I could overturn them with a touch. Others hung slanting[150] among the boughs of their companions, or were upheld by huge cables of honeysuckle or traveller’s joy which had once climbed up them and flowered over their crests107. Many had mysterious caverns108 at their roots, and as it were attic109 windows high up where the owls25 nested. The earth was a honeycomb of rabbits’ burrows110 and foxes’ earths among the bony roots of the trees, some of them stuffed with a century of dead leaves.
“Where the slope was least precipitous or had a natural ledge59, two or three tracks for timber-carriages had once been made. But these had not been kept up, and were not infallible even as footpaths. They were, however, most useful guides to the terraces, where the sun shone and I could see the cypress and my mother among the sunflowers, and the far-away hills.
“On my ninth birthday they gave me an old horn that had been a huntsman’s, and when I was bold and the sun was bright, I sometimes blew it in the woods, trembling while the echoes roamed among the gulfs which were hollowed in the hillsides, and my mother came out into the little garden far off. During the autumn and winter the huntsman blew his horn in the woods often for a whole day together. The[151] root caves and old earths gave the fox more than a chance. The horses were useless. The hounds had to swim rather than run in perpetual dead leaves. If I saw the fox I tried hard not to shout and betray him, but the temptation was very strong to make the echo, for I was proud of my halloo, and I liked to see the scarlet111 coats, the lordly riders and the pretty ladies, and to hear the questing hound and horn, and the whips calling Ajax, Bravery, Bannister, Fury Nell, and the rest. Then at last I was glad to see the pack go by at the day’s end, with sleepy heads, taking no notice of me and waving tails that looked clever as if they had eyes and ears in them, and to hear the clatter112 of horses dying round the end of the crescent into the outer world.
“Nobody took heed113 of the woods except the hunters. The timber was felled if at all by the west wind. The last keeper had long ago left his thatched cottage under the hill, where the sun shone so hot at midday on the reed-thatched shed and the green mummy of a stoat hanging on the wall. So I met nobody in the woods. I took an axe114 there day after day for a week and chopped a tree half through, unmolested except by the silence, which, however, wore me out with its protest.
[152]
“The woods ended at the top in a tangle115 of thorns, and it was there I saw my first fox. I was crawling among some brambles, amusing myself with biting off the blackberries, when a fox jumped up out of a tuft and faced me, his eyes on the level with mine. I was pleased as well as startled, never took my eyes off him, and presently began to crawl forward again. But at this the fox flashed his teeth at me with a snap, and was off before I could think of anything to say. High above these thorns stood four Scotch116 firs, forming a sort of gateway117 by which I usually re-entered the woods. Gazing up their tall stems that moved slowly and softly like a grasshopper’s horns, as if they were breathing, I took my last look at the sky before plunging118 under beech and yew. There were always squirrels in one of them, chasing one another clattering119 up and down the bark, or chattering120 at me, close at hand, as if their nerves were shattered with surprise and indignation. When they had gone out of sight I began to run—faster and faster, running and sliding down with a force that carried me over the meadow at the foot, and across the road to the steps and home. I had ten years in that home and in those woods. Then my father died; I went to school; I[153] entered an office. Those ten years were reality. Everything since has been scarcely more real than the world was when it was still cut off by the hills across the valley, and I looked lazily towards it from under the cypress where the little bird sang. There is nothing to rest on, nothing to make a man last like the old men I used to see in cottage gardens or at gateways121 in the valley of the Uther.”
“Well,” said Mr Morgan once, “I don’t often agree with Mr Torrance, but I am very glad he exists.”
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beech
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| n.山毛榉；adj.山毛榉的 | |
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unintelligible
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| adj.无法了解的，难解的，莫明其妙的 | |
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brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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brotherhood
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| n.兄弟般的关系，手中情谊 | |
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mightiest
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| adj.趾高气扬( mighty的最高级 )；巨大的；强有力的；浩瀚的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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rumour
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| n.谣言，谣传，传闻 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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junction
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| n.连接，接合；交叉点，接合处，枢纽站 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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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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footpaths
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| 人行小径，人行道( footpath的名词复数 ) | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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watery
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| adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的 | |
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15
beeches
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| n.山毛榉( beech的名词复数 )；山毛榉木材 | |
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descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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groves
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| 树丛，小树林( grove的名词复数 ) | |
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18
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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19
thatch
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| vt.用茅草覆盖…的顶部；n.茅草(屋) | |
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20
nettles
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| n.荨麻( nettle的名词复数 ) | |
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21
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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22
walnuts
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| 胡桃（树）( walnut的名词复数 )； 胡桃木 | |
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ripples
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| 逐渐扩散的感觉( ripple的名词复数 ) | |
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24
fowls
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| 鸟( fowl的名词复数 )； 禽肉； 既不是这； 非驴非马 | |
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25
owls
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| n.猫头鹰( owl的名词复数 ) | |
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26
perch
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| n.栖木，高位，杆；v.栖息，就位，位于 | |
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27
drooped
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| 弯曲或下垂，发蔫( droop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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28
garrulous
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| adj.唠叨的，多话的 | |
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29
mower
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| n.割草机 | |
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30
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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31
shanty
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| n.小屋，棚屋；船工号子 | |
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32
crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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33
landlady
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| n.女房东，女地主 | |
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34
enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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35
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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36
atheist
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| n.无神论者 | |
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37
coffin
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| n.棺材，灵柩 | |
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38
rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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39
reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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40
likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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41
spoke
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| 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 | |
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42
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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43
scented
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| adj.有香味的；洒香水的；有气味的v.嗅到(scent的过去分词) | |
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44
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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45
presumptuous
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| adj.胆大妄为的，放肆的，冒昧的，冒失的 | |
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46
awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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47
insolence
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| n.傲慢；无礼；厚颜；傲慢的态度 | |
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48
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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49
orchards
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| （通常指围起来的）果园( orchard的名词复数 ) | |
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50
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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51
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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52
fortitude
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| n.坚忍不拔；刚毅 | |
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53
mimicry
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| n.（生物）拟态，模仿 | |
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54
wanly
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| adv.虚弱地；苍白地，无血色地 | |
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55
pruned
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| v.修剪（树木等）( prune的过去式和过去分词 )；精简某事物，除去某事物多余的部分 | |
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56
squire
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| n.护卫, 侍从, 乡绅 | |
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57
asylum
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| n.避难所，庇护所，避难 | |
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58
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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59
ledge
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| n.壁架，架状突出物；岩架，岩礁 | |
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60
rustling
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| n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
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61
sobbed
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| 哭泣，啜泣( sob的过去式和过去分词 )； 哭诉，呜咽地说 | |
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62
subterfuge
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| n.诡计；藉口 | |
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63
choir
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| n.唱诗班，唱诗班的席位，合唱团，舞蹈团；v.合唱 | |
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64
unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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65
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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66
bustling
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| adj.喧闹的 | |
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67
deferential
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| adj. 敬意的，恭敬的 | |
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68
naught
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| n.无，零 [=nought] | |
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69
hoisted
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| 把…吊起，升起( hoist的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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70
resounding
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| adj. 响亮的 | |
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71
scrambled
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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72
pint
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| n.品脱 | |
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73
rebuke
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| v.指责，非难，斥责 [反]praise | |
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74
waggon
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| n.运货马车，运货车；敞篷车箱 | |
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75
tempting
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| a.诱人的, 吸引人的 | |
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76
ivy
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| n.常青藤，常春藤 | |
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77
thicket
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| n.灌木丛，树林 | |
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78
yew
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| n.紫杉属树木 | |
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79
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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80
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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81
wren
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| n.鹪鹩；英国皇家海军女子服务队成员 | |
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82
reigned
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| vi.当政，统治（reign的过去式形式） | |
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83
cypress
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| n.柏树 | |
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84
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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85
furry
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| adj.毛皮的；似毛皮的；毛皮制的 | |
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86
lichen
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| n.地衣, 青苔 | |
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87
moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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88
boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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89
sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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90
monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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91
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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92
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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93
dome
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| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
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94
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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95
truant
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| n.懒惰鬼，旷课者；adj.偷懒的，旷课的，游荡的；v.偷懒，旷课 | |
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96
maples
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| 槭树，枫树( maple的名词复数 )； 槭木 | |
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97
swerving
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| v.（使）改变方向，改变目的( swerve的现在分词 ) | |
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98
hovering
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| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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99
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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100
commonwealth
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| n.共和国，联邦，共同体 | |
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101
rustic
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| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
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102
honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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103
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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104
insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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105
yews
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| n.紫杉( yew的名词复数 ) | |
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106
stumps
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| （被砍下的树的）树桩( stump的名词复数 )； 残肢； （板球三柱门的）柱； 残余部分 | |
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107
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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108
caverns
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| 大山洞，大洞穴( cavern的名词复数 ) | |
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109
attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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110
burrows
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| n.地洞( burrow的名词复数 )v.挖掘（洞穴），挖洞( burrow的第三人称单数 )；翻寻 | |
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111
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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112
clatter
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| v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声 | |
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113
heed
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| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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114
axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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115
tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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116
scotch
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| n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
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117
gateway
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| n.大门口，出入口，途径，方法 | |
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118
plunging
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| adj.跳进的，突进的v.颠簸( plunge的现在分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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119
clattering
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| 发出咔哒声（clatter的现在分词形式） | |
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120
chattering
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| n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
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121
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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