CHAPTER 2

 Then, one morning, the maiden-pink felt strangely unwell.

 

Her stalks and leaves were slack and she had a regular pain in her roots. Her flowers were so queer and loose, she thought.

 

When she complained of not being well, the sheep's-scabious and the bell-flower said that it was just the same with them. So did the blades of grass, but that did not count, for they always agreed with any one they were talking to. The moss¹ said nothing, but that did not signify either, for nobody asked him.

 

"We want rain," said the hazel-bush. "There's nothing else the matter. It doesn't affect me yet, but I suppose it will. You are so short and slender; that's why you feel it first."

 

The blades of grass nodded and thought that this was remarkably² well said on the part of the hazel-bush. The others hung their heads. The linnet sang as best he could to cheer the sick friends.

 

But sick they were and sick they remained; and it grew worse every day.

 

"I think I'm dying," said the maiden-pink.

 

The blades of grass observed, most politely, that they were already half-dead. The hazel-bush was not feeling well either and the linnet thought the air so heavy that he was not at all inclined to sing.

 

And, while they were talking about all this, towards the evening, they heard the same complaint in the whispering that came from the great wood, in the bell of the stag and the bay of the fox and the croak³ of the frog and the squeak⁴ of the mouse in her hole. The ranger⁵ and the farmer went past and talked about it; they looked up at the bright sky and shook their heads:

 

"We shall have no rain to-morrow either," said the ranger. "My small trees are dying."

 

"And my corn is being blighted," said the farmer.

 

Next morning, the friends became seriously alarmed when they looked at one another.

 

They were hardly recognizable, so ill did they appear, with yellow, hanging leaves and faded flowers and dry roots. Only the moss looked as usual.

 

"Don't you feel anything?" asked the hazel-bush.

 

"Yes, I do," said the moss. "But it doesn't show in me. I might lie here and be dead for a whole month and all the time look as if I were alive and well. I can't help it."

 

"I shall go up and look for a cloud," said the linnet.

 

And he went up in the air, so high that he was quite lost to the others, and he came back and said that there was a cloud far away in the west.

 

"Ask him to come," said the bell-flower, in a faint voice.

 

And the linnet flew up again and came back presently with the sad answer that the cloud could not:

 

"He would like to," said the linnet. "He is tired of hanging up there with all that rain. But he has to wait till the wind comes for him."

 

"Good-bye," said the maiden-pink. "And thank you for the pleasant time we have had together. I can hold out no longer."

 

And then she died. All the friends looked at one another in dismay:

 

"We must get hold of the wind," said the hazel-bush, who had more life left in him than the others. "Else it will be all up with every one of us."

 

Next morning early, the wind came stealing along. He came quite slowly, for he too was tired of the intolerable dry heat; but he had to go his rounds for all that.

 

"Dear Wind," said the sheep's-scabious. "Bring us a little cloud, or we shall all be dead."

 

"There is no cloud," said the wind.

 

"That's not true, Wind," said the linnet. "There's a beautiful grey cloud far away in the west."

 

"Re-ally?" said the wind. "Ah ... I happen to be the east wind just now, so I can't help you."

 

"Turn round, dear Wind, and bring us the cloud," asked the bell-flower, civilly. "You can blow wherever you please and we shall be grateful to you as long as we live."

 

"You will earn the thanks of the whole community," said the hazel-bush.

 

"The whole community," whispered the blades of grass.

 

"I daresay," said the wind. "But I am not what you take me for. You believe that I am my own master, because I come shifting and shifting about and sometimes blow gently and sometimes hard and am sometimes mild and sometimes keen. But I am merely a dog that comes when his master calls."

 

"Who is your master then?" asked the linnet. "I will go to him, even if he lives at the end of the earth."

 

"Ah ... if that were enough!" said the wind. "My master is the sun. I run my race at his behest. When he shines really strong anywhere, than I go up with the warm air and fetch cold air from somewhere else and fly with it along the earth. Whether it be east or west does not concern me."

 

"I don't understand it," said the linnet.

 

"I don't understand it either," said the wind. "But I do it!"

 

Then he went down. And the friends stood and hung their heads and were at their wits' end:

 

"There is nothing for it but to die," said the sheep's-scabious.

 

"If I have lived through the winter," said the hazel-bush, "I suppose I can stand this. But it's very hard."

 

And the bell-flower and the sheep's-scabious, who had never lived through the winter, wondered if it could really be worse than this. And the linnet dreamt of the south, where he spent the winter; and the blades of grass had quite thrown up the game.

 

"Can't your branches reach up to the sun?" asked the sheep's-scabious of the hazel-bush.

 

"Can't you fly up to the sun?" asked the bell-flower of the linnet.

 

But that they could not do; and the days passed and the wretchedness increased. It was quite silent in the wood. Not a bird chirped⁶, the fox stayed in his hole, the stag lay in the shade and gasped⁷, with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, and the trees stood with drooping⁸ branches, as though they were at a funeral.

 

Then the bell-flower rang all her bells, as if to ring in death over the wood. It sounded quite still and weak and nevertheless rose high in the air like a prayer:

 

"My blue bells chime for the rain to fall

In dusty and desolate⁹ places,

Where buds that should shine and be fragrant¹⁰ all

Are pining with pallid¹¹ faces."

It is not easy to know who heard it; and none of the friends said a word. But, at that moment, they all plainly heard some one speak and then they all knew that it was the sun, whom the hazel-bush could not reach with his branches and whom the linnet could not fly to, but who had heard the bell-flower's plaints:

 

"I shine as I must and not as I please; and I cannot help you. I am bound to go my course round another sun, who is a thousand times larger and better than I. I cannot swerve¹² a foot's breadth from my road; I cannot send down a single ray according to my own wishes."

 

"I don't understand it," said the hazel-bush.

 

"I don't understand it either," said the sun. "But I do it."

 

"And I understand that it is all up with a poor sheep's-scabious," said the sheep's-scabious and died then and there.

1 moss   

n.苔，藓，地衣

参考例句：

• Moss grows on a rock.苔藓生在石头上。
• He was found asleep on a pillow of leaves and moss.有人看见他枕着树叶和苔藓睡着了。

2 remarkably   

ad.不同寻常地，相当地

参考例句：

• I thought she was remarkably restrained in the circumstances. 我认为她在那种情况下非常克制。
• He made a remarkably swift recovery. 他康复得相当快。

3 croak   

vi.嘎嘎叫，发牢骚

参考例句：

• Everyone seemed rather out of sorts and inclined to croak.每个人似乎都有点不对劲，想发发牢骚。
• Frogs began to croak with the rainfall.蛙随着雨落开始哇哇叫。

4 squeak   

n.吱吱声，逃脱；v.（发出）吱吱叫，侥幸通过；（俚）告密

参考例句：

• I don't want to hear another squeak out of you!我不想再听到你出声！
• We won the game,but it was a narrow squeak.我们打赢了这场球赛，不过是侥幸取胜。

5 ranger   

n.国家公园管理员，护林员；骑兵巡逻队员

参考例句：

• He was the head ranger of the national park.他曾是国家公园的首席看守员。
• He loved working as a ranger.他喜欢做护林人。

6 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。

7 gasped   

v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要

参考例句：

• She gasped at the wonderful view. 如此美景使她惊讶得屏住了呼吸。
• People gasped with admiration at the superb skill of the gymnasts. 体操运动员的高超技艺令人赞叹。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

8 drooping   

adj. 下垂的，无力的 动词droop的现在分词

参考例句：

• The drooping willows are waving gently in the morning breeze. 晨风中垂柳袅袅。
• The branches of the drooping willows were swaying lightly. 垂柳轻飘飘地摆动。

9 desolate   

adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂

参考例句：

• The city was burned into a desolate waste.那座城市被烧成一片废墟。
• We all felt absolutely desolate when she left.她走后，我们都觉得万分孤寂。

10 fragrant   

adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的

参考例句：

• The Fragrant Hills are exceptionally beautiful in late autumn.深秋的香山格外美丽。
• The air was fragrant with lavender.空气中弥漫薰衣草香。

11 pallid   

adj.苍白的，呆板的

参考例句：

• The moon drifted from behind the clouds and exposed the pallid face.月亮从云朵后面钻出来，照着尸体那张苍白的脸。
• His dry pallid face often looked gaunt.他那张干瘪苍白的脸常常显得憔悴。

12 swerve   

v.突然转向，背离；n．转向，弯曲，背离

参考例句：

• Nothing will swerve him from his aims.什么也不能使他改变目标。
• Her car swerved off the road into a 6ft high brick wall.她的车突然转向冲出了马路，撞向6英尺高的一面砖墙。