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Chapter 6 On the High Marsh
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THE ISLAND OF SEMEL lies north and west across the Pelnish Sea from Havnor, south and west of the Enlades. Though it is one of the great isles2 of the Earthsea Archipelago, there aren't many stories from Semel. Enlad has its glorious history, and Havnor its wealth, and Paln its ill repute, but Semel has only cattle and sheep, forests and little towns, and the great silent volcano called Andanden standing4 over all.
South of Andanden lies a land where the ashes fell a hundred feet deep when last the volcano spoke5. Rivers and streams cut their way seaward through that high plain, winding6 and pooling, spreading and wandering, making a marsh7 of it, a big, desolate8, waterland with a far horizon, few trees, not many people. The ashy soil grows a rich, bright grass, and the people there keep cattle, fattening9 beef for the populous10 southern coast, letting the animals stray for miles across the plain, the rivers serving as fences.
As mountains will, Andanden makes the weather. It gathers clouds around it. The summer is short, the winter long, out on the high marsh.
In the early darkness of a winter day, a traveler stood at the windswept crossing of two paths, neither very promising11, mere12 cattle tracks among the reeds, and looked for some sign of the way he should take.
As he came down the last slope of the mountain, he had seen houses here and there out in the marshlands, a village not far away. He had thought he was on the way to the village, but had taken a wrong turning somewhere. Tall reeds rose up close beside the paths, so that if a light shone anywhere he could not see it. Water chuckled13 softly somewhere near his feet. He had used up his shoes walking round Andanden on the cruel roads of black lava14. The soles were worn right through, and his feet ached with the icy damp of the marsh paths.
It grew darker quickly. A haze15 was coming up from the south, blotting16 out the sky. Only above the huge, dim bulk of the mountain did stars burn clearly. Wind whistled in the reeds, soft, dismal17.
The traveler stood at the crossway and whistled back at the reeds.
Something moved on one of the tracks, something big, dark, in the darkness.
"Are you there, my dear?" said the traveler. He spoke in the Old Speech, the Language of the Making. "Come along, then, Ulla," he said, and the heifer came a step or two towards him, towards her name, while he walked to meet her. He made out the big head more by touch than sight, stroking the silken dip between her eyes, scratching her forehead at the roots of the nubbin horns. "Beautiful, you are beautiful," he told her, breathing her grassy18 breath, leaning against her large warmth. "Will you lead me, dear Ulla? Will you lead me where I need to go?"
He was fortunate in having met a farm heifer, not one of the roaming cattle who would only have led him deeper into the marshes19. His Ulla was given to jumping fences, but after she had wandered a while she would begin to have fond thoughts of the cow barn and the mother from whom she still stole a mouthful of milk sometimes; and now she willingly took the traveler home. She walked, slow but purposeful, down one of the tracks, and he went with her, a hand on her hip3 when the way was wide enough. When she waded20 a knee-deep stream, he held on to her tail. She scrambled21 up the low, muddy bank and flicked23 her tail loose, but she waited for him to scramble22 even more awkwardly after her. Then she plodded24 gently on. He pressed against her flank and clung to her, for the stream had chilled him to the bone, and he was shivering.
"Moo," said his guide, softly, and he saw the dim, small square of yellow light just a little to his left.
"Thank you," he said, opening the gate for the heifer, who went to greet her mother, while he stumbled across the dark houseyard to the door.

It would be Berry at the door, though why he knocked she didn't know. "Come in, you fool!" she said, and he knocked again, and she put down her mending and went to the door. "Can you be drunk already?" she said, and then saw him.
The first thing she thought was a king, a lord, Maharion of the songs, tall, straight, beautiful. The next thing she thought was a beggar, a lost man, in dirty clothes, hugging himself with shivering arms.
He said, "I lost my way. Have I come to the villager?" His voice was hoarse25 and harsh, a beggar's voice, but not a beggar's accent.
"It's a half mile on," said Gift.
"Is there an inn?"
"Not till you'd come to Oraby, a ten-twelve miles on south." She considered only briefly26. "If you need a room for the night, I have one. Or San might, if you're going to the village."
"I'll stay here if I may," he said in that princely way, with his teeth chattering27, holding on to the doorjamb to keep on his feet.
"Take your shoes off," she said, "they're soaking. Come in then." She stood aside and said, "Come to the fire," and had him sit down in Bren's settle close to the hearth28. "Stir the fire up a bit," she said. "Will you have a bit of soup? It's still hot."
"Thank you, mistress," he muttered, crouching29 at the fire. She brought him a bowl of broth30. He drank from it eagerly yet warily31, as if long unaccustomed to hot soup.
"You came over the mountain?"
He nodded.
"Whatever for?"
"To come here," he said. He was beginning to tremble less. His bare feet were a sad sight, bruised32, swollen33, sodden34. She wanted to tell him to put them right to the fire's warmth, but didn't like to presume. Whatever he was, he wasn't a beggar by choice.
"Not many come here to the High Marsh," she said. "Peddlers and such. But not in winter."
He finished his soup, and she took the bowl. She sat down in her place, the stool by the oil lamp to the right of the hearth, and took up her mending. "Get warm through, and then I'll show you your bed," she said. "There's no fire in that room. Did you meet weather, up on the mountain? They say there's been snow."
"Some flurries," he said. She got a good look at him now in the light of lamp and fire. He was not a young man, thin, not as tall as she had thought. It was a fine face, but there was something wrong, something amiss. He looks ruined, she thought, a ruined man.
"Why would you come to the Marsh?" she asked. She had a right to ask, having taken him in, yet she felt a discomfort35 in pressing the question.
"I was told there's a murrain among the cattle here." Now that he wasn't all locked up with cold his voice was beautiful. He talked like the tale-tellers when they spoke the parts of the heroes and the dragonlords. Maybe he was a teller36 or a singer? But no; the murrain, he had said.
"There is."
"I may be able to help the beasts."
"You're a curer?"
He nodded.
"Then you'll be more than welcome. The plague is terrible among the cattle. And getting worse."
He said nothing. She could see the warmth coming into him, untying37 him.
"Put your feet up to the fire," she said abruptly38. "I have some old shoes of my husbands." It cost her something to say that, yet when she had said it she felt released, untied39 too. What was she keeping Bren's shoes for, anyhow? They were too small for Berry and too big for her. She'd given away his clothes, but kept the shoes, she didn't know what for. For this fellow, it would seem. Things came round if you could wait for them, she thought. "I'll set em out for you," she said. "Yours are perished."
He glanced at her. His dark eyes were large, deep, opaque40 like a horse's eyes, unreadable.
"He's dead," she said, "two years. The marsh fever. You have to watch out for that, here. The water. I live with my brother. He's in the village, at the tavern41. We keep a dairy. I make cheese. Our herd42's been all right," and she made the sign to avert43 evil. "I keep em close in. Out on the ranges, the murrain's very bad. Maybe the cold weather'll put an end to it."
"More likely to kill the beasts that sicken with it," the man said. He sounded a bit sleepy.
"I'm called Gift," she said. "My brother's Berry."
"Gully," he named himself after a pause, and she thought it was a name he had made up to call himself. It did not fit him. Nothing about him fit together, made a whole. Yet she felt no distrust of him. She was easy with him. He meant no harm to her. She thought there was kindness in him, the way he spoke of the animals. He would have a way with them, she thought. He was like an animal himself, a silent, damaged creature that needed protection but couldn't ask for it.
"Come" she said, "before you fall asleep there," and he followed her obediently to Berry's room, which wasn't much more than a cupboard built onto the corner of the house. Her room was behind the chimney. Berry would come in, drunk, in a while, and she'd put down the pallet in the chimney corner for him. Let the traveler have a good bed for a night. Maybe he'd leave a copper44 or two with her when he went on. There was a terrible shortage of coppers45 in her household these days.

He woke, as he always did, in his room in the Great House. He did not understand why the ceiling was low and the air smelt46 fresh but sour and cattle were bawling47 outside. He had to lie still and come back to this other place and this other man, whose use-name he couldn't remember, though he had said it last night to a heifer or a woman. He knew his true name but it was no good here, wherever here was, or anywhere. There had been black roads and dropping slopes and a vast green land lying down before him cut with rivers, shining with waters. A cold wind blowing. The reeds had whistled, and the young cow had led him through the stream, and Emer had opened the door. He had known her name as soon as he saw her. But he must use some other name. He must not call her by her name. He must remember what name he had told her to call him. He must not be Irioth, though he was Irioth. Maybe in time he would be another man. No; that was wrong; he must be this man. This man's legs ached and his feet hurt. But it was a good bed, a feather bed, warm, and he need not get out of it yet. He drowsed a while, drifting away from Irioth.
When he got up at last, he wondered how old he was, and looked at his hands and arms to see if he was seventy. He still looked forty, though he felt seventy and moved like it, wincing48. He got his clothes on, foul49 as they were from days and days of travel. There was a pair of shoes under the chair, worn but good, strong shoes, and a pair of knit wool stockings to go with them. He put the stockings on his battered50 feet and limped into the kitchen. Emer stood at the big sink, straining something heavy in a cloth.
"Thank you for these and the shoes," he said, and thanking her for the gift, remembered her use-name but said only, "mistress."
"You're welcome," she said, and hoisted51 whatever it was into a massive pottery52 bowl, and wiped her hands down her apron53. He knew nothing at all about women. He had not lived where women were since he was ten years old. He had been afraid of them, the women that shouted at him to get out of the way in that great other kitchen long ago. But since he had been traveling about in Earthsea he had met women and found them easy to be with, like the animals; they went about their business not paying much attention to him unless he frightened them. He tried not to do that. He had no wish or reason to frighten them. They were not men.
"Would you like some fresh curds54? It makes a good breakfast." She was eyeing him, but not for long, and not meeting his eyes. Like an animal, like a cat, she was, sizing him up but not challenging. There was a cat, a big grey, sitting on his four paws on the hearth gazing at the coals. Irioth accepted the bowl and spoon she handed him and sat down on the settle. The cat jumped up beside him and purred.
"Look at that," said the woman. "He's not friendly with most folk."
"It's the curds."
"He knows a curer, maybe."
It was peaceful here with the woman and the cat. He had come to a good house.
"It's cold out," she said. "Ice on the trough this morning. Will you be going on, this day?"
There was a pause. He forgot that he had to answer in words. "I'd stay if I might," he said. "I'd stay here."
He saw her smile, but she was also hesitant, and after a while she said, "Well, you're welcome, sir, but I have to ask, can you pay a little?"
"Oh, yes," he said, confused, and got up and limped back to the bedroom for his pouch55. He brought her a piece of money, a little Enladian crownpiece of gold.
"Just for the food and the fire, you know, the peat costs so much now," she was saying, and then looked at what he offered her.
"Oh, sir," she said, and he knew he had done wrong.
"There's nobody in the village could change that," she said. She looked up into his face for a moment. "The whole village together couldn't change that!" she said, and laughed. It was all right, then, though the word "change" rang and rang in his head.
"It hasn't been changed," he said, but he knew that was not what she meant. "I'm sorry," he said. "If I stayed a month, if I stayed the winter, would that use it up? I should have a place to stay, while I work with the beasts."
"Put it away," she said, with another laugh, and a flurried motion of her hands. "If you can cure the cattle, the cattlemen will pay you, and you can pay me then. Call that surety, if you like. But put it away, sir! It makes me dizzy to look at it. -Berry," she said, as a nobbly, dried-up man came in the door with a gust56 of cold wind, "the gentleman will stay with us while he's curing the cattle-speed the work! He's given us surety of payment. So you'll sleep in the chimney corner, and him in the room. This is my brother Berry, sir."
Berry ducked his head and muttered. His eyes were dull. It seemed to Irioth that the man had been poisoned. When Berry went out again, the woman came closer and said, resolute57, in a low voice, "There's no harm in him but the drink, but there's not much left of him but the drink. It's eaten up most of his mind, and most of what we have. So, do you see, put up your money where he won't see it, if you don't mind, sir. He won't come looking for it. But if he saw it, he'd take it. He often doesn't know what he's doing, do you see."
"Yes," Irioth said. "I understand. You are a kind woman." She was talking about him, about his not knowing what he was doing. She was forgiving him. "A kind sister," he said. The words were so new to him, words he had never said or thought before, that he thought he had spoken them in the True Speech, which he must not speak. But she only shrugged58, with a frowning smile.
"Times I could shake his fool head off," she said, and went back to her work.
He had not known how tired he was until he came to haven59. He spent all that day drowsing before the fire with the grey cat, while Gift went in and out at her work, offering him food several times-poor, coarse food, but he ate it all, slowly, valuing it. Come evening the brother went off, and she said with a sigh, "He'll run up a whole new line of credit at the tavern on the strength of us having a lodger60. Not that it's your fault."
"Oh, yes," Irioth said. "It was my fault." But she forgave; and the grey cat was pressed up against his thigh61, dreaming. The cat's dreams came into his mind, in the low fields where he spoke with the animals, the dusky places. The cat leapt there, and then there was milk, and the deep soft thrilling. There was no fault, only the great innocence62. No need for words. They would not find him here. He was not here to find. There was no need to speak any name. There was nobody but her, and the cat dreaming, and the fire flickering63. He had come over the dead mountain on black roads, but here the streams ran slow among the pastures.

He was mad, and she didn't know what possessed64 her to let him stay, yet she could not fear him or distrust him. What did it matter if he was mad? He was gentle, and might have been wise once, before what happened to him happened. And he wasn't so mad as all that. Mad in patches, mad at moments. Nothing in him was whole, not even his madness. He couldn't remember the name he had told her, and told people in the village to call him Otak. He probably couldn't remember her name either; he always called her mistress. But maybe that was his courtesy. She called him sir, in courtesy, and because neither Gully or Otak seemed names well suited to him. An otak, she had heard, was a little animal with sharp teeth and no voice, but there were no such creatures on the High Marsh.
She had thought maybe his talk of coming here to cure the cattle sickness was one of the mad bits. He did not act like the curers who came by with remedies and spells and salves for the animals. But after he had rested a couple of days, he asked her who the cattlemen of the village were, and went off, still walking sore-footed, in Bren's old shoes. It made her heart turn in her, seeing that.
He came back in the evening, lamer65 than ever, for of course San had walked him clear out into the Long Fields where most of his beeves were. Nobody had horses but Alder66, and they were for his cowboys. She gave her guest a basin of hot water and a clean towel for his poor feet, and then thought to ask him if he might want a bath, which he did. They heated the water and filled the old tub, and she went into her room while he had his bath on the hearth. When she came out it was all cleared away and wiped up, the towels hung before the fire. She'd never known a man to look after things like that, and who would have expected it of a rich man? Wouldn't he have servants, where he came from? But he was no more trouble than the cat. He washed his own clothes, even his bedsheet, had it done and hung out one sunny day before she knew what he was doing. "You needn't do that, sir, I'll do your things with mine," she said.
"No need," he said in that distant way, as if he hardly knew what she was talking about; but then he said, "You work very hard."
"Who doesn't? I like the cheese making. There's an interest to it. And I'm strong. All I fear is getting old, when I can't lift the buckets and the molds." She showed him her round, muscular arm, making a fist and smiling. "Pretty good for fifty years old!" she said. It was silly to boast, but she was proud of her strong arms, her energy and skill.
"Speed the work," he said gravely.
He had a way with her cows that was wonderful. When he was there and she needed a hand, he took Berry's place, and as she told her friend Tawny67, laughing, he was cannier68 with the cows than Bren's old dog had been. "He talks to em, and I'll swear they consider what he says. And that heifer follows him about like a puppy." Whatever he was doing out on the ranges with the beeves, the cattlemen were coming to think well of him. Of course they would grab at any promise of help. Half San's herd was dead. Alder would not say how many head he had lost. The bodies of cattle were everywhere. If it had not been cold weather the Marsh would have reeked69 of rotting flesh. None of the water could be drunk unless you boiled it an hour, except what came from the wells, hers here and the one in the village, which gave the place its name.
One morning one of Alder's cowboys turned up in the front yard riding a horse and leading a saddled mule70. "Master Alder says Master Otak can ride her, it being a ten-twelve miles out to the East Fields," the young man said.
Her guest came out of the house. It was a bright, misty71 morning, the marshes hidden by gleaming vapors72. Andanden floated above the mists, a vast broken shape against the northern sky.
The curer said nothing to the cowboy but went straight to the mule, or hinny, rather, being out of San's big jenny by Alder's white horse. She was a whitey roan, young, with a pretty face. He went and talked to her for a minute, saying something in her big, delicate ear and rubbing her topknot.
"He does that," the cowboy said to Gift. "Talks at em." He was amused, disdainful. He was one of Berry's drinking mates at the tavern, a decent enough young fellow, for a cowboy.
"Is he curing the cattle?" she asked.
"Well, he can't lift the murrain all at once. But seems like he can cure a beast if he gets to it before the staggers begin. And those not struck yet, he says he can keep it off em. So the master's sending him all about the range to do what can be done. It's too late for many."
The curer checked the girths, eased a strap73, and got up in the saddle, not expertly, but the hinny made no objection. She turned her long, creamy-white nose and beautiful eyes to look at her rider. He smiled. Gift had never seen him smile.
"Shall we go?" he said to the cowboy, who set off at once with a wave to Gift and a snort from his little mare74. The curer followed. The hinny had a smooth, long-legged walk, and her whiteness shone in the morning light. Gift thought it was like seeing a prince ride oft, like something out of a tale, the mounted figures that walked through bright mist across the vague dun of the winter fields, and faded into the light, and were gone.

It was hard work out in the pastures. "Who doesn't do hard work?" Emer had asked, showing her round, strong arms, her hard, red hands. The cattleman Alder expected him to stay out in these meadows until he had touched every living beast of the great herds75 there. Alder had sent two cowboys along. They made a camp of sorts, with a groundcloth and a half tent. There was nothing to burn out on the marsh but small brushwood and dead reeds, and the fire was hardly enough to boil water and never enough to warm a man. The cowboys rode out and tried to round up the animals so that he could come among them in a herd, instead of going to them one by one as they scattered76 out foraging77 in the pastures of dry, frosty grass. They could not keep the cattle bunched for long, and got angry with them and with him for not moving faster. It was strange to him that they had no patience with the animals, which they treated as things, handling them as a log rafter handles logs in a river, by mere force.
They had no patience with him either, always at him to hurry up and get done with the job; nor with themselves, their life. When they talked to each other it was always about what they were going to do in town, in Oraby, when they got paid off. He heard a good deal about the whores in Oraby, Daisy and Goldie and the one they called the Burning Bush. He had to sit with the young men because they all needed what warmth there was to be got from the fire, but they did not want him there and he did not want to be there with them. In them he knew was a vague fear of him as a sorcerer, and a jealousy78 of him, but above all contempt. He was old, other, not one of them. Fear and jealousy he knew and shrank from, and contempt he remembered. He was glad he was not one of them, that they did not want to talk to him. He was afraid of doing wrong to them.
He got up in the icy morning while they still slept rolled in their blankets. He knew where the cattle were nearby, and went to them. The sickness was very familiar to him now. He felt it in his hands as a burning, and a queasiness79 if it was much advanced. Approaching one steer80 that was lying down, he found himself dizzy and retching. He came no closer, but said words that might ease the dying, and went on.
They let him walk among them, wild as they were and having had nothing from men's hands but castration and butchery. He had a pleasure in their trust in him, a pride in it. He should not, but he did. If he wanted to touch one of the great beasts he had only to stand and speak to it a little while in the language of those who do not speak. "Ulla," he said, naming them. "Ellu. Ellua." They stood, big, indifferent; sometimes one looked at him for a long time. Sometimes one came to him with its easy, loose, majestic81 tread, and breathed into his open palm. All those that came to him he could cure. He laid his hands on them, on the stiff-haired, hot flanks and neck, and sent the healing into his hands with the words of power spoken over and over. After a while the beast would give a shake, or toss its head a bit, or step on. And he would drop his hands and stand there, drained and blank, for a while. Then there would be another one, big, curious, shyly bold, muddy-coated, with the sickness in it like a prickling, a tingling82, a hotness in his hands, a dizziness. "Ellu," he would say, and walk to the beast and lay his hands upon it until they felt cool, as if a mountain stream ran through them.
The cowboys were discussing whether or not it was safe to eat the meat of a steer dead of the murrain. The supply of food they had brought, meager83 to start with, was about to run out. Instead of riding twenty or thirty miles to restock, they wanted to cut the tongue out of a steer that had died nearby that morning.
He had forced them to boil any water they used. Now he said, "If you eat that meat, in a year you'll begin to get dizzy. You'll end with the blind staggers and die as they do."
They cursed and sneered84, but believed him. He had no idea if what he said was true. It had seemed true as he said it. Perhaps he wanted to spite them. Perhaps he wanted to get rid of them.
"Ride back," he said. "Leave me here. There's enough food for one man for three or four days more. The hinny will bring me back."
They needed no persuasion85. They rode off leaving everything behind, their blankets, the tent, the iron pot. "How do we get all that back to the village?" he asked the hinny. She looked after the two ponies86 and said what hinnies say. "Aaawww!" she said. She would miss the ponies.
"We have to finish the work here," he told her, and she looked at him mildly. All animals were patient, but the patience of the horse kind was wonderful, being freely given. Dogs were loyal, but there was more of obedience87 in it. Dogs were hierarchs, dividing the world into lords and commoners. Horses were all lords. They agreed to collude. He remembered walking among the great, plumed88 feet of cart horses, fearless. The comfort of their breath on his head. A long time ago. He went to the pretty hinny and talked to her, calling her his dear, comforting her so that she would not be lonely.
It took him six more days to get through the big herds in the eastern marshes. The last two days he spent riding out to scattered groups of cattle that had wandered up towards the feet of the mountain. Many of them were not infected yet, and he could protect them. The hinny carried him bareback and made the going easy. But there was nothing left for him to eat. When he rode back to the village he was light-headed and weak-kneed. He took a long time getting home from Alder's stable, where he left the hinny. Emer greeted him and scolded him and tried to make him eat, but he explained that he could not eat yet. "As I stayed there in the sickness, in the sick fields, I felt sick. After a while I'll be able to eat again," he explained.
"You're crazy," she said, very angry. It was a sweet anger. Why could not more anger be sweet?
"At least have a bath!" she said.
He knew what he smelled like, and thanked her.
"What's Alder paying you for all this?" she demanded while the water was heating. She was still indignant, speaking more bluntly even than usual.
"I don't know," he said.
She stopped and stared at him.
"You didn't set a price?"
"Set a price?" he flashed out. Then he remembered who he was not, and spoke humbly89. "No. I didn't."
"Of all the innocence," Gift said, hissing90 the word. "He'll skin you." She dumped a kettleful of steaming water into the bath. "He has ivory," she said. "Tell him ivory it has to be. Out there ten days starving in the cold to cure his beasts! San's got nothing but copper, but Alder can pay you in ivory. I'm sorry if I'm meddling91 in your business. Sir." She flung out the door with two buckets, going to the pump. She would not use the stream water for anything at all, these days. She was wise, and kind. Why had he lived so long among those who were not kind?
"We'll have to see," said Alder, the next day, "if my beasts are cured. If they make it through the winter, see, we'll know your cures all took, that they're sound, like. Not that I doubt it, but fair's fair, right? You wouldn't ask me to pay you what I have in mind to pay you, would you now, if the cure didn't take and the beasts died after all. Avert the chance! But I wouldn't ask you to wait all that time unpaid92, neither. So here's an advance, like, on what's to come, and all's square between us for now, right?"
The coppers weren't decently in a bag, even. Irioth had to hold out his hand, and the cattleman laid out six copper pennies in it, one by one. "Now then! That's fair and square!" he said, expansive. "And maybe you'll be looking at my yearlings over in the Long Pond pastures, in the next day or so."
"No," Irioth said. "Sans herd was going down fast when I left. I'm needed there."
"Oh, no, you're not, Master Otak. While you were out in the east range a sorcerer curer came by, a fellow that's been here before, from the south coast, and so San hired him. You work for me and you'll be paid well. Better than copper, maybe, if the beasts fare well!"
Irioth did not say yes, or no, or thanks, but went off unspeaking. The cattleman looked after him and spat93. "Avert," he said.
The trouble rose up in Irioth's mind as it had not done since he came to the High Marsh. He struggled against it. A man of power had come to heal the cattle, another man of power. But a sorcerer, Alder had said. Not a wizard, not a mage. Only a curer, a cattle healer. I do not need to fear him. I do not need to fear his power. I do not need his power. I must see him, to be sure, to be certain. If he does what I do here there is no harm. We can work together. If I do what he does here. If he uses only sorcery and means no harm. As I do.
He walked down the straggling street of Purewells to Sans house, which was about midway, opposite the tavern. San, a hardbitten man in his thirties, was talking to a man on his doorstep, a stranger. When they saw Irioth they looked uneasy. San went into his house and the stranger followed.
Irioth came up onto the doorstep. He did not go in, but spoke in the open door. "Master San, it's about the cattle you have there between the rivers. I can go to them today." He did not know why he said this. It was not what he had meant to say.
"Ah," San said, coming to the door, and hemmed94 a bit. "No need, Master Otak. This here is Master Sunbright, come up to deal with the murrain. He's cured beasts for me before, the hoof95 rot and all. Being as how you have all one man can do with Alder's beeves, you see..."
The sorcerer came out from behind San. His name was Ayeth. The power in him was small, tainted96, corrupted97 by ignorance and misuse98 and lying. But the jealousy in him was like a stinging fire. "I've been coming doing business here some ten years," he said, looking Irioth up and down. "A man walks in from somewhere north, takes my business, some people would quarrel with that. A quarrel of sorcerers is a bad thing. If you're a sorcerer, a man of power, that is. I am. As the good people here well know."
Irioth tried to say he did not want a quarrel. He tried to say that there was work for two. He tried to say he would not take the man's work from him. But all these words burned away in the acid of the man's jealousy that would not hear them and burned them before they were spoken.
Ayeth's stare grew more insolent99 as he watched Irioth stammer100. He began to say something to San, but Irioth spoke.
"You have-" he said-"you have to go. Back." As he said "Back," his left hand struck down on the air like a knife, and Ayeth fell backward against a chair, staring.
He was only a little sorcerer, a cheating healer with a few sorry spells. Or so he seemed. What if he was cheating, hiding his power, a rival hiding his power? A jealous rival. He must be stopped, he must be bound, named, called. Irioth began to say the words that would bind101 him, and the shaken man cowered102 away, shrinking down, shriveling, crying out in a thin, high wail103. It is wrong, wrong, I am doing the wrong, I am the ill, Irioth thought. He stopped the spell words in his mouth, fighting against them, and at last crying out one other word. Then the man Ayeth crouched104 there, vomiting105 and shuddering106, and San was staring and trying to say, "Avert! Avert!" And no harm was done. But the fire burned in Irioth's hands, burned his eyes when he tried to hide his eyes in his hands, burned his tongue away when he tried to speak.

For a long time nobody would touch him. He had fallen down in a fit in San's doorway107. He lay there now like a dead man. But the curer from the south said he wasn't dead, and was as dangerous as an adder108. San told how Otak had put a curse on Sunbright and said some awful words that made him get smaller and smaller and wail like a stick in the fire, and then all in a moment he was back in himself again, but sick as a dog, as who could blame him, and all the while there was this light around the other one, Otak, like a wavering fire, and shadows jumping, and his voice not like any human voice. A terrible thing.
Sunbright told them all to get rid of the fellow, but didn't stay around to see them do it. He went back down the south road as soon as he'd gulped109 a pint110 of beer at the tavern, telling them there was no room for two sorcerers in one village and he'd be back, maybe, when that man, or whatever he was, had gone.
Nobody would touch him. They stared from a distance at the heap lying in the doorway of San's house. San's wife wept aloud up and down the street. "Bad cess! Bad cess!" she cried. "Oh, my babe will be born dead, I know it!"
Berry went and fetched his sister, after he had heard Sunbright's tale at the tavern, and San's version of it, and several other versions already current. In the best of them, Otak had towered up ten feet tall and struck Sunbright into a lump of coal with lightning, before foaming111 at the mouth, turning blue, and collapsing112 in a heap.
Gift hurried to the village. She went straight up to the doorstep, bent113 over the heap, and laid her hand on it. Everybody gasped114 and muttered, "Avert! Avert!" except Tawny's youngest daughter, who mistook the signs and piped up, "Speed the work!"
The heap moved, and roused up slowly. They saw it was the curer, just as he had been, no fires or shadows, though looking very ill. "Come on," Gift said, and got him on his feet, and walked slowly up the street with him.
The villagers shook their heads. Gift was a brave woman, but there was such a thing as being too brave. Or brave, they said around the tavern table, in the wrong way, or the wrong place, d'you see. Nobody should ought to meddle115 with sorcery that ain't born to it. Nor with sorcerers. You forget that. They seem the same as other folk. But they ain't like other folk. Seems there's no harm in a curer. Heal the foot rot, clear a caked udder. That's all fine. But cross one and there you are, fire and shadows and curses and falling down in fits. Uncanny. Always was uncanny, that one. Where'd he come from, anyhow? Answer me that.

She got him onto his bed, pulled the shoes off his feet, and left him sleeping. Berry came in late and drunker than usual, so that he fell and gashed117 his forehead on the andiron. Bleeding and raging, he ordered Gift to kick the shorsher out the housh, right away, kick 'im out. Then he vomited119 into the ashes and fell asleep on the hearth. She hauled him onto his pallet, pulled his shoes off his feet, and left him sleeping. She went to look at the other one. He looked feverish120, and she put her hand on his forehead. He opened his eyes, looking straight into hers without expression. "Emer," he said, and closed his eyes again.
She backed away from him, terrified.
In her bed, in the dark, she lay and thought: He knew the wizard who named me. Or I said my name. Maybe I said it out loud in my sleep. Or somebody told him. But nobody knows it. Nobody ever knew my name but the wizard, and my mother. And they're dead, they're dead... I said it in my sleep...
But she knew better.

She stood with the little oil lamp in her hand, and the light of it shone red between her fingers and golden on her face. He said her name. She gave him sleep.

He slept till late in the morning and woke as if from illness, weak and placid121. She was unable to be afraid of him. She found that he had no memory at all of what had happened in the village, of the other sorcerer, even of the six coppers she had found scattered on the bedcover, which he must have held clenched122 in his hand all along.
"No doubt that's what Alder gave you," she said. "The flint!"
"I said I'd see to his beasts at... at the pasture between the rivers, was it?" he said, getting anxious, the hunted look coming back into him, and he got up from the settle.
"Sit down," she said. He sat down, but he sat fretting123.
"How can you cure when you're sick?" she said.
"How else?" he said.
But he quieted down again presently, stroking the grey cat.
Her brother came in. "Come on out," he said to her as soon as he saw the curer dozing124 on the settle. She stepped outside with him.
"Now I won't have him here no more," Berry said, coming master of the house over her, with the great black gash118 in his forehead, and his eyes like oysters125, and his hands juddering.
"Where'll you go?" she said.
"It's him has to go."
"It's my house. Bren's house. He stays. Go or stay, it's up to you."
"It's up to me too if he stays or goes, and he goes. You haven't got all the sayso. All the people say he ought to go. He's not canny116."
"Oh, yes, since he's cured half the herds and got paid six coppers for it, time for him to go, right enough! I'll have him here as long as I choose, and that's the end of it."
"They won't buy our milk and cheese," Berry whined126.
"Who says that?"
"Sans wife. All the women."
"Then I'll carry the cheeses to Oraby," she said, "and sell em there. In the name of honor, brother, go wash out that cut, and change your shirt. You stink127 of the pothouse." And she went back into the house. "Oh, dear," she said, and burst into tears.
"What's the matter, Emer?" said the curer, turning his thin face and strange eyes to her.
"Oh, it's no good, I know it's no good. Nothing's any good with a drunkard," she said. She wiped her eyes with her apron. "Was that what broke you," she said, "the drink?"
"No," he said, taking no offense128, perhaps not understanding, "Of course it wasn't. I beg your pardon," she said.
"Maybe he drinks to try to be another man," he said. "To alter, to change..."
"He drinks because he drinks," she said. "With some, that's all it is. I'll be in the dairy, now. I'll lock the house door. There's... there's been strangers about. You rest yourself. It's bitter out." She wanted to be sure that he stayed indoors out of harm's way, and that nobody came harassing129 him. Later on she would go into the village, have a word with some of the sensible people, and put a stop to this rubbishy talk, if she could.
When she did so, Alder's wife Tawny and several other people agreed with her that a squabble between sorcerers over work was nothing new and nothing to take on about. But San and his wife and the tavern crew wouldn't let it rest, it being the only thing of interest to talk about for the rest of the winter, except the cattle dying. "Besides," Tawny said, "my man's never averse130 to paying copper where he thought he might have to pay ivory." "Are the cattle he touched keeping afoot, then?" "So far as we can see, they are. And no new sickenings." "He's a true sorcerer, Tawny," Gift said, very earnest. "I know it." "That's the trouble, love," said Tawny. "And you know it! This is no place for a man like that. Whoever he is, is none of our business, but why did he come here, is what you have to ask." "To cure the beasts," Gift said.

Sunbright had not been gone three days when a new stranger appeared in town: a man riding up the south road on a good horse and asking at the tavern for lodging131. They sent him to Sans house, but San's wife screeched132 when she heard there was a stranger at the door, crying that if San let another witch-man in the door her baby would be born dead twice over. Her screaming could be heard for several houses up and down the street, and a crowd, that is, ten or eleven people, gathered between Sans house and the tavern.
"Well, that won't do," said the stranger pleasantly. "I can't be bringing on a birth untimely. Is there maybe a room above the tavern?"
"Send him on out to the dairy," said one of Alder's cowboys. "Gift's taking whatever comes." There was some sniggering and shushing.
"Back that way," said the taverner.
"Thanks," said the traveler, and led his horse along the way they pointed133.
"All the foreigners in one basket," said the taverner, and this was repeated that night at the tavern several dozen times, an inexhaustible source of admiration134, the best thing anybody'd said since the murrain.

Gift was in the dairy, having finished the evening milking. She was straining the milk and setting out the pans. "Mistress," said a voice at the door, and she thought it was the curer and said, "Just a minute while I finish this," and then turning saw a stranger and nearly dropped the pan. "Oh, you startled me!" she said. "What can I do for you, then?"
"I'm looking for a bed for the night."
"No, I'm sorry, there's my lodger, and my brother, and me. Maybe San, in the village-"
"They sent me here. They said, "All the foreigners in one basket."" The stranger was in his thirties, with a blunt face and a pleasant look, dressed plain, though the cob that stood behind him was a good horse. "Put me up in the cow barn, mistress, it'll do fine. It's my horse needs a good bed; he's tired. I'll sleep in the barn and be off in the morning. Cows are a pleasure to sleep with on a cold night. I'll be glad to pay you, mistress, if two coppers would suit, and my name's Hawk135."
"I'm Gift," she said, a bit flustered136, but liking137 the fellow. "All right, then, Master Hawk. Put your horse up and see to him. There's the pump, there's plenty of hay. Come on in the house after. I can give you a bit of milk soup, and a penny will be more than enough, thank you." She didn't feel like calling him sir, as she always did the curer. This one had nothing of that lordly way about him. She hadn't seen a king when she first saw him, as with the other one.
When she finished in the dairy and went to the house, the new fellow, Hawk, was squatting138 on the hearth, skillfully making up the fire. The curer was in his room asleep. She looked in, and closed the door.
"He's not too well," she said, speaking low. "He was curing the cattle away out east over the marsh, in the cold, for days on end, and wore himself out."
As she went about her work in the kitchen, Hawk lent her a hand now and then in the most natural way, so that she began to wonder if men from foreign parts were all so much handier about the house than the men of the Marsh. He was easy to talk with, and she told him about the curer, since there was nothing much to say about herself.
"They'll use a sorcerer and then ill-mouth him for his usefulness," she said. "It's not just."
"But he scared em, somehow, did he?"
"I guess he did. Another curer came up this way, a fellow that's been by here before. Doesn't amount to much that I can see. He did no good to my cow with the caked bag, two years ago. And his balm's just pig fat, I'd swear. Well, so, he says to Otak, you're taking my business. And maybe Otak says the same back. And they lose their tempers, and they did some black spells, maybe. I guess Otak did. But he did no harm to the man at all, but fell down in a swoon himself. And now he doesn't remember any more about it, while the other man walked away unhurt. And they say every beast he touched is standing yet, and hale. Ten days he spent out there in the wind and the rain, touching139 the beasts and healing them. And you know what the cattleman gave him? Six pennies! Can you wonder he was a little rageous? But I don't say..." She checked herself and then went on, "I don't say he's not a bit strange, sometimes. The way witches and sorcerers are, I guess. Maybe they have to be, dealing140 with such powers and evils as they do. But he is a true man, and kind."
"Mistress," said Hawk, "may I tell you a story?"
"Oh, are you a teller? Oh, why didn't you say so to begin with! Is that what you are then? I wondered, it being winter and all, and you being on the roads. But with that horse, I thought you must be a merchant. Can you tell me a story? It would be the joy of my life, and the longer the better! But drink your soup first, and let me sit down to hear..."
"I'm not truly a teller, mistress," he said with his pleasant smile, "but I do have a story for you." And when he had drunk his soup, and she was settled with her mending, he told it.
"In the Inmost Sea, on the Isle1 of the Wise, on Roke Island, where all magery is taught, there are nine Masters," he began.
She closed her eyes in bliss141 and listened.
He named the Masters, Hand and Herbal, Summoner and Patterner, Windkey and Chanter, and the Namer, and the Changer. "The Changers and the Summoner's are very perilous142 arts," he said. "Changing, or transformation143, you maybe know of, mistress. Even a common sorcerer may know how to work illusion changes, turning one thing into another thing for a little while, or taking on a semblance144 not his own. Have you seen that?"
"Heard of it," she whispered.
"And sometimes witches and sorcerers will say that they've summoned the dead to speak through them. Maybe a child the parents are grieving for. In the witch's hut, in the darkness, they hear it cry, or laugh..."
She nodded.
"Those are spells of illusion only, of seeming. But there are true changes, and true summonings. And these may be true temptations to the wizard! It's a wonderful thing to fly on the wings of a falcon145, mistress, and to see the earth below you with a falcon's eye. And summoning, which is naming truly, is a great power. To know the true name is to have power, as you know, mistress. And the summoner's art goes straight to that. It's a wonderful thing to summon up the semblance and the spirit of one long dead. To see the beauty of Elfarran in the orchards146 of Solea, as Morred saw it when the world was young..."
His voice had become very soft, very dark.
"Well, to my story. Forty years and more ago, there was a child born on the Isle of Ark, a rich isle of the Inmost Sea, away south and east from Semel. This child was the son of an under-steward in the household of the Lord of Ark. Not a poor man's son, but not a child of much account. And the parents died young. So not much heed147 was paid to him, until they had to take notice of him because of what he did and could do. He was an uncanny brat148, as they say. He had powers. He could light a fire or douse149 it with a word. He could make pots and pans fly through the air. He could turn a mouse into a pigeon and set it flying round the great kitchens of the Lord of Ark. And if he was crossed, or frightened, then he did harm. He turned a kettle of boiling water over a cook who had mistreated him."
"Mercy," whispered Gift. She had not sewn a stitch since he began.
"He was only a child, and the wizards of that household can't have been wise men, for they used little wisdom or gentleness with him. Maybe they were afraid of him. They bound his hands and gagged his mouth to keep him from making spells. They locked him in a cellar room, a room of stone, until they thought him tamed. Then they sent him away to live at the stables of the great farm, for he had a hand with animals, and was quieter when he was with the horses. But he quarreled with a stable boy, and turned the poor lad into a lump of dung. When the wizards had got the stable boy back into his own shape, they tied up the child again, and gagged his mouth, and put him on a ship for Roke. They thought maybe the Masters there could tame him."
"Poor child," she murmured.
"Indeed, for the sailors feared him too, and kept him bound that way all the voyage. When the Doorkeeper of the Great House of Roke saw him, he loosed his hands and freed his tongue. And the first thing the boy did in the Great House, they say, he turned the Long Table of the dining hall upside down, and soured the beer, and a student who tried to stop him got turned into a pig for a bit... But the boy had met his match in the Masters.
"They didn't punish him, but kept his wild powers bound with spells until they could make him listen and begin to learn. It took them a long time. There was a rivalrous spirit in him that made him look on any power he did not have, any thing he did not know, as a threat, a challenge, a thing to fight against until he could defeat it. There are many boys like that. I was one. But I was lucky. I learned my lesson young.
"Well, this boy did learn at last to tame his anger and control his power. And a very great power it was. Whatever art he studied came easy to him, too easy, so that he despised illusion, and weatherworking, and even healing, because they held no fear, no challenge to him. He saw no virtue150 in himself for his mastery of them. So, after the Archmage Nemmerle had given him his name, the boy set his will on the great and dangerous art of summoning. And he studied with the Master of that art for a long time.
"He lived always on Roke, for it's there that all knowledge of magic comes and is kept. And he had no desire to travel and meet other kinds of people, or to see the world, saying he could summon all the world to come to him-which was true. Maybe that's where the danger of that art lies.
"Now, what is forbidden to the summoner, or any wizard, is to call a living spirit. We can call to them, yes. We can send to them a voice or a presentment, a seeming, of ourself. But we do not summon them, in spirit or in flesh, to come to us. Only the dead may we summon. Only the shadows. You can see why this must be. To summon a living man is to have entire power over him, body and mind. No one, no matter how strong or wise or great, can rightly own and use another.
"But the spirit of rivalry151 worked in the boy as he grew to be a man. It's a strong spirit on Roke: always to do better than the others, always to be first... The art becomes a contest, a game. The end becomes a means to an end less than itself... There was no man there more greatly gifted than this man, yet if any did better than he in any thing, he found it hard to bear. It frightened him, it galled152 him.
"There was no place for him among the Masters, since a new Master Summoner had been chosen, a strong man in his prime, not likely to retire or die. Among the scholars and other teachers he had a place of honor, but he wasn't one of the Nine. He'd been passed over. Maybe it wasn't a good thing for him to stay there, always among wizards and mages, among boys learning wizardry, all of them craving153 power and more power, striving to be strongest. At any rate, as the years went on he became more and more aloof154, pursuing his studies in his tower cell apart from others, teaching few students, speaking little. The Summoner would send gifted students to him, but many of the boys there scarcely knew of him. In this isolation155 he began to practice certain arts that are not well to practice and lead to no good thing.
"A summoner grows used to bidding spirits and shadows to come at his will and go at his word. Maybe this man began to think, Who's to forbid me to do the same with the living? Why have I the power if I cannot use it? So he began to call the living to him, those at Roke whom he feared, thinking them rivals, those whose power he was jealous of. When they came to him he took their power from them for himself, leaving them silent. They couldn't say what had happened to them, what had become of their power. They didn't know.
"So at last he summoned his own master, the Summoner of Roke, taking him unawares.
"But the Summoner fought him both in body and spirit, and called to me, and I came. Together we fought against the will that would destroy us."
Night had come. Gift's lamp had flickered156 out. Only the red glow of the fire shone on Hawk's face. It was not the face she had thought it. It was worn, and hard, and scarred all down one side. The hawk's face, she thought. She held still, listening.
"This is not a teller's tale, mistress. This is not a story you will ever hear anyone else tell.
"I was new at the business of being Archmage then. And younger than the man we fought, and maybe not afraid enough of him. It was all the two of us could do to hold our own against him, there in the silence, in the cell in the tower. Nobody else knew what was going on. We fought. A long time we fought. And then it was over. He broke. Like a stick breaking. He was broken. But he fled away. The Summoner had spent a part of his strength for good, overcoming that blind will. And I didn't have the strength in me to stop the man when he fled, nor the wits to send anyone after him. And not a shred157 of power left in me to follow him with. So he got away from Roke. Clean gone.
"We couldn't hide the wrestle158 we'd had with him, though we said as little about it as we could. And many there said good riddance, for he'd always been half mad, and now was mad entirely159.
"But after the Summoner and I got over the bruises160 on our souls, as you might say, and the great stupidity of mind that follows such a struggle, we began to think that it wasn't a good thing to have a man of very great power, a mage, wandering about Earthsea not in his right mind, and maybe full of shame and rage and vengefulness.
"We could find no trace of him. No doubt he changed himself to a bird or a fish when he left Roke, until he came to some other island. And a wizard can hide himself from all finding spells. We sent out inquiries161, in the ways we have of doing so, but nothing and nobody replied. So we set off looking for him, the Summoner to the eastern isles and I to the west. For when I thought about this man, I had begun to see in my mind's eye a great mountain, a broken cone162, with a long, green land beneath it reaching to the south. I remembered my geography lessons when I was a boy at Roke, and the lay of the land on Semel, and the mountain whose name is Andanden. So I came to the High Marsh. I think I came the right way."
There was a silence. The fire whispered.
"Should I speak to him?" Gift asked in a steady voice.
"No need," said the man like a falcon. "I will." And he said, "Irioth."
She looked at the door of the bedroom. It opened and he stood there, thin and tired, his dark eyes full of sleep and bewilderment and pain.
"Ged," he said. He bowed his head. After a while he looked up and asked, "Will you take my name from me?"
"Why should I do that?"
"It means only hurt. Hate, pride, greed."
"I'll take those names from you, Irioth, but not your own."
"I didn't understand," Irioth said, "about the others. That they are other. We are all other. We must be. I was wrong."
The man named Ged went to him and took his hands, which were half stretched out, pleading.
"You went wrong. You've come back. But you're tired, Irioth, and the way's hard when you go alone. Come home with me."
Irioth's head drooped163 as if in utter weariness. All tension and passion had gone out of his body. But he looked up, not at Ged but at Gift, silent in the hearth corner.
"I have work here," he said.
Ged too looked at her.
"He does," she said. "He heals the cattle."
"They show me what I should do," Irioth said, "and who I am. They know my name. But they never say it."
After a while Ged gently drew the older man to him and held him in his arms. He said something quietly to him and let him go. Irioth drew a deep breath.
"I'm no good there, you see, Ged," he said. "I am, here. If they'll let me do the work." He looked again at Gift, and Ged did also. She looked at them both.
"What say you, Emer?" asked the one like a falcon.
"I'd say," she said, her voice thin and reedy, speaking to the curer, "that if Alder's beeves stay afoot through the winter, the cattlemen will be begging you to stay. Though they may not love you."
"Nobody loves a sorcerer," said the Archmage. "Well, Irioth! Did I come all this way for you in the dead of winter, and must go back alone?"
"Tell them-tell them I was wrong," Irioth said. "Tell them I did wrong. Tell Thorion-" He halted, confused.
"I'll tell him that the changes in a man's life may be beyond all the arts we know, and all our wisdom," said the Archmage. He looked at Emer again. "May he stay here, mistress? Is that your wish as well as his?"
"He's ten times the use and company to me my brother is," she said. "And a kind true man, as I told you. Sir."
"Very well, then. Irioth, my dear companion, teacher, rival, friend, farewell. Emer, brave woman, my honor and thanks to you. May your heart and hearth know peace," and he made a gesture that left a glimmering164 track behind it a moment in the air above the hearth stone. "Now I'm off to the cow barn," he said, and he was.
The door closed. It was silent except for the whisper of the fire.
"Come to the fire," she said. Irioth came and sat down on the settle.
"Was that the Archmage? Truly?"
He nodded.
"The Archmage of the world," she said. "In my cow barn. He should have my bed-"
"He won't," said Irioth.
She knew he was right.
"Your name is beautiful, Irioth," she said after a while. "I never knew my husband's true name. Nor he mine. I won't speak yours again. But I like to know it, since you know mine."
"Your name is beautiful, Emer," he said. "I will speak it when you tell me to."


点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 isle fatze     
n.小岛,岛
参考例句:
  • He is from the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea.他来自爱尔兰海的马恩岛。
  • The boat left for the paradise isle of Bali.小船驶向天堂一般的巴厘岛。
2 isles 4c841d3b2d643e7e26f4a3932a4a886a     
岛( isle的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • the geology of the British Isles 不列颠群岛的地质
  • The boat left for the isles. 小船驶向那些小岛。
3 hip 1dOxX     
n.臀部,髋;屋脊
参考例句:
  • The thigh bone is connected to the hip bone.股骨连着髋骨。
  • The new coats blouse gracefully above the hip line.新外套在臀围线上优美地打着褶皱。
4 standing 2hCzgo     
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。
5 spoke XryyC     
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。
6 winding Ue7z09     
n.绕,缠,绕组,线圈
参考例句:
  • A winding lane led down towards the river.一条弯弯曲曲的小路通向河边。
  • The winding trail caused us to lose our orientation.迂回曲折的小道使我们迷失了方向。
7 marsh Y7Rzo     
n.沼泽,湿地
参考例句:
  • There are a lot of frogs in the marsh.沼泽里有许多青蛙。
  • I made my way slowly out of the marsh.我缓慢地走出这片沼泽地。
8 desolate vmizO     
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。
9 fattening 3lDxY     
adj.(食物)要使人发胖的v.喂肥( fatten的现在分词 );养肥(牲畜);使(钱)增多;使(公司)升值
参考例句:
  • The doctor has advised him to keep off fattening food. 医生已建议他不要吃致肥食物。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • We substitute margarine for cream because cream is fattening. 我们用人造黄油代替奶油,因为奶油会使人发胖。 来自《简明英汉词典》
10 populous 4ORxV     
adj.人口稠密的,人口众多的
参考例句:
  • London is the most populous area of Britain.伦敦是英国人口最稠密的地区。
  • China is the most populous developing country in the world.中国是世界上人口最多的发展中国家。
11 promising BkQzsk     
adj.有希望的,有前途的
参考例句:
  • The results of the experiments are very promising.实验的结果充满了希望。
  • We're trying to bring along one or two promising young swimmers.我们正设法培养出一两名有前途的年轻游泳选手。
12 mere rC1xE     
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过
参考例句:
  • That is a mere repetition of what you said before.那不过是重复了你以前讲的话。
  • It's a mere waste of time waiting any longer.再等下去纯粹是浪费时间。
13 chuckled 8ce1383c838073977a08258a1f3e30f8     
轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • She chuckled at the memory. 想起这件事她就暗自发笑。
  • She chuckled softly to herself as she remembered his astonished look. 想起他那惊讶的表情,她就轻轻地暗自发笑。
14 lava v9Zz5     
n.熔岩,火山岩
参考例句:
  • The lava flowed down the sides of the volcano.熔岩沿火山坡面涌流而下。
  • His anger spilled out like lava.他的愤怒像火山爆发似的迸发出来。
15 haze O5wyb     
n.霾,烟雾;懵懂,迷糊;vi.(over)变模糊
参考例句:
  • I couldn't see her through the haze of smoke.在烟雾弥漫中,我看不见她。
  • He often lives in a haze of whisky.他常常是在威士忌的懵懂醉意中度过的。
16 blotting 82f88882eee24a4d34af56be69fee506     
吸墨水纸
参考例句:
  • Water will permeate blotting paper. 水能渗透吸水纸。
  • One dab with blotting-paper and the ink was dry. 用吸墨纸轻轻按了一下,墨水就乾了。
17 dismal wtwxa     
adj.阴沉的,凄凉的,令人忧郁的,差劲的
参考例句:
  • That is a rather dismal melody.那是一支相当忧郁的歌曲。
  • My prospects of returning to a suitable job are dismal.我重新找到一个合适的工作岗位的希望很渺茫。
18 grassy DfBxH     
adj.盖满草的;长满草的
参考例句:
  • They sat and had their lunch on a grassy hillside.他们坐在长满草的山坡上吃午饭。
  • Cattle move freely across the grassy plain.牛群自由自在地走过草原。
19 marshes 9fb6b97bc2685c7033fce33dc84acded     
n.沼泽,湿地( marsh的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • Cows were grazing on the marshes. 牛群在湿地上吃草。
  • We had to cross the marshes. 我们不得不穿过那片沼泽地。 来自《简明英汉词典》
20 waded e8d8bc55cdc9612ad0bc65820a4ceac6     
(从水、泥等)蹚,走过,跋( wade的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • She tucked up her skirt and waded into the river. 她撩起裙子蹚水走进河里。
  • He waded into the water to push the boat out. 他蹚进水里把船推出来。
21 scrambled 2e4a1c533c25a82f8e80e696225a73f2     
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
参考例句:
  • Each scrambled for the football at the football ground. 足球场上你争我夺。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
  • He scrambled awkwardly to his feet. 他笨拙地爬起身来。 来自《简明英汉词典》
22 scramble JDwzg     
v.爬行,攀爬,杂乱蔓延,碎片,片段,废料
参考例句:
  • He broke his leg in his scramble down the wall.他爬墙摔断了腿。
  • It was a long scramble to the top of the hill.到山顶须要爬登一段长路。
23 flicked 7c535fef6da8b8c191b1d1548e9e790a     
(尤指用手指或手快速地)轻击( flick的过去式和过去分词 ); (用…)轻挥; (快速地)按开关; 向…笑了一下(或瞥了一眼等)
参考例句:
  • She flicked the dust off her collar. 她轻轻弹掉了衣领上的灰尘。
  • I idly picked up a magazine and flicked through it. 我漫不经心地拿起一本杂志翻看着。
24 plodded 9d4d6494cb299ac2ca6271f6a856a23b     
v.沉重缓慢地走(路)( plod的过去式和过去分词 );努力从事;沉闷地苦干;缓慢进行(尤指艰难枯燥的工作)
参考例句:
  • Our horses plodded down the muddy track. 我们的马沿着泥泞小路蹒跚而行。
  • He plodded away all night at his project to get it finished. 他通宵埋头苦干以便做完专题研究。 来自《简明英汉词典》
25 hoarse 5dqzA     
adj.嘶哑的,沙哑的
参考例句:
  • He asked me a question in a hoarse voice.他用嘶哑的声音问了我一个问题。
  • He was too excited and roared himself hoarse.他过于激动,嗓子都喊哑了。
26 briefly 9Styo     
adv.简单地,简短地
参考例句:
  • I want to touch briefly on another aspect of the problem.我想简单地谈一下这个问题的另一方面。
  • He was kidnapped and briefly detained by a terrorist group.他被一个恐怖组织绑架并短暂拘禁。
27 chattering chattering     
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
参考例句:
  • The teacher told the children to stop chattering in class. 老师叫孩子们在课堂上不要叽叽喳喳讲话。
  • I was so cold that my teeth were chattering. 我冷得牙齿直打战。
28 hearth n5by9     
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。
29 crouching crouching     
v.屈膝,蹲伏( crouch的现在分词 )
参考例句:
  • a hulking figure crouching in the darkness 黑暗中蹲伏着的一个庞大身影
  • A young man was crouching by the table, busily searching for something. 一个年轻人正蹲在桌边翻看什么。 来自汉英文学 - 散文英译
30 broth acsyx     
n.原(汁)汤(鱼汤、肉汤、菜汤等)
参考例句:
  • Every cook praises his own broth.厨子总是称赞自己做的汤。
  • Just a bit of a mouse's dropping will spoil a whole saucepan of broth.一粒老鼠屎败坏一锅汤。
31 warily 5gvwz     
adv.留心地
参考例句:
  • He looked warily around him,pretending to look after Carrie.他小心地看了一下四周,假装是在照顾嘉莉。
  • They were heading warily to a point in the enemy line.他们正小心翼翼地向着敌人封锁线的某一处前进。
32 bruised 5xKz2P     
[医]青肿的,瘀紫的
参考例句:
  • his bruised and bloodied nose 他沾满血的青肿的鼻子
  • She had slipped and badly bruised her face. 她滑了一跤,摔得鼻青脸肿。
33 swollen DrcwL     
adj.肿大的,水涨的;v.使变大,肿胀
参考例句:
  • Her legs had got swollen from standing up all day.因为整天站着,她的双腿已经肿了。
  • A mosquito had bitten her and her arm had swollen up.蚊子叮了她,她的手臂肿起来了。
34 sodden FwPwm     
adj.浑身湿透的;v.使浸透;使呆头呆脑
参考例句:
  • We stripped off our sodden clothes.我们扒下了湿透的衣服。
  • The cardboard was sodden and fell apart in his hands.纸板潮得都发酥了,手一捏就碎。
35 discomfort cuvxN     
n.不舒服,不安,难过,困难,不方便
参考例句:
  • One has to bear a little discomfort while travelling.旅行中总要忍受一点不便。
  • She turned red with discomfort when the teacher spoke.老师讲话时她不好意思地红着脸。
36 teller yggzeP     
n.银行出纳员;(选举)计票员
参考例句:
  • The bank started her as a teller.银行起用她当出纳员。
  • The teller tried to remain aloof and calm.出纳员力图保持冷漠和镇静。
37 untying 4f138027dbdb2087c60199a0a69c8176     
untie的现在分词
参考例句:
  • The tying of bow ties is an art; the untying is easy. 打领带是一种艺术,解领带则很容易。
  • As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, "Why are you untying the colt?" 33他们解驴驹的时候,主人问他们说,解驴驹作什么?
38 abruptly iINyJ     
adv.突然地,出其不意地
参考例句:
  • He gestured abruptly for Virginia to get in the car.他粗鲁地示意弗吉尼亚上车。
  • I was abruptly notified that a half-hour speech was expected of me.我突然被通知要讲半个小时的话。
39 untied d4a1dd1a28503840144e8098dbf9e40f     
松开,解开( untie的过去式和过去分词 ); 解除,使自由; 解决
参考例句:
  • Once untied, we common people are able to conquer nature, too. 只要团结起来,我们老百姓也能移山倒海。
  • He untied the ropes. 他解开了绳子。
40 opaque jvhy1     
adj.不透光的;不反光的,不传导的;晦涩的
参考例句:
  • The windows are of opaque glass.这些窗户装着不透明玻璃。
  • Their intentions remained opaque.他们的意图仍然令人费解。
41 tavern wGpyl     
n.小旅馆,客栈;小酒店
参考例句:
  • There is a tavern at the corner of the street.街道的拐角处有一家酒馆。
  • Philip always went to the tavern,with a sense of pleasure.菲利浦总是心情愉快地来到这家酒菜馆。
42 herd Pd8zb     
n.兽群,牧群;vt.使集中,把…赶在一起
参考例句:
  • She drove the herd of cattle through the wilderness.她赶着牛群穿过荒野。
  • He had no opinions of his own but simply follow the herd.他从无主见,只是人云亦云。
43 avert 7u4zj     
v.防止,避免;转移(目光、注意力等)
参考例句:
  • He managed to avert suspicion.他设法避嫌。
  • I would do what I could to avert it.我会尽力去避免发生这种情况。
44 copper HZXyU     
n.铜;铜币;铜器;adj.铜(制)的;(紫)铜色的
参考例句:
  • The students are asked to prove the purity of copper.要求学生们检验铜的纯度。
  • Copper is a good medium for the conduction of heat and electricity.铜是热和电的良导体。
45 coppers 3646702fee6ab6f4a49ba7aa30fb82d1     
铜( copper的名词复数 ); 铜币
参考例句:
  • I only paid a few coppers for it. 我只花了几个铜板买下这东西。
  • He had only a few coppers in his pocket. 他兜里仅有几个铜板。
46 smelt tiuzKF     
v.熔解,熔炼;n.银白鱼,胡瓜鱼
参考例句:
  • Tin is a comparatively easy metal to smelt.锡是比较容易熔化的金属。
  • Darby was looking for a way to improve iron when he hit upon the idea of smelting it with coke instead of charcoal.达比一直在寻找改善铁质的方法,他猛然想到可以不用木炭熔炼,而改用焦炭。
47 bawling e2721b3f95f01146f848648232396282     
v.大叫,大喊( bawl的现在分词 );放声大哭;大声叫出;叫卖(货物)
参考例句:
  • We heard the dulcet tones of the sergeant, bawling at us to get on parade. 我们听到中士用“悦耳”的声音向我们大喊,让我们跟上队伍。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • "Why are you bawling at me? “你向我们吼啥子? 来自汉英文学 - 中国现代小说
48 wincing 377203086ce3e7442c3f6574a3b9c0c7     
赶紧避开,畏缩( wince的现在分词 )
参考例句:
  • She switched on the light, wincing at the sudden brightness. 她打开了灯,突如其来的强烈光线刺得她不敢睜眼。
  • "I will take anything," he said, relieved, and wincing under reproof. “我什么事都愿意做,"他说,松了一口气,缩着头等着挨骂。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
49 foul Sfnzy     
adj.污秽的;邪恶的;v.弄脏;妨害;犯规;n.犯规
参考例句:
  • Take off those foul clothes and let me wash them.脱下那些脏衣服让我洗一洗。
  • What a foul day it is!多么恶劣的天气!
50 battered NyezEM     
adj.磨损的;v.连续猛击;磨损
参考例句:
  • He drove up in a battered old car.他开着一辆又老又破的旧车。
  • The world was brutally battered but it survived.这个世界遭受了惨重的创伤,但它还是生存下来了。
51 hoisted d1dcc88c76ae7d9811db29181a2303df     
把…吊起,升起( hoist的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • He hoisted himself onto a high stool. 他抬身坐上了一张高凳子。
  • The sailors hoisted the cargo onto the deck. 水手们把货物吊到甲板上。
52 pottery OPFxi     
n.陶器,陶器场
参考例句:
  • My sister likes to learn art pottery in her spare time.我妹妹喜欢在空余时间学习陶艺。
  • The pottery was left to bake in the hot sun.陶器放在外面让炎热的太阳烘晒焙干。
53 apron Lvzzo     
n.围裙;工作裙
参考例句:
  • We were waited on by a pretty girl in a pink apron.招待我们的是一位穿粉红色围裙的漂亮姑娘。
  • She stitched a pocket on the new apron.她在新围裙上缝上一只口袋。
54 curds c68e7d15631d3c2fb36a128d17feacff     
n.凝乳( curd的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • Little miss muffet sat on a tuffet eating some curds and whey. 小玛菲特小姐坐在垫子上,吃着凝乳和乳清。 来自互联网
  • The curds contain casein, fat and minerals. 凝乳中有酪蛋白、脂肪、矿物质。 来自互联网
55 pouch Oi1y1     
n.小袋,小包,囊状袋;vt.装...入袋中,用袋运输;vi.用袋送信件
参考例句:
  • He was going to make a tobacco pouch out of them. 他要用它们缝制一个烟草袋。
  • The old man is always carrying a tobacco pouch with him.这老汉总是随身带着烟袋。
56 gust q5Zyu     
n.阵风,突然一阵(雨、烟等),(感情的)迸发
参考例句:
  • A gust of wind blew the front door shut.一阵大风吹来,把前门关上了。
  • A gust of happiness swept through her.一股幸福的暖流流遍她的全身。
57 resolute 2sCyu     
adj.坚决的,果敢的
参考例句:
  • He was resolute in carrying out his plan.他坚决地实行他的计划。
  • The Egyptians offered resolute resistance to the aggressors.埃及人对侵略者作出坚决的反抗。
58 shrugged 497904474a48f991a3d1961b0476ebce     
vt.耸肩(shrug的过去式与过去分词形式)
参考例句:
  • Sam shrugged and said nothing. 萨姆耸耸肩膀,什么也没说。
  • She shrugged, feigning nonchalance. 她耸耸肩,装出一副无所谓的样子。 来自《简明英汉词典》
59 haven 8dhzp     
n.安全的地方,避难所,庇护所
参考例句:
  • It's a real haven at the end of a busy working day.忙碌了一整天后,这真是一个安乐窝。
  • The school library is a little haven of peace and quiet.学校的图书馆是一个和平且安静的小避风港。
60 lodger r8rzi     
n.寄宿人,房客
参考例句:
  • My friend is a lodger in my uncle's house.我朋友是我叔叔家的房客。
  • Jill and Sue are at variance over their lodger.吉尔和休在对待房客的问题上意见不和。
61 thigh RItzO     
n.大腿;股骨
参考例句:
  • He is suffering from a strained thigh muscle.他的大腿肌肉拉伤了,疼得很。
  • The thigh bone is connected to the hip bone.股骨连着髋骨。
62 innocence ZbizC     
n.无罪;天真;无害
参考例句:
  • There was a touching air of innocence about the boy.这个男孩有一种令人感动的天真神情。
  • The accused man proved his innocence of the crime.被告人经证实无罪。
63 flickering wjLxa     
adj.闪烁的,摇曳的,一闪一闪的
参考例句:
  • The crisp autumn wind is flickering away. 清爽的秋风正在吹拂。
  • The lights keep flickering. 灯光忽明忽暗。
64 possessed xuyyQ     
adj.疯狂的;拥有的,占有的
参考例句:
  • He flew out of the room like a man possessed.他像着了魔似地猛然冲出房门。
  • He behaved like someone possessed.他行为举止像是魔怔了。
65 lamer 3e3a378c63aa1e55e3e9ae9d2bdcd6a1     
瘸的( lame的比较级 ); 站不住脚的; 差劲的; 蹩脚的
参考例句:
66 alder QzNz7q     
n.赤杨树
参考例句:
  • He gave john some alder bark.他给了约翰一些桤木树皮。
  • Several coppice plantations have been seeded with poplar,willow,and alder.好几个灌木林场都种上了白杨、柳树和赤杨。
67 tawny tIBzi     
adj.茶色的,黄褐色的;n.黄褐色
参考例句:
  • Her black hair springs in fine strands across her tawny,ruddy cheek.她的一头乌发分披在健康红润的脸颊旁。
  • None of them noticed a large,tawny owl flutter past the window.他们谁也没注意到一只大的、褐色的猫头鹰飞过了窗户。
68 cannier ed7b326a8f40326fc2e515a0e416b900     
精明的,狡猾的( canny的比较级 )
参考例句:
  • We should carry out the policy of integrating unified planning with the principle of adaptation to local conditions. 我们应该执行计划同因事制宜的原则相结合的政策。
  • Talks will now begin about integrating the activities of both companies. 关于合并两家公司业务的谈判现在将会开始。
69 reeked eec3a20cf06a5da2657f6426748446ba     
v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的过去式和过去分词 );散发臭气;发出难闻的气味 (of sth);明显带有(令人不快或生疑的跡象)
参考例句:
  • His breath reeked of tobacco. 他满嘴烟臭味。
  • His breath reeked of tobacco. 他满嘴烟臭味。 来自《简明英汉词典》
70 mule G6RzI     
n.骡子,杂种,执拗的人
参考例句:
  • A mule is a cross between a mare and a donkey.骡子是母马和公驴的杂交后代。
  • He is an old mule.他是个老顽固。
71 misty l6mzx     
adj.雾蒙蒙的,有雾的
参考例句:
  • He crossed over to the window to see if it was still misty.他走到窗户那儿,看看是不是还有雾霭。
  • The misty scene had a dreamy quality about it.雾景给人以梦幻般的感觉。
72 vapors 94a2c1cb72b6aa4cb43b8fb8f61653d4     
n.水汽,水蒸气,无实质之物( vapor的名词复数 );自夸者;幻想 [药]吸入剂 [古]忧郁(症)v.自夸,(使)蒸发( vapor的第三人称单数 )
参考例句:
  • His emotions became vague and shifted about like vapors. 他的心情则如同一团雾气,变幻无常,捉摸不定。 来自辞典例句
  • They have hysterics, they weep, they have the vapors. 他们歇斯底里,他们哭泣,他们精神忧郁。 来自辞典例句
73 strap 5GhzK     
n.皮带,带子;v.用带扣住,束牢;用绷带包扎
参考例句:
  • She held onto a strap to steady herself.她抓住拉手吊带以便站稳。
  • The nurse will strap up your wound.护士会绑扎你的伤口。
74 mare Y24y3     
n.母马,母驴
参考例句:
  • The mare has just thrown a foal in the stable.那匹母马刚刚在马厩里产下了一只小马驹。
  • The mare foundered under the heavy load and collapsed in the road.那母马因负载过重而倒在路上。
75 herds 0a162615f6eafc3312659a54a8cdac0f     
兽群( herd的名词复数 ); 牧群; 人群; 群众
参考例句:
  • Regularly at daybreak they drive their herds to the pasture. 每天天一亮他们就把牲畜赶到草场上去。
  • There we saw herds of cows grazing on the pasture. 我们在那里看到一群群的牛在草地上吃草。
76 scattered 7jgzKF     
adj.分散的,稀疏的;散步的;疏疏落落的
参考例句:
  • Gathering up his scattered papers,he pushed them into his case.他把散乱的文件收拾起来,塞进文件夹里。
77 foraging 6101d89c0b474e01becb6651ecd4f87f     
v.搜寻(食物),尤指动物觅(食)( forage的现在分词 );(尤指用手)搜寻(东西)
参考例句:
  • They eke out a precarious existence foraging in rubbish dumps. 他们靠在垃圾场捡垃圾维持着朝不保夕的生活。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • The campers went foraging for wood to make a fire. 露营者去搜寻柴木点火。 来自辞典例句
78 jealousy WaRz6     
n.妒忌,嫉妒,猜忌
参考例句:
  • Some women have a disposition to jealousy.有些女人生性爱妒忌。
  • I can't support your jealousy any longer.我再也无法忍受你的嫉妒了。
79 queasiness 82372adeb2e2d36240c1cf4f67e66aef     
n.恶心
参考例句:
  • This medicine will counteract the queasiness caused by the antibiotics. 这种药会抑制抗生素引起的反胃。 来自辞典例句
  • Perhaps his queasiness is just a sign's coming down with bird flu. 它确定不了,也许,感觉恶心只是得了禽流感的征兆。 来自互联网
80 steer 5u5w3     
vt.驾驶,为…操舵;引导;vi.驾驶
参考例句:
  • If you push the car, I'll steer it.如果你来推车,我就来驾车。
  • It's no use trying to steer the boy into a course of action that suits you.想说服这孩子按你的方式行事是徒劳的。
81 majestic GAZxK     
adj.雄伟的,壮丽的,庄严的,威严的,崇高的
参考例句:
  • In the distance rose the majestic Alps.远处耸立着雄伟的阿尔卑斯山。
  • He looks majestic in uniform.他穿上军装显得很威风。
82 tingling LgTzGu     
v.有刺痛感( tingle的现在分词 )
参考例句:
  • My ears are tingling [humming; ringing; singing]. 我耳鸣。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
  • My tongue is tingling. 舌头发麻。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
83 meager zB5xZ     
adj.缺乏的,不足的,瘦的
参考例句:
  • He could not support his family on his meager salary.他靠微薄的工资无法养家。
  • The two men and the woman grouped about the fire and began their meager meal.两个男人同一个女人围着火,开始吃起少得可怜的午饭。
84 sneered 0e3b5b35e54fb2ad006040792a867d9f     
讥笑,冷笑( sneer的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • He sneered at people who liked pop music. 他嘲笑喜欢流行音乐的人。
  • It's very discouraging to be sneered at all the time. 成天受嘲讽是很令人泄气的。
85 persuasion wMQxR     
n.劝说;说服;持有某种信仰的宗派
参考例句:
  • He decided to leave only after much persuasion.经过多方劝说,他才决定离开。
  • After a lot of persuasion,she agreed to go.经过多次劝说后,她同意去了。
86 ponies 47346fc7580de7596d7df8d115a3545d     
矮种马,小型马( pony的名词复数 ); £25 25 英镑
参考例句:
  • They drove the ponies into a corral. 他们把矮种马赶进了畜栏。
  • She has a mania for ponies. 她特别喜欢小马。
87 obedience 8vryb     
n.服从,顺从
参考例句:
  • Society has a right to expect obedience of the law.社会有权要求人人遵守法律。
  • Soldiers act in obedience to the orders of their superior officers.士兵们遵照上级军官的命令行动。
88 plumed 160f544b3765f7a5765fdd45504f15fb     
饰有羽毛的
参考例句:
  • The knight plumed his helmet with brilliant red feathers. 骑士用鲜红的羽毛装饰他的头盔。
  • The eagle plumed its wing. 这只鹰整理它的翅膀。
89 humbly humbly     
adv. 恭顺地,谦卑地
参考例句:
  • We humbly beg Your Majesty to show mercy. 我们恳请陛下发发慈悲。
  • "You must be right, Sir,'said John humbly. “你一定是对的,先生,”约翰恭顺地说道。
90 hissing hissing     
n. 发嘶嘶声, 蔑视 动词hiss的现在分词形式
参考例句:
  • The steam escaped with a loud hissing noise. 蒸汽大声地嘶嘶冒了出来。
  • His ears were still hissing with the rustle of the leaves. 他耳朵里还听得萨萨萨的声音和屑索屑索的怪声。 来自汉英文学 - 春蚕
91 meddling meddling     
v.干涉,干预(他人事务)( meddle的现在分词 )
参考例句:
  • He denounced all "meddling" attempts to promote a negotiation. 他斥责了一切“干预”促成谈判的企图。 来自辞典例句
  • They liked this field because it was never visited by meddling strangers. 她们喜欢这块田野,因为好事的陌生人从来不到那里去。 来自辞典例句
92 unpaid fjEwu     
adj.未付款的,无报酬的
参考例句:
  • Doctors work excessive unpaid overtime.医生过度加班却无报酬。
  • He's doing a month's unpaid work experience with an engineering firm.他正在一家工程公司无偿工作一个月以获得工作经验。
93 spat pFdzJ     
n.口角,掌击;v.发出呼噜呼噜声
参考例句:
  • Her parents always have spats.她的父母经常有些小的口角。
  • There is only a spat between the brother and sister.那只是兄妹间的小吵小闹。
94 hemmed 16d335eff409da16d63987f05fc78f5a     
缝…的褶边( hem的过去式和过去分词 ); 包围
参考例句:
  • He hemmed and hawed but wouldn't say anything definite. 他总是哼儿哈儿的,就是不说句痛快话。
  • The soldiers were hemmed in on all sides. 士兵们被四面包围了。
95 hoof 55JyP     
n.(马,牛等的)蹄
参考例句:
  • Suddenly he heard the quick,short click of a horse's hoof behind him.突然间,他听见背后响起一阵急骤的马蹄的得得声。
  • I was kicked by a hoof.我被一只蹄子踢到了。
96 tainted qgDzqS     
adj.腐坏的;污染的;沾污的;感染的v.使变质( taint的过去式和过去分词 );使污染;败坏;被污染,腐坏,败坏
参考例句:
  • The administration was tainted with scandal. 丑闻使得政府声名狼藉。
  • He was considered tainted by association with the corrupt regime. 他因与腐败政府有牵连而名誉受损。 来自《简明英汉词典》
97 corrupted 88ed91fad91b8b69b62ce17ae542ff45     
(使)败坏( corrupt的过去式和过去分词 ); (使)腐化; 引起(计算机文件等的)错误; 破坏
参考例句:
  • The body corrupted quite quickly. 尸体很快腐烂了。
  • The text was corrupted by careless copyists. 原文因抄写员粗心而有讹误。
98 misuse XEfxx     
n.误用,滥用;vt.误用,滥用
参考例句:
  • It disturbs me profoundly that you so misuse your talents.你如此滥用自己的才能,使我深感不安。
  • He was sacked for computer misuse.他因滥用计算机而被解雇了。
99 insolent AbGzJ     
adj.傲慢的,无理的
参考例句:
  • His insolent manner really got my blood up.他那傲慢的态度把我的肺都气炸了。
  • It was insolent of them to demand special treatment.他们要求给予特殊待遇,脸皮真厚。
100 stammer duMwo     
n.结巴,口吃;v.结结巴巴地说
参考例句:
  • He's got a bad stammer.他口吃非常严重。
  • We must not try to play off the boy troubled with a stammer.我们不可以取笑这个有口吃病的男孩。
101 bind Vt8zi     
vt.捆,包扎;装订;约束;使凝固;vi.变硬
参考例句:
  • I will let the waiter bind up the parcel for you.我让服务生帮你把包裹包起来。
  • He wants a shirt that does not bind him.他要一件不使他觉得过紧的衬衫。
102 cowered 4916dbf7ce78e68601f216157e090999     
v.畏缩,抖缩( cower的过去式 )
参考例句:
  • A gun went off and people cowered behind walls and under tables. 一声枪响,人们缩到墙后或桌子底下躲起来。
  • He cowered in the corner, gibbering with terror. 他蜷缩在角落里,吓得语无伦次。
103 wail XMhzs     
vt./vi.大声哀号,恸哭;呼啸,尖啸
参考例句:
  • Somewhere in the audience an old woman's voice began plaintive wail.观众席里,一位老太太伤心地哭起来。
  • One of the small children began to wail with terror.小孩中的一个吓得大哭起来。
104 crouched 62634c7e8c15b8a61068e36aaed563ab     
v.屈膝,蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • He crouched down beside her. 他在她的旁边蹲了下来。
  • The lion crouched ready to pounce. 狮子蹲下身,准备猛扑。
105 vomiting 7ed7266d85c55ba00ffa41473cf6744f     
参考例句:
  • Symptoms include diarrhoea and vomiting. 症状有腹泻和呕吐。
  • Especially when I feel seasick, I can't stand watching someone else vomiting." 尤其晕船的时候,看不得人家呕。”
106 shuddering 7cc81262357e0332a505af2c19a03b06     
v.战栗( shudder的现在分词 );发抖;(机器、车辆等)突然震动;颤动
参考例句:
  • 'I am afraid of it,'she answered, shuddering. “我害怕,”她发着抖,说。 来自英汉文学 - 双城记
  • She drew a deep shuddering breath. 她不由得打了个寒噤,深深吸了口气。 来自飘(部分)
107 doorway 2s0xK     
n.门口,(喻)入门;门路,途径
参考例句:
  • They huddled in the shop doorway to shelter from the rain.他们挤在商店门口躲雨。
  • Mary suddenly appeared in the doorway.玛丽突然出现在门口。
108 adder izOzmL     
n.蝰蛇;小毒蛇
参考例句:
  • The adder is Britain's only venomous snake.蝰蛇是英国唯一的一种毒蛇。
  • An adder attacked my father.一条小毒蛇攻击了我父亲。
109 gulped 4873fe497201edc23bc8dcb50aa6eb2c     
v.狼吞虎咽地吃,吞咽( gulp的过去式和过去分词 );大口地吸(气);哽住
参考例句:
  • He gulped down the rest of his tea and went out. 他把剩下的茶一饮而尽便出去了。
  • She gulped nervously, as if the question bothered her. 她紧张地咽了一下,似乎那问题把她难住了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
110 pint 1NNxL     
n.品脱
参考例句:
  • I'll have a pint of beer and a packet of crisps, please.我要一品脱啤酒和一袋炸马铃薯片。
  • In the old days you could get a pint of beer for a shilling.从前,花一先令就可以买到一品脱啤酒。
111 foaming 08d4476ae4071ba83dfdbdb73d41cae6     
adj.布满泡沫的;发泡
参考例句:
  • He looked like a madman, foaming at the mouth. 他口吐白沫,看上去像个疯子。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • He is foaming at the mouth about the committee's decision. 他正为委员会的决定大发其火。 来自《简明英汉词典》
112 collapsing 6becc10b3eacfd79485e188c6ac90cb2     
压扁[平],毁坏,断裂
参考例句:
  • Rescuers used props to stop the roof of the tunnel collapsing. 救援人员用支柱防止隧道顶塌陷。
  • The rocks were folded by collapsing into the center of the trough. 岩石由于坍陷进入凹槽的中心而发生褶皱。
113 bent QQ8yD     
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。
114 gasped e6af294d8a7477229d6749fa9e8f5b80     
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》
115 meddle d7Xzb     
v.干预,干涉,插手
参考例句:
  • I hope he doesn't try to meddle in my affairs.我希望他不来干预我的事情。
  • Do not meddle in things that do not concern you.别参与和自己无关的事。
116 canny nsLzV     
adj.谨慎的,节俭的
参考例句:
  • He was far too canny to risk giving himself away.他非常谨慎,不会冒险暴露自己。
  • But I'm trying to be a little canny about it.但是我想对此谨慎一些。
117 gashed 6f5bd061edd8e683cfa080a6ce77b514     
v.划伤,割破( gash的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • He gashed his hand on a sharp piece of rock. 他的手在一块尖石头上划了一个大口子。
  • He gashed his arm on a piece of broken glass. 他的胳膊被玻璃碎片划了一个大口子。 来自《简明英汉词典》
118 gash HhCxU     
v.深切,划开;n.(深长的)切(伤)口;裂缝
参考例句:
  • The deep gash in his arm would take weeks to heal over.他胳膊上的割伤很深,需要几个星期的时间才能痊愈。
  • After the collision,the body of the ship had a big gash.船被撞后,船身裂开了一个大口子。
119 vomited 23632f2de1c0dc958c22b917c3cdd795     
参考例句:
  • Corbett leaned against the wall and promptly vomited. 科比特倚在墙边,马上呕吐了起来。
  • She leant forward and vomited copiously on the floor. 她向前一俯,哇的一声吐了一地。 来自英汉文学
120 feverish gzsye     
adj.发烧的,狂热的,兴奋的
参考例句:
  • He is too feverish to rest.他兴奋得安静不下来。
  • They worked with feverish haste to finish the job.为了完成此事他们以狂热的速度工作着。
121 placid 7A1yV     
adj.安静的,平和的
参考例句:
  • He had been leading a placid life for the past eight years.八年来他一直过着平静的生活。
  • You should be in a placid mood and have a heart-to- heart talk with her.你应该心平气和的好好和她谈谈心。
122 clenched clenched     
v.紧握,抓紧,咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • He clenched his fists in anger. 他愤怒地攥紧了拳头。
  • She clenched her hands in her lap to hide their trembling. 她攥紧双手放在腿上,以掩饰其颤抖。 来自《简明英汉词典》
123 fretting fretting     
n. 微振磨损 adj. 烦躁的, 焦虑的
参考例句:
  • Fretting about it won't help. 苦恼于事无补。
  • The old lady is always fretting over something unimportant. 那位老妇人总是为一些小事焦虑不安。
124 dozing dozing     
v.打瞌睡,假寐 n.瞌睡
参考例句:
  • The economy shows no signs of faltering. 经济没有衰退的迹象。
  • He never falters in his determination. 他的决心从不动摇。
125 oysters 713202a391facaf27aab568d95bdc68f     
牡蛎( oyster的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • We don't have oysters tonight, but the crayfish are very good. 我们今晚没有牡蛎供应。但小龙虾是非常好。
  • She carried a piping hot grill of oysters and bacon. 她端出一盘滚烫的烤牡蛎和咸肉。
126 whined cb507de8567f4d63145f632630148984     
v.哀号( whine的过去式和过去分词 );哀诉,诉怨
参考例句:
  • The dog whined at the door, asking to be let out. 狗在门前嚎叫着要出去。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
  • He whined and pouted when he did not get what he wanted. 他要是没得到想要的东西就会发牢骚、撅嘴。 来自辞典例句
127 stink ZG5zA     
vi.发出恶臭;糟透,招人厌恶;n.恶臭
参考例句:
  • The stink of the rotten fish turned my stomach.腐烂的鱼臭味使我恶心。
  • The room has awful stink.那个房间散发着难闻的臭气。
128 offense HIvxd     
n.犯规,违法行为;冒犯,得罪
参考例句:
  • I hope you will not take any offense at my words. 对我讲的话请别见怪。
  • His words gave great offense to everybody present.他的发言冲犯了在场的所有人。
129 harassing 76b352fbc5bcc1190a82edcc9339a9f2     
v.侵扰,骚扰( harass的现在分词 );不断攻击(敌人)
参考例句:
  • The court ordered him to stop harassing his ex-wife. 法庭命令他不得再骚扰前妻。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • It was too close to be merely harassing fire. 打得这么近,不能完全是扰乱射击。 来自辞典例句
130 averse 6u0zk     
adj.厌恶的;反对的,不乐意的
参考例句:
  • I don't smoke cigarettes,but I'm not averse to the occasional cigar.我不吸烟,但我不反对偶尔抽一支雪茄。
  • We are averse to such noisy surroundings.我们不喜欢这么吵闹的环境。
131 lodging wRgz9     
n.寄宿,住所;(大学生的)校外宿舍
参考例句:
  • The bill is inclusive of the food and lodging. 账单包括吃、住费用。
  • Where can you find lodging for the night? 你今晚在哪里借宿?
132 screeched 975e59058e1a37cd28bce7afac3d562c     
v.发出尖叫声( screech的过去式和过去分词 );发出粗而刺耳的声音;高叫
参考例句:
  • She screeched her disapproval. 她尖叫着不同意。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • The car screeched to a stop. 汽车嚓的一声停住了。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
133 pointed Il8zB4     
adj.尖的,直截了当的
参考例句:
  • He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
  • She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。
134 admiration afpyA     
n.钦佩,赞美,羡慕
参考例句:
  • He was lost in admiration of the beauty of the scene.他对风景之美赞不绝口。
  • We have a great admiration for the gold medalists.我们对金牌获得者极为敬佩。
135 hawk NeKxY     
n.鹰,骗子;鹰派成员
参考例句:
  • The hawk swooped down on the rabbit and killed it.鹰猛地朝兔子扑下来,并把它杀死。
  • The hawk snatched the chicken and flew away.老鹰叼了小鸡就飞走了。
136 flustered b7071533c424b7fbe8eb745856b8c537     
adj.慌张的;激动不安的v.使慌乱,使不安( fluster的过去式和过去分词)
参考例句:
  • The honking of horns flustered the boy. 汽车喇叭的叫声使男孩感到慌乱。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
  • She was so flustered that she forgot her reply. 她太紧张了,都忘记了该如何作答。 来自辞典例句
137 liking mpXzQ5     
n.爱好;嗜好;喜欢
参考例句:
  • The word palate also means taste or liking.Palate这个词也有“口味”或“嗜好”的意思。
  • I must admit I have no liking for exaggeration.我必须承认我不喜欢夸大其词。
138 squatting 3b8211561352d6f8fafb6c7eeabd0288     
v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的现在分词 );非法擅自占用(土地或房屋);为获得其所有权;而占用某片公共用地。
参考例句:
  • They ended up squatting in the empty houses on Oxford Road. 他们落得在牛津路偷住空房的境地。
  • They've been squatting in an apartment for the past two years. 他们过去两年来一直擅自占用一套公寓。 来自《简明英汉词典》
139 touching sg6zQ9     
adj.动人的,使人感伤的
参考例句:
  • It was a touching sight.这是一幅动人的景象。
  • His letter was touching.他的信很感人。
140 dealing NvjzWP     
n.经商方法,待人态度
参考例句:
  • This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
  • His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。
141 bliss JtXz4     
n.狂喜,福佑,天赐的福
参考例句:
  • It's sheer bliss to be able to spend the day in bed.整天都可以躺在床上真是幸福。
  • He's in bliss that he's won the Nobel Prize.他非常高兴,因为获得了诺贝尔奖金。
142 perilous E3xz6     
adj.危险的,冒险的
参考例句:
  • The journey through the jungle was perilous.穿过丛林的旅行充满了危险。
  • We have been carried in safety through a perilous crisis.历经一连串危机,我们如今已安然无恙。
143 transformation SnFwO     
n.变化;改造;转变
参考例句:
  • Going to college brought about a dramatic transformation in her outlook.上大学使她的观念发生了巨大的变化。
  • He was struggling to make the transformation from single man to responsible husband.他正在努力使自己由单身汉变为可靠的丈夫。
144 semblance Szcwt     
n.外貌,外表
参考例句:
  • Her semblance of anger frightened the children.她生气的样子使孩子们感到害怕。
  • Those clouds have the semblance of a large head.那些云的形状像一个巨大的人头。
145 falcon rhCzO     
n.隼,猎鹰
参考例句:
  • The falcon was twice his size with pouted feathers.鹰张开羽毛比两只鹰还大。
  • The boys went hunting with their falcon.男孩子们带着猎鹰出去打猎了。
146 orchards d6be15c5dabd9dea7702c7b892c9330e     
(通常指围起来的)果园( orchard的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • They turned the hills into orchards and plains into granaries. 他们把山坡变成了果园,把平地变成了粮仓。
  • Some of the new planted apple orchards have also begun to bear. 有些新开的苹果园也开始结苹果了。
147 heed ldQzi     
v.注意,留意;n.注意,留心
参考例句:
  • You must take heed of what he has told.你要注意他所告诉的事。
  • For the first time he had to pay heed to his appearance.这是他第一次非得注意自己的外表不可了。
148 brat asPzx     
n.孩子;顽童
参考例句:
  • He's a spoilt brat.他是一个被宠坏了的调皮孩子。
  • The brat sicked his dog on the passer-by.那个顽童纵狗去咬过路人。
149 douse Dkdzf     
v.把…浸入水中,用水泼;n.泼洒
参考例句:
  • Men came with buckets of water and began to douse the flames.人们提来一桶桶水灭火。
  • He doused the flames with a fire extinguisher.他用灭火器把火焰扑灭。
150 virtue BpqyH     
n.德行,美德;贞操;优点;功效,效力
参考例句:
  • He was considered to be a paragon of virtue.他被认为是品德尽善尽美的典范。
  • You need to decorate your mind with virtue.你应该用德行美化心灵。
151 rivalry tXExd     
n.竞争,竞赛,对抗
参考例句:
  • The quarrel originated in rivalry between the two families.这次争吵是两家不和引起的。
  • He had a lot of rivalry with his brothers and sisters.他和兄弟姐妹间经常较劲。
152 galled f94b58dc6efd8961e328ed2a18460f06     
v.使…擦痛( gall的过去式和过去分词 );擦伤;烦扰;侮辱
参考例句:
  • Their unkind remarks galled her. 他们不友善的话语使她恼怒。 来自辞典例句
  • He was galled by her insulting language. 他被她侮辱性的语言激怒了。 来自辞典例句
153 craving zvlz3e     
n.渴望,热望
参考例句:
  • a craving for chocolate 非常想吃巧克力
  • She skipped normal meals to satisfy her craving for chocolate and crisps. 她不吃正餐,以便满足自己吃巧克力和炸薯片的渴望。
154 aloof wxpzN     
adj.远离的;冷淡的,漠不关心的
参考例句:
  • Never stand aloof from the masses.千万不可脱离群众。
  • On the evening the girl kept herself timidly aloof from the crowd.这小女孩在晚会上一直胆怯地远离人群。
155 isolation 7qMzTS     
n.隔离,孤立,分解,分离
参考例句:
  • The millionaire lived in complete isolation from the outside world.这位富翁过着与世隔绝的生活。
  • He retired and lived in relative isolation.他退休后,生活比较孤寂。
156 flickered 93ec527d68268e88777d6ca26683cc82     
(通常指灯光)闪烁,摇曳( flicker的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • The lights flickered and went out. 灯光闪了闪就熄了。
  • These lights flickered continuously like traffic lights which have gone mad. 这些灯象发狂的交通灯一样不停地闪动着。
157 shred ETYz6     
v.撕成碎片,变成碎片;n.碎布条,细片,些少
参考例句:
  • There is not a shred of truth in what he says.他说的全是骗人的鬼话。
  • The food processor can shred all kinds of vegetables.这架食品加工机可将各种蔬菜切丝切条。
158 wrestle XfLwD     
vi.摔跤,角力;搏斗;全力对付
参考例句:
  • He taught his little brother how to wrestle.他教他小弟弟如何摔跤。
  • We have to wrestle with difficulties.我们必须同困难作斗争。
159 entirely 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。
160 bruises bruises     
n.瘀伤,伤痕,擦伤( bruise的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • He was covered with bruises after falling off his bicycle. 他从自行车上摔了下来,摔得浑身伤痕。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • The pear had bruises of dark spots. 这个梨子有碰伤的黑斑。 来自《简明英汉词典》
161 inquiries 86a54c7f2b27c02acf9fcb16a31c4b57     
n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 );疑问;探究;打听
参考例句:
  • He was released on bail pending further inquiries. 他获得保释,等候进一步调查。
  • I have failed to reach them by postal inquiries. 我未能通过邮政查询与他们取得联系。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
162 cone lYJyi     
n.圆锥体,圆锥形东西,球果
参考例句:
  • Saw-dust piled up in a great cone.锯屑堆积如山。
  • The police have sectioned off part of the road with traffic cone.警察用锥形路标把部分路面分隔开来。
163 drooped ebf637c3f860adcaaf9c11089a322fa5     
弯曲或下垂,发蔫( droop的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • Her eyelids drooped as if she were on the verge of sleep. 她眼睑低垂好像快要睡着的样子。
  • The flowers drooped in the heat of the sun. 花儿晒蔫了。
164 glimmering 7f887db7600ddd9ce546ca918a89536a     
n.微光,隐约的一瞥adj.薄弱地发光的v.发闪光,发微光( glimmer的现在分词 )
参考例句:
  • I got some glimmering of what he was driving at. 他这么说是什么意思,我有点明白了。 来自辞典例句
  • Now that darkness was falling, only their silhouettes were outlined against the faintly glimmering sky. 这时节两山只剩余一抹深黑,赖天空微明为画出一个轮廓。 来自汉英文学 - 散文英译


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