BOOK TWO-Eighteen

Eighteen
Shaw came up in a battered¹ old Land Rover. I suppose it was the car heused for going to visit isolated² farms in bad weather. He barely looked ateither of us. He went straight and bent³ over Ellie. Then he came over to us.
“She’s been dead at least three or four hours,” he said. “How did it hap-pen?”
I told him how she’d gone off riding as usual after breakfast that morn-ing.
“Has she had any accidents up to this time when she’s been out riding?”
“No,” I said, “she was a good rider.”
“Yes, I know she’s a good rider. I’ve seen her once or twice. She’s riddensince she was a child, I understand. I wondered if she might have had anaccident lately and that that might have affected⁴ her nerve a bit. If thehorse had shied—”
“Why should the horse shy? It’s a quiet brute—”
“There’s nothing vicious about this particular horse,” said Major Phill-pot. “He’s well behaved, not nervy. Has she broken any bones?”
“I haven’t made a complete examination yet but she doesn’t seem phys-ically injured in any way. There may be some internal injury. Might beshock, I suppose.”
“But you can’t die of shock,” I said.
“People have died of shock before now. If she’d had a weak heart—”
“They said in America that she had a weak heart—some kind of weak-ness at least.”
“Hm. I couldn’t find much trace of it when I examined her. Still, wedidn’t have a cardiograph. Anyway no point in going into that now. Weshall know later. After the inquest.”
He looked at me consideringly, then he patted me on the shoulder.
“You go home and go to bed,” he said. “You’re the one who’s sufferingfrom shock.”
In the queer way people materialize out of nowhere in the country, wehad three or four people standing⁵ near us, by this time. One a hiker whohad come along from the main road seeing our little group, one a rosy-faced woman who I think was going to a farm over a short cut and an oldroadman. They were making exclamations⁶ and remarks.
“Poor young lady.”
“So young too. Thrown from her horse, was she?”
“Ah well, you never know with horses.”
“It’s Mrs. Rogers, isn’t it, the American lady from The Towers?”
It was not until everyone else had exclaimed in their astonished fashion,that the aged⁷ roadman spoke⁸. He gave us information. Shaking his headhe said:
“I musta seen it happen. I musta seen it happen.”
The doctor turned sharply on him.
“What did you see happen?”
“I saw a horse bolting across country.”
“Did you see the lady fall?”
“No. No, I didn’t. She were riding along the top of the woods when I sawher and after that I’d got me back turned and I was cutting the stones forthe road. And then I heard hoofs⁹ and I looked up and there was the horseagalloping. I didn’t think there’d been an accident. I thought the lady per-haps had got off and let go of the horse in some way. It wasn’t coming to-wards me, it was going in the other direction.”
“You didn’t see the lady lying on the ground?”
“No, I don’t see very well far. I saw the horse because it showed againstthe sky line.”
“Was she riding alone? Was there anyone with her, or near her?”
“Nobody near her. No. She was all alone. She rode not very far from me,past me, going along that way. She was bearing towards the woods, Ithink. No, I didn’t see anyone at all except her and the horse.”
“Might have been the gipsy who frightened her,” said the rosy-faced wo-man.
I swung round.
“What gipsy? When?”
“Oh, must have been—well, it must have been three or four hours agowhen I went down the road this morning. About quarter to ten maybe, Isaw that gipsy woman. The one as lives in the cottages in the village. LeastI think it was she. I wasn’t near enough to be sure. But she’s the only oneas goes about hereabouts in a red cloak. She was walking up a paththrough the trees. Somebody told me as she’d said nasty things to the poorAmerican young lady. Threatened her. Told her something bad wouldhappen if she didn’t get out of this place. Very threatening, I hear shewas.”
“The gipsy,” I said. Then, bitterly, to myself, though out loud, “Gipsy’sAcre. I wish I’d never seen the place.”

1 battered   

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。

2 isolated   

adj.与世隔绝的

参考例句：

• His bad behaviour was just an isolated incident. 他的不良行为只是个别事件。
• Patients with the disease should be isolated. 这种病的患者应予以隔离。

3 bent   

n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的

参考例句：

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

4 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

5 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

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

6 exclamations   

n.呼喊( exclamation的名词复数 )；感叹；感叹语；感叹词

参考例句：

• The visitors broke into exclamations of wonder when they saw the magnificent Great Wall. 看到雄伟的长城，游客们惊叹不已。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• After the will has been read out, angry exclamations aroused. 遗嘱宣读完之后，激起一片愤怒的喊声。 来自辞典例句

7 aged   

adj.年老的，陈年的

参考例句：

• He had put on weight and aged a little.他胖了，也老点了。
• He is aged,but his memory is still good.他已年老，然而记忆力还好。

8 spoke   

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

参考例句：

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

9 hoofs   

n.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的名词复数 )v.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The stamp of the horse's hoofs on the wooden floor was loud. 马蹄踏在木头地板上的声音很响。 来自辞典例句
• The noise of hoofs called him back to the other window. 马蹄声把他又唤回那扇窗子口。 来自辞典例句