IRON

The child Cecily waited until her brother had made a bridge from a fallen bough¹, and then clasping her adorably grubby hands about his neck allowed him to carry her across the stream.

“Which way, little sister?” he asked.

A dragon-fly hovered² above the water and then darted³ away, and Cecily with a vague idea of following it chose a sunken path that almost traced the brook⁴ in its course.  It was a silent little stream running through the sleepy meadows, and where it widened among the pond lilies it almost stopped.  Here and there it eddied⁵ self-consciously about the yellow flowers and further on it almost rippled⁶ in shy haste.  And in the golden afternoon Cecily knew that the boy, so clever at building bridges, so capable in the midst of barbed wire, and above all, so kind to her, was wonderful beyond all telling.
 

When three tiny aeroplanes flew above the trenches⁷, it reminded the boy of the dragon-flies over the brook at home, and once when he crawled through the mud and helped cut away some barbed wire, the barbed wire made him think of a bit of the brook which ran through the pasture.  He remembered the wire had made a breakwater of drifting leaves and that Cecily had thrown stones at the leaves until they had slowly floated away in a p. 112great clump⁸.  And because he imagined himself a victim of unmanly sentiment, he detested⁹ these memories; so that after a while they returned no more.

At the training camp he had learned, or thought he had learned, the trick of withdrawing a bayonet after a supposedly unparried lunge.  But here as he slipped in the wet snow trying to release the driven bayonet, the thing caught and tore and ripped the flesh.  And to keep from falling he crushed and mangled¹⁰ the face beneath him with his heel. . .
 

Cecily in the twilight¹¹ pressed her face against the window pane¹².  The gaunt branch of a tree waved and pointed¹³ across the snow, but the little frozen stream was hidden away.

The child thought that when the boy returned he would still be wonderful.

Randolph Edgar.

1 bough   

n.大树枝，主枝

参考例句：

• I rested my fishing rod against a pine bough.我把钓鱼竿靠在一棵松树的大树枝上。
• Every bough was swinging in the wind.每条树枝都在风里摇摆。

2 hovered   

鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫

参考例句：

• A hawk hovered over the hill. 一只鹰在小山的上空翱翔。
• A hawk hovered in the blue sky. 一只老鹰在蓝色的天空中翱翔。

3 darted   

v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔

参考例句：

• The lizard darted out its tongue at the insect. 蜥蜴伸出舌头去吃小昆虫。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The old man was displeased and darted an angry look at me. 老人不高兴了，瞪了我一眼。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 brook   

n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让

参考例句：

• In our room we could hear the murmur of a distant brook.在我们房间能听到远处小溪汩汩的流水声。
• The brook trickled through the valley.小溪涓涓流过峡谷。

5 eddied   

起漩涡，旋转( eddy的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The waves swirled and eddied around the rocks. 波浪翻滚着在岩石周围打旋。
• The mist eddied round the old house. 雾气回旋在这栋老房子的四周。

6 rippled   

使泛起涟漪（ripple的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• The lake rippled gently. 湖面轻轻地泛起涟漪。
• The wind rippled the surface of the cornfield. 微风吹过麦田，泛起一片麦浪。

7 trenches   

深沟，地沟( trench的名词复数 )； 战壕

参考例句：

• life in the trenches 第一次世界大战期间的战壕生活
• The troops stormed the enemy's trenches and fanned out across the fields. 部队猛攻敌人的战壕，并在田野上呈扇形散开。

8 clump   

n.树丛，草丛；vi.用沉重的脚步行走

参考例句：

• A stream meandered gently through a clump of trees.一条小溪从树丛中蜿蜒穿过。
• It was as if he had hacked with his thick boots at a clump of bluebells.仿佛他用自己的厚靴子无情地践踏了一丛野风信子。

9 detested   

v.憎恶，嫌恶，痛恨( detest的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• They detested each other on sight. 他们互相看着就不顺眼。
• The freethinker hated the formalist; the lover of liberty detested the disciplinarian. 自由思想者总是不喜欢拘泥形式者，爱好自由者总是憎恶清规戒律者。 来自辞典例句

10 mangled   

vt.乱砍（mangle的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• His hand was mangled in the machine. 他的手卷到机器里轧烂了。
• He was off work because he'd mangled his hand in a machine. 他没上班，因为他的手给机器严重压伤了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 twilight   

n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期

参考例句：

• Twilight merged into darkness.夕阳的光辉融于黑暗中。
• Twilight was sweet with the smell of lilac and freshly turned earth.薄暮充满紫丁香和新翻耕的泥土的香味。

12 pane   

n.窗格玻璃，长方块

参考例句：

• He broke this pane of glass.他打破了这块窗玻璃。
• Their breath bloomed the frosty pane.他们呼出的水气，在冰冷的窗玻璃上形成一层雾。

13 pointed   

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。