【英文读物】To London Town.docx
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1、【英文读物】To London TownChapter 1The afternoon had slumbered in the sun, but now the August air freshened with an awakening breath, and Epping Thicks stirred and whispered through a myriad leaves. Far away beyond the heaving greenwoods distant clouds floated flat on the upper air, and a richer gold grew
2、 over the hills as the day went westward. This way and that, between and about trees and undergrowth, an indistinct path went straggling by easy grades to the lower ground by Wormleyton Pits; an errant path whose every bend gave choice of green passes toward banks of heather and bracken. It was by t
3、his way that an old man and a crippled child had reached the Pits. He was a small old man, white-haired, and a trifle bent; but he went his way with a sturdy tread, satchel at side and butterfly-net in hand. As for the child, she too went sturdily enough, but she hung from a crutch by the right shou
4、lder, and she moved with a p. 10jog and a swing. The hand that gripped the crutch gripped also a little bunch of meadowsweet, and the other clasped tight against her pinafore a tattered old book that would else have fallen to pieces.Once on the heathery slade, the old man lifted the strap over his h
5、ead and put the satchel down by a tree clump at the woods edge.“Nother rest for you, Bess,” he said, as he knelt to open his bag. “Im goin over the pits pretty close to-day.” He packed his pockets with pill-boxes, a poison bottle, and a battered, flat tin case; while the child, with a quick rejectio
6、n of the crutch, sat and watched.The old man stood, slapped one pocket after another, and then, with a playful sweep of the net-gauze across the childs face, tramped off among the heather. “Good luck, grandad!” she cried after him, and settled on her elbow to read.The book needed a careful separatio
7、n, being open at back as at front; likewise great heed lest the leaves fell into confusion: for, since they were worn into a shape more oval than rectangular, the page numbers had gone, and in places corners of text had gone too. But the main body of the matter, thumbed and rubbed, stood good for ma
8、ny a score more readings; and the story was The Sicilian Romance.Round about the pits and across the farther ground p. 11of Genesis Slade the old man pushed his chase. Now letting himself cautiously down the side of a pit; now stealing softly among bracken, with outstretched net; and again running h
9、is best through the wiry heather. Always working toward sun and wind, and often standing watchfully still, his eye alert for a fluttering spot amid the flood of colour about him.Meantime the little cripple conned again the familiar periods of the old romance. Few, indeed, of its ragged leaves but mi
10、ght have been replaced, if lost, from pure memory; few, indeed, for that matter, of The Pilgrims Progress or of Susan Hopley, or of The Scottish Chiefs: worn volumes all, in her grandfathers little shelf of a dozen or fifteen books. So that now, because of old acquaintance, the tale was best enjoyed
11、 with many pauses; pauses filled with the smell of the meadowsweet, and with the fantasy that abode in the woods. For the jangle of a herd-bell was the clank of a knights armour, the distant boom of a great gun at Waltham Abbey told of the downfall of enchanted castles, and in the sudden plaint of a
12、n errant cow she heard the growling of an ogre in the forest.The western hillsides grew more glorious, and the sunlight, peeping under heavy boughs, flung along the sward, gilt the tree-boles whose shadows veined it, and lit nooks under bushes where the wake-robin raised its scarlet mace of berries.
13、 The old man had dropped his p. 12net, and for awhile had been searching the herbage. It was late in the day for butterflies, but fox-moth caterpillars were plenty among the heather; as well as others. Thus Bessy read and dreamed, and her grandfather rummaged the bushes till the sunlight was gathere
14、d up from the turf under the trees, and lifted from the tallest spire among the agrimony, as the sun went beyond the hill-tops. Then at last the old man returned to his satchel.“The flies aint much,” he observed, as Bessy looked up, “but for trade its best not to miss anything: its always what youre
15、 shortest of as sells; and the blues was out late to-day. But Ive got luck with caterpillars. If they go all right I ought to have a box-full o Rosy Marbled out o these!”“Rosy Marbled! Its a late brood then. And so long since you had any!”“Two year; and this is the only place for em.” The old man pa
16、cked his bag and slung it across his back. “Well see about tea now,” he added, as the child rose on her crutch; “but well keep open eyes as we go.”Over the slade they took their way, where the purple carpet was patterned with round hollows, black with heather-ash and green with star-moss; by the edg
17、es of the old gravel-pits, overhung with bramble and bush; and so into more woods.A jay flew up before them, scolding angrily. Now p. 13and again a gap among the trees let through red light from beyond Woodredon. Again and again the old man checked his walk, sometimes but to drop once more into his
18、even tramp, sometimes to stop, and sometimes to beat the undergrowth and to shake branches. To any who saw there was always a vaguely familiar quality in old Mays walk; ever a patient plod, and, burdened or not, ever an odd suggestion of something carried over shoulder; matters made plain when it wa
19、s learned that the old man had been forty years a postman.Presently as they walked they heard shrieks, guffaws, and a discordant singing that half-smothered the whine of a concertina. The noise was the louder as they went, and when they came where the white of a dusty road backed the tree-stems, the
20、y heard it at its fullest. Across the way was an inn, and by its side a space of open ground whereon some threescore beanfeasters sported at large. Many were busy at kiss-in-the-ring, some waved branches torn from trees, others stood up empty bottles and flung more bottles at them; they stood, sat,
21、ran, lay, and rolled, but each made noise of some sort, and most drank. Plainly donkey-riding had palled, for a man and a boy had gathered their half-dozen donkeys together, and were driving them off.The people were Londoners, as Bessy knew, for she had often seen others. She had forgotten London he
22、rselfall of it but a large drab room with a row of little p. 14beds like her own, each bed with a board on it, for toys; and this, too, she would have forgotten (for she was very little indeed then) but that a large and terrible gentleman had come every day and hurt her bad leg. It was the Shadwell
23、Hospital. But these were Londoners, and Bessy was a little afraid of them, and conceived London to be a very merry and noisy place, very badly broken, everywhere, by reason of the Londoners. Other people, also, came in waggonettes, and were a little quieter, and less gloriously bedecked. She had see
24、n such a party earlier in the day. Probably they were not real Londoners, but folk from parts adjoining. But thesethese were Londoners proper, wearing each others hats, with paper wreaths on them.“Wayo, old un!” bawled one, as the old man, net in hand, crossed toward the wood opposite; “bin ketchin
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