章节正文
"We may be here all night!" exclaimed Abbleway.
The woman nodded as though she thought it possible.
"Are there wolves in these parts?" asked Abbleway
hurriedly.
"Many," said the woman; "just outside this forest my
aunt was devoured three years ago, as she was coming home
from market. The horse and a young pig that was in the
cart were eaten too. The horse was a very old one, but
it was a beautiful young pig, oh, so fat. I cried when I
heard that it was taken. They spare nothing."
"They may attack us here," said Abbleway
tremulously; "they could easily break in, these carriages
are like matchwood. We may both be devoured."
"You, perhaps," said the woman calmly; "not me."
"Why not you?" demanded Abbleway.
"It is the day of Saint Maria Kleopha, my name-day.
She would not allow me to be eaten by wolves on her day.
Such a thing could not be thought of. You, yes, but not
me."
Abbleway changed the subject.
"It is only afternoon now; if we are to be left here
till morning we shall be starving."
"I have here some good eatables," said the woman
tranquilly; "on my festival day it is natural that I
should have provision with me. I have five good blood-
sausages; in the town shops they cost twenty-five heller
each. Things are dear in the town shops."
"I will give you fifty heller apiece for a couple of
them," said Abbleway with some enthusiasm.
"In a railway accident things become very dear,"
said the woman; "these blood-sausages are four kronen
apiece."
"Four kronen!" exclaimed Abbleway; "four kronen for
a blood-sausage!"
"You cannot get them any cheaper on this train,"
said the woman, with relentless logic, "because there
aren't any others to get. In Agram you can buy them
cheaper, and in Paradise no doubt they will be given to
us for nothing, but here they cost four kronen each. I
have a small piece of Emmenthaler cheese and a honey-cake
and a piece of bread that I can let you have. That will
be another three kronen, eleven kronen in all. There is
a piece of ham, but that I cannot let you have on my
name-day."
Abbleway wondered to himself what price she would
have put on the ham, and hurried to pay her the eleven
kronen before her emergencytariff expanded into a famine
tariff. As he was taking possession of his modest store
of eatables he suddenly heard a noise which set his heart
thumping in a miserable fever of fear. 'There was a
scraping and shuffling as of some animal or animals
trying to climb up to the footboard. In another moment,
through the snow-encrusted glass of the carriage window,
he saw a gaunt prick-eared head, with gaping jaw and
lolling tongue and gleaming teeth; a second later another
head shot up.
"There are hundreds of them," whispered Abbleway;
"they have scented us. They will tear the carriage to
pieces. We shall be devoured."
"Not me, on my name-day. The holy Maria Kleopha
would not permit it," said the woman with provoking calm.
The heads dropped down from the window and an
uncanny silence fell on the beleaguered carriage.
Abbleway neither moved nor spoke. Perhaps the brutes had
not clearly seen or winded the human occupants of the
carriage, and had prowled away on some other errand of
rapine.
The long torture-laden minutes passed slowly away.
"It grows cold," said the woman suddenly, crossing
over to the far end of the carriage, where the heads had
appeared. "The heating apparatus does not work any
longer. See, over there beyond the trees, there is a
chimney with smoke coming from it. It is not far, and
the snow has nearly stopped, I shall find a path through
the forest to that house with the chimney."
"But the wolves!" exclaimed Abbleway; "they may - "
"Not on my name-day," said the woman obstinately,
and before he could stop her she had opened the door and
climbed down into the snow. A moment later he hid his
face in his hands; two gaunt lean figures rushed upon her
from the forest. No doubt she had courted her fate, but
Abbleway had no wish to see a human being torn to pieces
and devoured before his eyes.
When he looked at last a new sensation of
scandalised astonishment took possession of him. He had
been straitly brought up in a small English town, and he
was not prepared to be the witness of a miracle. The
wolves were not doing anything worse to the woman than
drench her with snow as they gambolled round her.
A short, joyous bark revealed the clue to the
situation.
"Are those - dogs?" he called weakly.
"My cousin Karl's dogs, yes," she answered; that is
his inn, over beyond the trees. I knew it was there, but
I did not want to take you there; he is always grasping
with strangers. However, it grows too cold to remain in
the train. Ah, ah, see what comes!"
A whistle sounded, and a relief engine made its
appearance, snorting its way sulkily through the snow.
Abbleway did not have the opportunity for finding out
whether Karl was really avaricious.
THE LUMBER ROOM
THE children were to be driven, as a special treat,
to the sands at Jagborough. Nicholas was not to be of
the party; he was in disgrace. Only that morning he had
refused to eat his wholesome bread-and-milk on the
seemingly frivolous ground that there was a frog in it.
Older and wiser and better people had told him that there
could not possibly be a frog in his bread-and-milk and
that he was not to talk nonsense; he continued,
nevertheless, to talk what seemed the veriest nonsense,
and described with much detail the colouration and
markings of the alleged frog. The dramatic part of the
incident was that there really was a frog in Nicholas'
basin of bread-and-milk; he had put it there himself, so
he felt entitled to know something about it. The sin of
taking a frog from the garden and putting it into a bowl
of wholesome bread-and-milk was enlarged on at great
length, but the fact that stood out clearest in the whole
affair, as it presented itself to the mind of Nicholas,
was that the older, wiser, and better people had been
proved to be profoundly in error in matters about which
they had expressed the utmost assurance.
"You said there couldn't possibly be a frog in my
bread-and-milk; there WAS a frog in my bread-and-milk,"
he repeated, with the insistence of a skilled tactician
who does not intend to shift from favourable ground.
So his boy-cousin and girl-cousin and his quite
uninteresting younger brother were to be taken to
Jagborough sands that afternoon and he was to stay at
home. His cousins' aunt, who insisted, by an unwarranted
stretch of imagination, in styling herself his aunt also,
had hastily invented the Jagborough expedition in order
to impress on Nicholas the delights that he had justly
forfeited by his disgraceful conduct at the breakfast-
table. It was her habit, whenever one of the children
fell from grace, to improvise something of a festival
nature from which the offender would be rigorously
debarred; if all the children sinned collectively they
were suddenly informed of a circus in a neighbouring
town, a circus of unrivalled merit and uncounted
elephants, to which, but for their depravity, they would
have been taken that very day.
A few decent tears were looked for on the part of
Nicholas when the moment for the departure of the
expedition arrived. As a matter of fact, however, all
the crying was done by his girl-cousin, who scraped her
knee rather painfully against the step of the carriage as
she was scrambling in.
"How she did howl," said Nicholas cheerfully, as the
party drove off without any of the elation of high
spirits that should have characterised it.
"She'll soon get over that," said the SOI-DISANT
aunt; "it will be a glorious afternoon for racing about
over those beautiful sands. How they will enjoy
themselves!"
"Bobby won't enjoy himself much, and he won't race
much either," said Nicholas with a grim chuckle; his
boots are hurting him. They're too tight."
"Why didn't he tell me they were hurting?" asked the
aunt with some asperity.
"He told you twice, but you weren't listening. You
often don't listen when we tell you important things."
"You are not to go into the gooseberry garden," said
the aunt, changing the subject.
"Why not?" demanded Nicholas.
"Because you are in disgrace," said the aunt
loftily.
Nicholas did not admit the flawlessness of the
reasoning; he felt perfectlycapable of being in disgrace
and in a gooseberry garden at the same moment. His face
took on an expression of considerableobstinacy. It was
clear to his aunt that he was determined to get into the
gooseberry garden, "only," as she remarked to herself,
"because I have told him he is not to."
Now the gooseberry garden had two doors by which it
might be entered, and once a small person like Nicholas
could slip in there he could effectually disappear from
view amid the masking growth of artichokes, raspberry
canes, and fruit bushes. The aunt had many other things
to do that afternoon, but she spent an hour or two in
trivial gardening operations among flower beds and
shrubberies, whence she could keep a watchful eye on the
two doors that led to the forbiddenparadise. She was a
woman of few ideas, with immense powers of concentration.
Nicholas made one or two sorties into the front
garden, wriggling his way with obvious stealth of purpose
towards one or other of the doors, but never able for a
moment to evade the aunt's watchful eye. As a matter of
fact, he had no intention of trying to get into the
gooseberry garden, but it was extremelyconvenient for
him that his aunt should believe that he had; it was a
belief that would keep her on self-imposed sentry-duty
for the greater part of the afternoon. Having thoroughly
confirmed and fortified her suspicions Nicholas slipped
back into the house and rapidly put into execution a plan
of action that had long germinated in his brain. By
standing on a chair in the library one could reach a
shelf on which reposed a fat, important-looking key. The
key was as important as it looked; it was the instrument
which kept the mysteries of the lumber-room secure from
The woman nodded as though she thought it possible.
"Are there wolves in these parts?" asked Abbleway
hurriedly.
"Many," said the woman; "just outside this forest my
aunt was devoured three years ago, as she was coming home
from market. The horse and a young pig that was in the
cart were eaten too. The horse was a very old one, but
it was a beautiful young pig, oh, so fat. I cried when I
heard that it was taken. They spare nothing."
"They may attack us here," said Abbleway
tremulously; "they could easily break in, these carriages
are like matchwood. We may both be devoured."
"You, perhaps," said the woman calmly; "not me."
"Why not you?" demanded Abbleway.
"It is the day of Saint Maria Kleopha, my name-day.
She would not allow me to be eaten by wolves on her day.
Such a thing could not be thought of. You, yes, but not
me."
Abbleway changed the subject.
"It is only afternoon now; if we are to be left here
till morning we shall be starving."
"I have here some good eatables," said the woman
tranquilly; "on my festival day it is natural that I
should have provision with me. I have five good blood-
sausages; in the town shops they cost twenty-five heller
each. Things are dear in the town shops."
"I will give you fifty heller apiece for a couple of
them," said Abbleway with some enthusiasm.
"In a railway accident things become very dear,"
said the woman; "these blood-sausages are four kronen
apiece."
"Four kronen!" exclaimed Abbleway; "four kronen for
a blood-sausage!"
"You cannot get them any cheaper on this train,"
said the woman, with relentless logic, "because there
aren't any others to get. In Agram you can buy them
cheaper, and in Paradise no doubt they will be given to
us for nothing, but here they cost four kronen each. I
have a small piece of Emmenthaler cheese and a honey-cake
and a piece of bread that I can let you have. That will
be another three kronen, eleven kronen in all. There is
a piece of ham, but that I cannot let you have on my
name-day."
Abbleway wondered to himself what price she would
have put on the ham, and hurried to pay her the eleven
kronen before her emergencytariff expanded into a famine
tariff. As he was taking possession of his modest store
of eatables he suddenly heard a noise which set his heart
thumping in a miserable fever of fear. 'There was a
scraping and shuffling as of some animal or animals
trying to climb up to the footboard. In another moment,
through the snow-encrusted glass of the carriage window,
he saw a gaunt prick-eared head, with gaping jaw and
lolling tongue and gleaming teeth; a second later another
head shot up.
"There are hundreds of them," whispered Abbleway;
"they have scented us. They will tear the carriage to
pieces. We shall be devoured."
"Not me, on my name-day. The holy Maria Kleopha
would not permit it," said the woman with provoking calm.
The heads dropped down from the window and an
uncanny silence fell on the beleaguered carriage.
Abbleway neither moved nor spoke. Perhaps the brutes had
not clearly seen or winded the human occupants of the
carriage, and had prowled away on some other errand of
rapine.
The long torture-laden minutes passed slowly away.
"It grows cold," said the woman suddenly, crossing
over to the far end of the carriage, where the heads had
appeared. "The heating apparatus does not work any
longer. See, over there beyond the trees, there is a
chimney with smoke coming from it. It is not far, and
the snow has nearly stopped, I shall find a path through
the forest to that house with the chimney."
"But the wolves!" exclaimed Abbleway; "they may - "
"Not on my name-day," said the woman obstinately,
and before he could stop her she had opened the door and
climbed down into the snow. A moment later he hid his
face in his hands; two gaunt lean figures rushed upon her
from the forest. No doubt she had courted her fate, but
Abbleway had no wish to see a human being torn to pieces
and devoured before his eyes.
When he looked at last a new sensation of
scandalised astonishment took possession of him. He had
been straitly brought up in a small English town, and he
was not prepared to be the witness of a miracle. The
wolves were not doing anything worse to the woman than
drench her with snow as they gambolled round her.
A short, joyous bark revealed the clue to the
situation.
"Are those - dogs?" he called weakly.
"My cousin Karl's dogs, yes," she answered; that is
his inn, over beyond the trees. I knew it was there, but
I did not want to take you there; he is always grasping
with strangers. However, it grows too cold to remain in
the train. Ah, ah, see what comes!"
A whistle sounded, and a relief engine made its
appearance, snorting its way sulkily through the snow.
Abbleway did not have the opportunity for finding out
whether Karl was really avaricious.
THE LUMBER ROOM
THE children were to be driven, as a special treat,
to the sands at Jagborough. Nicholas was not to be of
the party; he was in disgrace. Only that morning he had
refused to eat his wholesome bread-and-milk on the
seemingly frivolous ground that there was a frog in it.
Older and wiser and better people had told him that there
could not possibly be a frog in his bread-and-milk and
that he was not to talk nonsense; he continued,
nevertheless, to talk what seemed the veriest nonsense,
and described with much detail the colouration and
markings of the alleged frog. The dramatic part of the
incident was that there really was a frog in Nicholas'
basin of bread-and-milk; he had put it there himself, so
he felt entitled to know something about it. The sin of
taking a frog from the garden and putting it into a bowl
of wholesome bread-and-milk was enlarged on at great
length, but the fact that stood out clearest in the whole
affair, as it presented itself to the mind of Nicholas,
was that the older, wiser, and better people had been
proved to be profoundly in error in matters about which
they had expressed the utmost assurance.
"You said there couldn't possibly be a frog in my
bread-and-milk; there WAS a frog in my bread-and-milk,"
he repeated, with the insistence of a skilled tactician
who does not intend to shift from favourable ground.
So his boy-cousin and girl-cousin and his quite
uninteresting younger brother were to be taken to
Jagborough sands that afternoon and he was to stay at
home. His cousins' aunt, who insisted, by an unwarranted
stretch of imagination, in styling herself his aunt also,
had hastily invented the Jagborough expedition in order
to impress on Nicholas the delights that he had justly
forfeited by his disgraceful conduct at the breakfast-
table. It was her habit, whenever one of the children
fell from grace, to improvise something of a festival
nature from which the offender would be rigorously
debarred; if all the children sinned collectively they
were suddenly informed of a circus in a neighbouring
town, a circus of unrivalled merit and uncounted
elephants, to which, but for their depravity, they would
have been taken that very day.
A few decent tears were looked for on the part of
Nicholas when the moment for the departure of the
expedition arrived. As a matter of fact, however, all
the crying was done by his girl-cousin, who scraped her
knee rather painfully against the step of the carriage as
she was scrambling in.
"How she did howl," said Nicholas cheerfully, as the
party drove off without any of the elation of high
spirits that should have characterised it.
"She'll soon get over that," said the SOI-DISANT
aunt; "it will be a glorious afternoon for racing about
over those beautiful sands. How they will enjoy
themselves!"
"Bobby won't enjoy himself much, and he won't race
much either," said Nicholas with a grim chuckle; his
boots are hurting him. They're too tight."
"Why didn't he tell me they were hurting?" asked the
aunt with some asperity.
"He told you twice, but you weren't listening. You
often don't listen when we tell you important things."
"You are not to go into the gooseberry garden," said
the aunt, changing the subject.
"Why not?" demanded Nicholas.
"Because you are in disgrace," said the aunt
loftily.
Nicholas did not admit the flawlessness of the
reasoning; he felt perfectlycapable of being in disgrace
and in a gooseberry garden at the same moment. His face
took on an expression of considerableobstinacy. It was
clear to his aunt that he was determined to get into the
gooseberry garden, "only," as she remarked to herself,
"because I have told him he is not to."
Now the gooseberry garden had two doors by which it
might be entered, and once a small person like Nicholas
could slip in there he could effectually disappear from
view amid the masking growth of artichokes, raspberry
canes, and fruit bushes. The aunt had many other things
to do that afternoon, but she spent an hour or two in
trivial gardening operations among flower beds and
shrubberies, whence she could keep a watchful eye on the
two doors that led to the forbiddenparadise. She was a
woman of few ideas, with immense powers of concentration.
Nicholas made one or two sorties into the front
garden, wriggling his way with obvious stealth of purpose
towards one or other of the doors, but never able for a
moment to evade the aunt's watchful eye. As a matter of
fact, he had no intention of trying to get into the
gooseberry garden, but it was extremelyconvenient for
him that his aunt should believe that he had; it was a
belief that would keep her on self-imposed sentry-duty
for the greater part of the afternoon. Having thoroughly
confirmed and fortified her suspicions Nicholas slipped
back into the house and rapidly put into execution a plan
of action that had long germinated in his brain. By
standing on a chair in the library one could reach a
shelf on which reposed a fat, important-looking key. The
key was as important as it looked; it was the instrument
which kept the mysteries of the lumber-room secure from
- calmly [´kɑ:mli]
ad.平静地；无风浪地 (初中英语单词) - provision [prə´viʒən] n.供应；规定；条款 (初中英语单词)
- paradise [´pærədais] n.天堂；乐园 (初中英语单词)
- cheese [tʃi:z] n.干酪，乳酪 (初中英语单词)
- modest [´mɔdist] a.谦虚的；朴素的 (初中英语单词)
- miserable [´mizərəbəl] a.悲惨的；可怜的 (初中英语单词)
- carriage [´kæridʒ] n.马车；客车；货运 (初中英语单词)
- errand [´erənd] n.差使，使命 (初中英语单词)
- sensation [sen´seiʃən] n.感觉；轰动；轰动一时 (初中英语单词)
- astonishment [ə´stɔniʃmənt] n.吃惊；惊异 (初中英语单词)
- witness [´witnis] n.见证人 vt.目击 (初中英语单词)
- miracle [´mirəkl] n.奇迹；令人惊奇的 (初中英语单词)
- whistle [´wisəl] v.吹哨 n.口哨；汽笛 (初中英语单词)
- relief [ri´li:f] n.救济；援救；减轻 (初中英语单词)
- lumber [´lʌmbə] v.伐木 n.木材 (初中英语单词)
- driven [´driv(ə)n] drive 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- disgrace [dis´greis] n.耻辱 vt.玷辱；贬黜 (初中英语单词)
- dramatic [drə´mætik] a.戏剧的；戏剧般的 (初中英语单词)
- utmost [´ʌtməust] a.最大的 n.极端 (初中英语单词)
- imagination [i,mædʒi´neiʃən] n.想象(力) (初中英语单词)
- hastily [´heistili] ad.急速地；草率地 (初中英语单词)
- expedition [,ekspi´diʃən] n.远征；探险；迅速 (初中英语单词)
- impress [im´pres, ´impres] v.铭刻 n.印记；特征 (初中英语单词)
- whenever [wen´evə] conj.&ad.无论何时 (初中英语单词)
- departure [di´pɑ:tʃə] n.离开，出发 (初中英语单词)
- glorious [´glɔ:riəs] a.光荣的；辉煌的 (初中英语单词)
- capable [´keipəbəl] a.有能力；能干的 (初中英语单词)
- considerable [kən´sidərəbəl] a.重要的；值得重视 (初中英语单词)
- immense [i´mens] a.广大的，无限的 (初中英语单词)
- obvious [´ɔbviəs] a.明显的；显而易见的 (初中英语单词)
- intention [in´tenʃən] n.意图；打算；意义 (初中英语单词)
- extremely [ik´stri:mli] ad.极端地；非常地 (初中英语单词)
- convenient [kən´vi:niənt] a.方便的 (初中英语单词)
- festival [´festivəl] n.节日；庆祝；欢庆 (高中英语单词)
- hurried [´hʌrid] a.仓促的，慌忙的 (高中英语单词)
- emergency [i´mə:dʒənsi] n.事变；紧急关头 (高中英语单词)
- tariff [´tærif] n.价目表；分类关税 (高中英语单词)
- apparatus [,æpə´reitəs] n.仪器；装置 (高中英语单词)
- joyous [´dʒɔiəs] a.充满快乐的 (高中英语单词)
- finding [´faindiŋ] n.发现物；判断；结果 (高中英语单词)
- wholesome [´həulsəm] a.有益于健康的 (高中英语单词)
- nonsense [´nɔnsəns] n.胡说 int.胡说!废话 (高中英语单词)
- repeated [ri´pi:tid] a.反复的；重复的 (高中英语单词)
- skilled [skild] a.有技能的，熟练的 (高中英语单词)
- circus [´sə:kəs] n.马戏(团)；圆形广场 (高中英语单词)
- decent [´di:sənt] a.体面的，正派的 (高中英语单词)
- cheerfully [´tʃiəfuli] ad.高兴地，愉快地 (高中英语单词)
- chuckle [´tʃʌkl] vi.&n.轻声笑；暗自笑 (高中英语单词)
- perfectly [´pə:fiktli] ad.理想地；完美地 (高中英语单词)
- forbidden [fə´bidn] forbid的过去分词 (高中英语单词)
- execution [,eksi´kju:ʃən] n.执行；演奏；表演 (高中英语单词)
- apiece [ə´pi:s] ad.每个，每件，每人 (英语四级单词)
- profoundly [prə´faundli] ad.深深地 (英语四级单词)
- offender [ə´fendə] n.冒犯者；罪犯 (英语四级单词)
- painfully [´peinfuli] ad.痛苦地；费力地 (英语四级单词)
- whence [wens] ad.从何处；从那里 (英语四级单词)
- watchful [´wɔtʃfəl] a.注意的；戒备的 (英语四级单词)
- trying [´traiiŋ] a.难堪的；费劲的 (英语四级单词)
- relentless [ri´lentləs] a.无情的；坚韧的 (英语六级单词)
- taking [´teikiŋ] a.迷人的 n.捕获物 (英语六级单词)
- frivolous [´frivələs] a.轻佻的 (英语六级单词)
- insistence [in´sistəns] n.坚持；坚决主张 (英语六级单词)
- disgraceful [dis´greisful] a.可耻的；不光彩的 (英语六级单词)
- improvise [´imprəvaiz] vt.即席而作 (英语六级单词)
- obstinacy [´ɔbstinəsi] n.顽固；(病痛等)难治 (英语六级单词)
- effectually [i´fektjuəli] ad.有效地 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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