章节正文
it to slacken pace, or to swerve from him into a different
course. Instead, the animal almost brushed him as it dashed
past, his face set and hard, his eyes staring. `Get out of this,
you fool, get out!' the Mole heard him mutter as he swung round a
stump and disappeared down a friendly burrow.
The pattering increased till it sounded like sudden hail on the
dry leaf-carpet spread around him. The whole wood seemed running
now, running hard, hunting, chasing, closing in round something
or--somebody? In panic, he began to run too, aimlessly, he knew
not whither. He ran up against things, he fell over things and
into things, he darted under things and dodged round things. At
last he took refuge in the deep dark hollow of an old beech tree,
which offered shelter, concealment--perhaps even safety, but who
could tell? Anyhow, he was too tired to run any further, and
could only snuggle down into the dry leaves which had drifted
into the hollow and hope he was safe for a time. And as he lay
there panting and trembling, and listened to the whistlings and
the patterings outside, he knew it at last, in all its fullness,
that dread thing which other little dwellers in field and
hedgerow had encountered here, and known as their darkest
moment--that thing which the Rat had vainly tried to shield him
from--the Terror of the Wild Wood!
Meantime the Rat, warm and comfortable, dozed by his fireside.
His paper of half-finished verses slipped from his knee, his head
fell back, his mouth opened, and he wandered by the verdant banks
of dream-rivers. Then a coal slipped, the fire crackled and sent
up a spurt of flame, and he woke with a start. Remembering what
he had been engaged upon, he reached down to the floor for his
verses, pored over them for a minute, and then looked round for
the Mole to ask him if he knew a good rhyme for something or
other.
But the Mole was not there.
He listened for a time. The house seemed very quiet.
Then he called `Moly!' several times, and, receiving no
answer, got up and went out into the hall.
The Mole's cap was missing from its accustomed peg. His
goloshes, which always lay by the umbrella-stand, were also gone.
The Rat left the house, and carefully examined the muddy surface
of the ground outside, hoping to find the Mole's tracks. There
they were, sure enough. The goloshes were new, just bought for
the winter, and the pimples on their soles were fresh and sharp.
He could see the imprints of them in the mud, running along
straight and purposeful, leading direct to the Wild Wood.
The Rat looked very grave, and stood in deep thought for a minute
or two. Then he re-entered the house, strapped a belt round his
waist, shoved a brace of pistols into it, took up a stout cudgel
that stood in a corner of the hall, and set off for the Wild Wood
at a smart pace.
It was already getting towards dusk when he reached the first
fringe of trees and plunged without hesitation into the wood,
looking anxiously on either side for any sign of his friend.
Here and there wicked little faces popped out of holes, but
vanished immediately at sight of the valorous animal, his
pistols, and the great ugly cudgel in his grasp; and the
whistling and pattering, which he had heard quite plainly on his
first entry, died away and ceased, and all was very still. He
made his way manfully through the length of the wood, to its
furthest edge; then, forsaking all paths, he set himself to
traverse it, laboriously working over the whole ground, and all
the time calling out cheerfully, `Moly, Moly, Moly! Where are
you? It's me--it's old Rat!'
He had patiently hunted through the wood for an hour or more,
when at last to his joy he heard a little answering cry. Guiding
himself by the sound, he made his way through the gathering
darkness to the foot of an old beech tree, with a hole in it, and
from out of the hole came a feeble voice, saying `Ratty! Is that
really you?'
The Rat crept into the hollow, and there he found the Mole,
exhausted and still trembling. `O Rat!' he cried, `I've been so
frightened, you can't think!'
`O, I quite understand,' said the Rat soothingly. `You shouldn't
really have gone and done it, Mole. I did my best to keep
you from it. We river-bankers, we hardly ever come here by
ourselves. If we have to come, we come in couples, at least;
then we're generally all right. Besides, there are a hundred
things one has to know, which we understand all about and you
don't, as yet. I mean passwords, and signs, and sayings which
have power and effect, and plants you carry in your pocket, and
verses you repeat, and dodges and tricks you practise; all simple
enough when you know them, but they've got to be known if you're
small, or you'll find yourself in trouble. Of course if you were
Badger or Otter, it would be quite another matter.'
`Surely the brave Mr. Toad wouldn't mind coming here by himself,
would he?' inquired the Mole.
`Old Toad?' said the Rat, laughing heartily. `He wouldn't show
his face here alone, not for a whole hatful of golden guineas,
Toad wouldn't.'
The Mole was greatly cheered by the sound of the Rat's careless
laughter, as well as by the sight of his stick and his gleaming
pistols, and he stopped shivering and began to feel bolder and
more himself again.
`Now then,' said the Rat presently, `we really must pull
ourselves together and make a start for home while there's still
a little light left. It will never do to spend the night here,
you understand. Too cold, for one thing.'
`Dear Ratty,' said the poor Mole, `I'm dreadfully" target="_blank" title="ad.可怕地；糟透地">dreadfully sorry, but I'm
simply dead beat and that's a solid fact. You MUST let me
rest here a while longer, and get my strength back, if I'm to get
home at all.'
`O, all right,' said the good-natured Rat, `rest away. It's
pretty nearly pitch dark now, anyhow; and there ought to be a bit
of a moon later.'
So the Mole got well into the dry leaves and stretched himself
out, and presently dropped off into sleep, though of a broken and
troubled sort; while the Rat covered himself up, too, as best he
might, for warmth, and lay patientlywaiting, with a pistol in
his paw.
When at last the Mole woke up, much refreshed and in his usual
spirits, the Rat said, `Now then! I'll just take a look outside
and see if everything's quiet, and then we really must be off.'
He went to the entrance of their retreat and put his head
out. Then the Mole heard him saying quietly to himself, `Hullo!
hullo! here-- is--a--go!'
`What's up, Ratty?' asked the Mole.
`SNOW is up,' replied the Rat briefly; `or rather, DOWN.
It's snowing hard.'
The Mole came and crouched beside him, and, looking out, saw the
wood that had been so dreadful to him in quite a changed aspect.
Holes, hollows, pools, pitfalls, and other black menaces to the
wayfarer were vanishing fast, and a gleaming carpet of faery was
springing up everywhere, that looked too delicate to be trodden
upon by rough feet. A fine powder filled the air and caressed
the cheek with a tingle in its touch, and the black boles of the
trees showed up in a light that seemed to come from below.
`Well, well, it can't be helped,' said the Rat, after pondering.
`We must make a start, and take our chance, I suppose. The worst
of it is, I don't exactly know where we are. And now this snow
makes everything look so very different.'
It did indeed. The Mole would not have known that it was the
same wood. However, they set out bravely, and took the line
that seemed most promising, holding on to each other and
pretending with invincible cheerfulness that they recognized an
old friend in every fresh tree that grimly and silently greeted
them, or saw openings, gaps, or paths with a familiar turn in
them, in the monotony of white space and black tree-trunks that
refused to vary.
An hour or two later--they had lost all count of time--they
pulled up, dispirited, weary, and hopelessly at sea, and sat down
on a fallen tree-trunk to recover their breath and consider what
was to be done. They were aching with fatigue and bruised with
tumbles; they had fallen into several holes and got wet through;
the snow was getting so deep that they could hardly drag their
little legs through it, and the trees were thicker and more like
each other than ever. There seemed to be no end to this wood,
and no beginning, and no difference in it, and, worst of all, no
way out.
`We can't sit here very long,' said the Rat. `We shall have to
make another push for it, and do something or other. The cold is
too awful for anything, and the snow will soon be too deep for us
to wade through.' He peered about him and considered. `Look
here,' he went on, `this is what occurs to me. There's a sort of
dell down here in front of us, where the ground seems all hilly
and humpy and hummocky. We'll make our way down into that, and
try and find some sort of shelter, a cave or hole with a dry
floor to it, out of the snow and the wind, and there we'll have a
good rest before we try again, for we're both of us pretty dead
beat. Besides, the snow may leave off, or something may turn
up.'
So once more they got on their feet, and struggled down into the
dell, where they hunted about for a cave or some corner that was
dry and a protection from the keen wind and the whirling snow.
They were investigating one of the hummocky bits the Rat had
spoken of, when suddenly the Mole tripped up and fell forward on
his face with a squeal.
`O my leg!' he cried. `O my poor shin!' and he sat up on the
snow and nursed his leg in both his front paws.
`Poor old Mole!' said the Rat kindly.
`You don't seem to be having much luck to-day, do you? Let's
have a look at the leg. Yes,' he went on, going down on his
knees to look, `you've cut your shin, sure enough. Wait till
I get at my handkerchief, and I'll tie it up for you.'
`I must have tripped over a hidden branch or a stump,' said the
Mole miserably. `O, my! O, my!'
`It's a very clean cut,' said the Rat, examining it again
attentively. `That was never done by a branch or a stump. Looks
as if it was made by a sharp edge of something in metal. Funny!'
He pondered awhile, and examined the humps and slopes that
surrounded them.
`Well, never mind what done it,' said the Mole, forgetting his
grammar in his pain. `It hurts just the same, whatever done it.'
But the Rat, after carefully tying up the leg with his
handkerchief, had left him and was busy scraping in the snow. He
scratched and shovelled and explored, all four legs working
busily, while the Mole waited impatiently, remarking at
intervals, `O, COME on, Rat!'
Suddenly the Rat cried `Hooray!' and then `Hooray-oo-ray-oo-ray-
oo-ray!' and fell to executing a feeble jig in the snow.
`What HAVE you found, Ratty?' asked the Mole, still nursing
his leg.
`Come and see!' said the delighted Rat, as he jigged on.
The Mole hobbled up to the spot and had a good look.
`Well,' he said at last, slowly, `I SEE it right enough. Seen
the same sort of thing before, lots of times. Familiar object, I
call it. A door-scraper! Well, what of it? Why dance jigs
around a door-scraper?'
`But don't you see what it MEANS, you--you dull-witted
animal?' cried the Rat impa-tiently.
`Of course I see what it means,' replied the Mole. `It simply
means that some VERY careless and forgetful person has left
his door-scraper lying about in the middle of the Wild Wood,
JUST where it's SURE to trip EVERYBODY up. Very
course. Instead, the animal almost brushed him as it dashed
past, his face set and hard, his eyes staring. `Get out of this,
you fool, get out!' the Mole heard him mutter as he swung round a
stump and disappeared down a friendly burrow.
The pattering increased till it sounded like sudden hail on the
dry leaf-carpet spread around him. The whole wood seemed running
now, running hard, hunting, chasing, closing in round something
or--somebody? In panic, he began to run too, aimlessly, he knew
not whither. He ran up against things, he fell over things and
into things, he darted under things and dodged round things. At
last he took refuge in the deep dark hollow of an old beech tree,
which offered shelter, concealment--perhaps even safety, but who
could tell? Anyhow, he was too tired to run any further, and
could only snuggle down into the dry leaves which had drifted
into the hollow and hope he was safe for a time. And as he lay
there panting and trembling, and listened to the whistlings and
the patterings outside, he knew it at last, in all its fullness,
that dread thing which other little dwellers in field and
hedgerow had encountered here, and known as their darkest
moment--that thing which the Rat had vainly tried to shield him
from--the Terror of the Wild Wood!
Meantime the Rat, warm and comfortable, dozed by his fireside.
His paper of half-finished verses slipped from his knee, his head
fell back, his mouth opened, and he wandered by the verdant banks
of dream-rivers. Then a coal slipped, the fire crackled and sent
up a spurt of flame, and he woke with a start. Remembering what
he had been engaged upon, he reached down to the floor for his
verses, pored over them for a minute, and then looked round for
the Mole to ask him if he knew a good rhyme for something or
other.
But the Mole was not there.
He listened for a time. The house seemed very quiet.
Then he called `Moly!' several times, and, receiving no
answer, got up and went out into the hall.
The Mole's cap was missing from its accustomed peg. His
goloshes, which always lay by the umbrella-stand, were also gone.
The Rat left the house, and carefully examined the muddy surface
of the ground outside, hoping to find the Mole's tracks. There
they were, sure enough. The goloshes were new, just bought for
the winter, and the pimples on their soles were fresh and sharp.
He could see the imprints of them in the mud, running along
straight and purposeful, leading direct to the Wild Wood.
The Rat looked very grave, and stood in deep thought for a minute
or two. Then he re-entered the house, strapped a belt round his
waist, shoved a brace of pistols into it, took up a stout cudgel
that stood in a corner of the hall, and set off for the Wild Wood
at a smart pace.
It was already getting towards dusk when he reached the first
fringe of trees and plunged without hesitation into the wood,
looking anxiously on either side for any sign of his friend.
Here and there wicked little faces popped out of holes, but
vanished immediately at sight of the valorous animal, his
pistols, and the great ugly cudgel in his grasp; and the
whistling and pattering, which he had heard quite plainly on his
first entry, died away and ceased, and all was very still. He
made his way manfully through the length of the wood, to its
furthest edge; then, forsaking all paths, he set himself to
traverse it, laboriously working over the whole ground, and all
the time calling out cheerfully, `Moly, Moly, Moly! Where are
you? It's me--it's old Rat!'
He had patiently hunted through the wood for an hour or more,
when at last to his joy he heard a little answering cry. Guiding
himself by the sound, he made his way through the gathering
darkness to the foot of an old beech tree, with a hole in it, and
from out of the hole came a feeble voice, saying `Ratty! Is that
really you?'
The Rat crept into the hollow, and there he found the Mole,
exhausted and still trembling. `O Rat!' he cried, `I've been so
frightened, you can't think!'
`O, I quite understand,' said the Rat soothingly. `You shouldn't
really have gone and done it, Mole. I did my best to keep
you from it. We river-bankers, we hardly ever come here by
ourselves. If we have to come, we come in couples, at least;
then we're generally all right. Besides, there are a hundred
things one has to know, which we understand all about and you
don't, as yet. I mean passwords, and signs, and sayings which
have power and effect, and plants you carry in your pocket, and
verses you repeat, and dodges and tricks you practise; all simple
enough when you know them, but they've got to be known if you're
small, or you'll find yourself in trouble. Of course if you were
Badger or Otter, it would be quite another matter.'
`Surely the brave Mr. Toad wouldn't mind coming here by himself,
would he?' inquired the Mole.
`Old Toad?' said the Rat, laughing heartily. `He wouldn't show
his face here alone, not for a whole hatful of golden guineas,
Toad wouldn't.'
The Mole was greatly cheered by the sound of the Rat's careless
laughter, as well as by the sight of his stick and his gleaming
pistols, and he stopped shivering and began to feel bolder and
more himself again.
`Now then,' said the Rat presently, `we really must pull
ourselves together and make a start for home while there's still
a little light left. It will never do to spend the night here,
you understand. Too cold, for one thing.'
`Dear Ratty,' said the poor Mole, `I'm dreadfully" target="_blank" title="ad.可怕地；糟透地">dreadfully sorry, but I'm
simply dead beat and that's a solid fact. You MUST let me
rest here a while longer, and get my strength back, if I'm to get
home at all.'
`O, all right,' said the good-natured Rat, `rest away. It's
pretty nearly pitch dark now, anyhow; and there ought to be a bit
of a moon later.'
So the Mole got well into the dry leaves and stretched himself
out, and presently dropped off into sleep, though of a broken and
troubled sort; while the Rat covered himself up, too, as best he
might, for warmth, and lay patientlywaiting, with a pistol in
his paw.
When at last the Mole woke up, much refreshed and in his usual
spirits, the Rat said, `Now then! I'll just take a look outside
and see if everything's quiet, and then we really must be off.'
He went to the entrance of their retreat and put his head
out. Then the Mole heard him saying quietly to himself, `Hullo!
hullo! here-- is--a--go!'
`What's up, Ratty?' asked the Mole.
`SNOW is up,' replied the Rat briefly; `or rather, DOWN.
It's snowing hard.'
The Mole came and crouched beside him, and, looking out, saw the
wood that had been so dreadful to him in quite a changed aspect.
Holes, hollows, pools, pitfalls, and other black menaces to the
wayfarer were vanishing fast, and a gleaming carpet of faery was
springing up everywhere, that looked too delicate to be trodden
upon by rough feet. A fine powder filled the air and caressed
the cheek with a tingle in its touch, and the black boles of the
trees showed up in a light that seemed to come from below.
`Well, well, it can't be helped,' said the Rat, after pondering.
`We must make a start, and take our chance, I suppose. The worst
of it is, I don't exactly know where we are. And now this snow
makes everything look so very different.'
It did indeed. The Mole would not have known that it was the
same wood. However, they set out bravely, and took the line
that seemed most promising, holding on to each other and
pretending with invincible cheerfulness that they recognized an
old friend in every fresh tree that grimly and silently greeted
them, or saw openings, gaps, or paths with a familiar turn in
them, in the monotony of white space and black tree-trunks that
refused to vary.
An hour or two later--they had lost all count of time--they
pulled up, dispirited, weary, and hopelessly at sea, and sat down
on a fallen tree-trunk to recover their breath and consider what
was to be done. They were aching with fatigue and bruised with
tumbles; they had fallen into several holes and got wet through;
the snow was getting so deep that they could hardly drag their
little legs through it, and the trees were thicker and more like
each other than ever. There seemed to be no end to this wood,
and no beginning, and no difference in it, and, worst of all, no
way out.
`We can't sit here very long,' said the Rat. `We shall have to
make another push for it, and do something or other. The cold is
too awful for anything, and the snow will soon be too deep for us
to wade through.' He peered about him and considered. `Look
here,' he went on, `this is what occurs to me. There's a sort of
dell down here in front of us, where the ground seems all hilly
and humpy and hummocky. We'll make our way down into that, and
try and find some sort of shelter, a cave or hole with a dry
floor to it, out of the snow and the wind, and there we'll have a
good rest before we try again, for we're both of us pretty dead
beat. Besides, the snow may leave off, or something may turn
up.'
So once more they got on their feet, and struggled down into the
dell, where they hunted about for a cave or some corner that was
dry and a protection from the keen wind and the whirling snow.
They were investigating one of the hummocky bits the Rat had
spoken of, when suddenly the Mole tripped up and fell forward on
his face with a squeal.
`O my leg!' he cried. `O my poor shin!' and he sat up on the
snow and nursed his leg in both his front paws.
`Poor old Mole!' said the Rat kindly.
`You don't seem to be having much luck to-day, do you? Let's
have a look at the leg. Yes,' he went on, going down on his
knees to look, `you've cut your shin, sure enough. Wait till
I get at my handkerchief, and I'll tie it up for you.'
`I must have tripped over a hidden branch or a stump,' said the
Mole miserably. `O, my! O, my!'
`It's a very clean cut,' said the Rat, examining it again
attentively. `That was never done by a branch or a stump. Looks
as if it was made by a sharp edge of something in metal. Funny!'
He pondered awhile, and examined the humps and slopes that
surrounded them.
`Well, never mind what done it,' said the Mole, forgetting his
grammar in his pain. `It hurts just the same, whatever done it.'
But the Rat, after carefully tying up the leg with his
handkerchief, had left him and was busy scraping in the snow. He
scratched and shovelled and explored, all four legs working
busily, while the Mole waited impatiently, remarking at
intervals, `O, COME on, Rat!'
Suddenly the Rat cried `Hooray!' and then `Hooray-oo-ray-oo-ray-
oo-ray!' and fell to executing a feeble jig in the snow.
`What HAVE you found, Ratty?' asked the Mole, still nursing
his leg.
`Come and see!' said the delighted Rat, as he jigged on.
The Mole hobbled up to the spot and had a good look.
`Well,' he said at last, slowly, `I SEE it right enough. Seen
the same sort of thing before, lots of times. Familiar object, I
call it. A door-scraper! Well, what of it? Why dance jigs
around a door-scraper?'
`But don't you see what it MEANS, you--you dull-witted
animal?' cried the Rat impa-tiently.
`Of course I see what it means,' replied the Mole. `It simply
means that some VERY careless and forgetful person has left
his door-scraper lying about in the middle of the Wild Wood,
JUST where it's SURE to trip EVERYBODY up. Very
- mutter [´mʌtə]
v.&n.咕哝；嘀咕 (初中英语单词) - running [´rʌniŋ] a.奔跑的；流动的 (初中英语单词)
- refuge [´refju:dʒ] v.&n.避难(所)；庇护 (初中英语单词)
- shield [ʃi:ld] n.盾牌；防御 v.保护 (初中英语单词)
- terror [´terə] n.恐怖；惊骇 (初中英语单词)
- missing [´misiŋ] a.缺掉的；失踪的 (初中英语单词)
- wicked [´wikid] a.邪恶的；不道德的 (初中英语单词)
- plainly [´pleinli] ad.平坦地；简单地 (初中英语单词)
- working [´wə:kiŋ] a.工人的；劳动的 (初中英语单词)
- feeble [´fi:bəl] a.虚弱的，无力的 (初中英语单词)
- practise [´præktis] v.实践(行，施)；提倡 (初中英语单词)
- presently [´prezəntli] ad.不久；目前 (初中英语单词)
- dreadfully [dredfuli] ad.可怕地；糟透地 (初中英语单词)
- warmth [wɔ:mθ] n.温暖；热情；激动 (初中英语单词)
- waiting [´weitiŋ] n.等候；伺候 (初中英语单词)
- pistol [´pistl] n.手枪 vt.用手枪射击 (初中英语单词)
- retreat [ri´tri:t] v.&n.退却；撤退；放弃 (初中英语单词)
- briefly [´bri:fli] ad.简短地；简略地 (初中英语单词)
- dreadful [´dredful] a.可怕的；讨厌的 (初中英语单词)
- carpet [´kɑ:pit] n.地毯 vt.铺地毯 (初中英语单词)
- delicate [´delikət] a.精美的；微妙的 (初中英语单词)
- promising [´prɔmisiŋ] a.有希望的；有为的 (初中英语单词)
- silently [´sailəntli] ad.寂静地；沉默地 (初中英语单词)
- breath [breθ] n.呼吸；气息 (初中英语单词)
- beginning [bi´giniŋ] n.开始，开端；起源 (初中英语单词)
- protection [prə´tekʃən] n.警戒；护照；通行证 (初中英语单词)
- handkerchief [´hæŋkətʃif] n.手帕，手绢 (初中英语单词)
- hidden [´hid(ə)n] hide 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- awhile [ə´wail] ad.少顷；片刻 (初中英语单词)
- whatever [wɔt´evə] pron.&a.无论什么 (初中英语单词)
- careless [´keəlis] a.粗心的；草率的 (初中英语单词)
- vainly [´veinli] ad.虚荣地；自负地 (高中英语单词)
- hesitation [,hezi´teiʃən] n.犹豫，踌躇 (高中英语单词)
- anxiously [´æŋkʃəsli] ad.挂念地；渴望地 (高中英语单词)
- cheerfully [´tʃiəfuli] ad.高兴地，愉快地 (高中英语单词)
- patiently [´peiʃəntli] ad.有耐心地；坚韧地 (高中英语单词)
- saying [´seiŋ, ´sei-iŋ] n.言语；言论；格言 (高中英语单词)
- heartily [´hɑ:tili] ad.衷心地；亲切地 (高中英语单词)
- bravely [´breivli] ad.勇敢地；毅然 (高中英语单词)
- grimly [´grimli] ad.严厉地；坚强地 (高中英语单词)
- fatigue [fə´ti:g] n.&vt.(使)疲劳(劳累) (高中英语单词)
- slacken [´slækən] v.(使)松弛，(使)缓慢 (英语四级单词)
- swerve [swə:v] v.&n.(使)突然转向 (英语四级单词)
- good-natured [´gud-´neitʃəd] a.脾气好的，温厚的 (英语四级单词)
- tingle [´tiŋgəl] vt.&n.刺痛；激动 (英语四级单词)
- hopelessly [´həuplisli] ad.无希望地，绝望地 (英语四级单词)
- impatiently [im´peiʃəntli] ad.不耐烦地，急躁地 (英语四级单词)
- delighted [di´laitid] a.高兴的；喜欢的 (英语四级单词)
- hunting [´hʌntiŋ] n.打猎 (英语六级单词)
- cudgel [´kʌdʒəl] n.短棍，棒 vt.棒打 (英语六级单词)
- calling [´kɔ:liŋ] n.点名；职业；欲望 (英语六级单词)
- holding [´həuldiŋ] n.保持，固定，存储 (英语六级单词)
- cheerfulness [´tʃiəfulnis] n.高兴，愉快 (英语六级单词)
- monotony [mə´nɔtəni] n.单音；单调 (英语六级单词)
- miserably [´mizərəbli] ad.悲惨地；糟糕地 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
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