章节正文
The aunt suppressed a gasp of admiration.
"Was the Prince killed by a sheep or by a clock?"
asked Cyril.
"He is still alive, so we can't tell whether the
dream will come true," said the bachelor unconcernedly;
"anyway, there were no sheep in the park, but there were
lots of little pigs running all over the place."
"What colour were they?"
"Black with white faces, white with black spots,
black all over, grey with white patches, and some were
white all over."
The storyteller paused to let a full idea of the
park's treasures sink into the children's imaginations;
then he resumed:
"Bertha was rather sorry to find that there were no
flowers in the park. She had promised her aunts, with
tears in her eyes, that she would not pick any of the
kind Prince's flowers, and she had meant to keep her
promise, so of course it made her feel silly to find that
there were no flowers to pick."
"Why weren't there any flowers?"
"Because the pigs had eaten them all," said the
bachelorpromptly. "The gardeners had told the Prince
that you couldn't have pigs and flowers, so he decided to
have pigs and no flowers."
There was a murmur of approval at the excellence of
the Prince's decision; so many people would have decided
the other way.
"There were lots of other delightful things in the
park. There were ponds with gold and blue and green fish
in them, and trees with beautiful parrots that said
clever things at a moment's notice, and humming birds
that hummed all the popular tunes of the day. Bertha
walked up and down and enjoyed herself immensely, and
thought to herself: 'If I were not so extraordinarily
good I should not have been allowed to come into this
beautiful park and enjoy all that there is to be seen in
it,' and her three medals clinked against one another as
she walked and helped to remind her how very good she
really was. Just then an enormous wolf came prowling
into the park to see if it could catch a fat little pig
for its supper."
"What colour was it?" asked the children, amid an
immediate quickening of interest.
"Mud-colour all over, with a black tongue and pale
grey eyes that gleamed with unspeakableferocity. The
first thing that it saw in the park was Bertha; her
pinafore was so spotlessly white and clean that it could
be seen from a great distance. Bertha saw the wolf and
saw that it was stealing towards her, and she began to
wish that she had never been allowed to come into the
park. She ran as hard as she could, and the wolf came
after her with huge leaps and bounds. She managed to
reach a shrubbery of myrtle bushes and she hid herself in
one of the thickest of the bushes. The wolf came
sniffing among the branches, its black tongue lolling out
of its mouth and its pale grey eyes glaring with rage.
Bertha was terribly frightened, and thought to herself:
'If I had not been so extraordinarily good I should have
been safe in the town at this moment.' However, the
scent of the myrtle was so strong that the wolf could not
sniff out where Bertha was hiding, and the bushes were so
thick that he might have hunted about in them for a long
time without catching sight of her, so he thought he
might as well go off and catch a little pig instead.
Bertha was trembling very much at having the wolf
prowling and sniffing so near her, and as she trembled
the medal for obedience clinked against the medals for
good conduct and punctuality. The wolf was just moving
away when he heard the sound of the medals clinking and
stopped to listen; they clinked again in a bush quite
near him. He dashed into the bush, his pale grey eyes
gleaming with ferocity and triumph, and dragged Bertha
out and devoured her to the last morsel. All that was
left of her were her shoes, bits of clothing, and the
three medals for goodness."
"Were any of the little pigs killed?"
"No, they all escaped."
"The story began badly," said the smaller of the
small girls, "but it had a beautiful ending."
"It is the most beautiful story that I ever heard,"
said the bigger of the small girls, with immense
decision.
"It is the ONLY beautiful story I have ever heard,"
said Cyril.
A dissentient opinion came from the aunt.
"A most improper story to tell to young children!
You have undermined the effect of years of careful
teaching."
"At any rate," said the bachelor, collecting his
belongings preparatory to leaving the carriage, "I kept
them quiet for ten minutes, which was more than you were
able to do."
"Unhappy woman!" he observed to himself as he walked
down the platform of Templecombe station; "for the next
six months or so those children will assail her in public
with demands for an improper story!"
A DEFENSIVE DIAMOND
TREDDLEFORD sat in an easeful arm-chair in front of
a slumberous fire, with a volume of verse in his hand and
the comfortable consciousness that outside the club
windows the rain was dripping and pattering with
persistent purpose. A chill, wet October afternoon was
merging into a bleak, wet October evening, and the club
smoking-room seemed warmer and cosier by contrast. It
was an afternoon on which to be wafted away from one's
climatic surroundings, and "The Golden journey to
Samarkand" promised to bear Treddleford well and bravely
into other lands and under other skies. He had already
migrated from London the rain-swept to Bagdad the
Beautiful, and stood by the Sun Gate "in the olden time"
when an icy breath of imminentannoyance seemed to creep
between the book and himself. Amblecope, the man with
the restless, prominent eyes and the mouth ready
mobilised for conversational openings, had planted
himself in a neighbouring arm-chair. For a twelvemonth
and some odd weeks Treddleford had skilfully avoided
making the acquaintance of his voluble fellow-clubman; he
had marvellously escaped from the infliction of his
relentless record of tedious personal achievements, or
alleged achievements, on golf links, turf, and gaming
table, by flood and field and covert-side. Now his
season of immunity was coming to an end. There was no
escape; in another moment he would be numbered among
those who knew Amblecope to speak to - or rather, to
suffer being spoken to.
The intruder was armed with a copy of COUNTRY LIFE,
not for purposes of reading, but as an aid to
conversational ice-breaking.
"Rather a good portrait of Throstlewing," he
remarked explosively, turning his large challenging eyes
on Treddleford; "somehow it reminds me very much of
Yellowstep, who was supposed to be such a good thing for
the Grand Prix in 1903. Curious race that was; I suppose
I've seen every race for the Grand Prix for the last - "
"Be kind enough never to mention the Grand Prix in
my hearing," said Treddleford desperately; "it awakens
acutely distressing memories. I can't explain why
without going into a long and complicated story."
"Oh, certainly, certainly," said Amblecope hastily;
long and complicated stories that were not told by
himself were abominable in his eyes. He turned the pages
of COUNTRY LIFE and became spuriously interested in the
picture of a Mongolian pheasant.
"Not a bad representation of the Mongolian variety,"
he exclaimed, holding it up for his neighbour's
inspection. "They do very well in some covers. Take
some stopping too, once they're fairly on the wing. I
suppose the biggest bag I ever made in two successive
days - "
"My aunt, who owns the greater part of
Lincolnshire," broke in Treddleford, with dramatic
abruptness, "possesses perhaps the most remarkable record
in the way of a pheasant bag that has ever been achieved.
She is seventy-five and can't hit a thing, but she always
goes out with the guns. When I say she can't hit a
thing, I don't mean to say that she doesn't occasionally
endanger the lives of her fellow-guns, because that
wouldn't be true. In fact, the chief Government Whip
won't allow Ministerial M.P.'s to go out with her; 'We
don't want to incur by-elections needlessly,' he quite
reasonably observed. Well, the other day she winged a
pheasant, and brought it to earth with a feather or two
knocked out of it; it was a runner, and my aunt saw
herself in danger of being done out of about the only
bird she'd hit during the present reign. Of course she
wasn't going to stand that; she followed it through
bracken and brushwood, and when it took to the open
country and started across a ploughed field she jumped on
to the shooting pony and went after it. The chase was a
long one, and when my aunt at last ran the bird to a
standstill she was nearer home than she was to the
shooting party; she had left that some five miles behind
her."
"Rather a long run for a wounded pheasant," snapped
Amblecope.
"The story rests on my aunt's authority," said
Treddleford coldly, "and she is local vice-president of
the Young Women's Christian Association. She trotted
three miles or so to her home, and it was not till the
middle of the afternoon that it was discovered that the
lunch for the entire shooting party was in a pannier
attached to the pony's saddle. Anyway, she got her
bird."
"Some birds, of course, take a lot of killing," said
Amblecope; "so do some fish. I remember once I was
fishing in the Exe, lovely trout stream, lots of fish,
though they don't run to any great size - "
"One of them did," announced Treddleford, with
emphasis. "My uncle, the Bishop of Southmolton, came
across a giant trout in a pool just off the main stream
of the Exe near Ugworthy; he tried it with every kind of
fly and worm every day for three weeks without an atom of
success, and then Fate intervened on his behalf. There
was a low stone bridge just over this pool, and on the
last day of his fishingholiday a motor van ran violently
into the parapet and turned completely over; no one was
hurt, but part of the parapet was knocked away, and the
entire load that the van was carrying was pitched over
and fell a little way into the pool. In a couple of
minutes the giant trout was flapping and twisting on bare
"Was the Prince killed by a sheep or by a clock?"
asked Cyril.
"He is still alive, so we can't tell whether the
dream will come true," said the bachelor unconcernedly;
"anyway, there were no sheep in the park, but there were
lots of little pigs running all over the place."
"What colour were they?"
"Black with white faces, white with black spots,
black all over, grey with white patches, and some were
white all over."
The storyteller paused to let a full idea of the
park's treasures sink into the children's imaginations;
then he resumed:
"Bertha was rather sorry to find that there were no
flowers in the park. She had promised her aunts, with
tears in her eyes, that she would not pick any of the
kind Prince's flowers, and she had meant to keep her
promise, so of course it made her feel silly to find that
there were no flowers to pick."
"Why weren't there any flowers?"
"Because the pigs had eaten them all," said the
bachelorpromptly. "The gardeners had told the Prince
that you couldn't have pigs and flowers, so he decided to
have pigs and no flowers."
There was a murmur of approval at the excellence of
the Prince's decision; so many people would have decided
the other way.
"There were lots of other delightful things in the
park. There were ponds with gold and blue and green fish
in them, and trees with beautiful parrots that said
clever things at a moment's notice, and humming birds
that hummed all the popular tunes of the day. Bertha
walked up and down and enjoyed herself immensely, and
thought to herself: 'If I were not so extraordinarily
good I should not have been allowed to come into this
beautiful park and enjoy all that there is to be seen in
it,' and her three medals clinked against one another as
she walked and helped to remind her how very good she
really was. Just then an enormous wolf came prowling
into the park to see if it could catch a fat little pig
for its supper."
"What colour was it?" asked the children, amid an
immediate quickening of interest.
"Mud-colour all over, with a black tongue and pale
grey eyes that gleamed with unspeakableferocity. The
first thing that it saw in the park was Bertha; her
pinafore was so spotlessly white and clean that it could
be seen from a great distance. Bertha saw the wolf and
saw that it was stealing towards her, and she began to
wish that she had never been allowed to come into the
park. She ran as hard as she could, and the wolf came
after her with huge leaps and bounds. She managed to
reach a shrubbery of myrtle bushes and she hid herself in
one of the thickest of the bushes. The wolf came
sniffing among the branches, its black tongue lolling out
of its mouth and its pale grey eyes glaring with rage.
Bertha was terribly frightened, and thought to herself:
'If I had not been so extraordinarily good I should have
been safe in the town at this moment.' However, the
scent of the myrtle was so strong that the wolf could not
sniff out where Bertha was hiding, and the bushes were so
thick that he might have hunted about in them for a long
time without catching sight of her, so he thought he
might as well go off and catch a little pig instead.
Bertha was trembling very much at having the wolf
prowling and sniffing so near her, and as she trembled
the medal for obedience clinked against the medals for
good conduct and punctuality. The wolf was just moving
away when he heard the sound of the medals clinking and
stopped to listen; they clinked again in a bush quite
near him. He dashed into the bush, his pale grey eyes
gleaming with ferocity and triumph, and dragged Bertha
out and devoured her to the last morsel. All that was
left of her were her shoes, bits of clothing, and the
three medals for goodness."
"Were any of the little pigs killed?"
"No, they all escaped."
"The story began badly," said the smaller of the
small girls, "but it had a beautiful ending."
"It is the most beautiful story that I ever heard,"
said the bigger of the small girls, with immense
decision.
"It is the ONLY beautiful story I have ever heard,"
said Cyril.
A dissentient opinion came from the aunt.
"A most improper story to tell to young children!
You have undermined the effect of years of careful
teaching."
"At any rate," said the bachelor, collecting his
belongings preparatory to leaving the carriage, "I kept
them quiet for ten minutes, which was more than you were
able to do."
"Unhappy woman!" he observed to himself as he walked
down the platform of Templecombe station; "for the next
six months or so those children will assail her in public
with demands for an improper story!"
A DEFENSIVE DIAMOND
TREDDLEFORD sat in an easeful arm-chair in front of
a slumberous fire, with a volume of verse in his hand and
the comfortable consciousness that outside the club
windows the rain was dripping and pattering with
persistent purpose. A chill, wet October afternoon was
merging into a bleak, wet October evening, and the club
smoking-room seemed warmer and cosier by contrast. It
was an afternoon on which to be wafted away from one's
climatic surroundings, and "The Golden journey to
Samarkand" promised to bear Treddleford well and bravely
into other lands and under other skies. He had already
migrated from London the rain-swept to Bagdad the
Beautiful, and stood by the Sun Gate "in the olden time"
when an icy breath of imminentannoyance seemed to creep
between the book and himself. Amblecope, the man with
the restless, prominent eyes and the mouth ready
mobilised for conversational openings, had planted
himself in a neighbouring arm-chair. For a twelvemonth
and some odd weeks Treddleford had skilfully avoided
making the acquaintance of his voluble fellow-clubman; he
had marvellously escaped from the infliction of his
relentless record of tedious personal achievements, or
alleged achievements, on golf links, turf, and gaming
table, by flood and field and covert-side. Now his
season of immunity was coming to an end. There was no
escape; in another moment he would be numbered among
those who knew Amblecope to speak to - or rather, to
suffer being spoken to.
The intruder was armed with a copy of COUNTRY LIFE,
not for purposes of reading, but as an aid to
conversational ice-breaking.
"Rather a good portrait of Throstlewing," he
remarked explosively, turning his large challenging eyes
on Treddleford; "somehow it reminds me very much of
Yellowstep, who was supposed to be such a good thing for
the Grand Prix in 1903. Curious race that was; I suppose
I've seen every race for the Grand Prix for the last - "
"Be kind enough never to mention the Grand Prix in
my hearing," said Treddleford desperately; "it awakens
acutely distressing memories. I can't explain why
without going into a long and complicated story."
"Oh, certainly, certainly," said Amblecope hastily;
long and complicated stories that were not told by
himself were abominable in his eyes. He turned the pages
of COUNTRY LIFE and became spuriously interested in the
picture of a Mongolian pheasant.
"Not a bad representation of the Mongolian variety,"
he exclaimed, holding it up for his neighbour's
inspection. "They do very well in some covers. Take
some stopping too, once they're fairly on the wing. I
suppose the biggest bag I ever made in two successive
days - "
"My aunt, who owns the greater part of
Lincolnshire," broke in Treddleford, with dramatic
abruptness, "possesses perhaps the most remarkable record
in the way of a pheasant bag that has ever been achieved.
She is seventy-five and can't hit a thing, but she always
goes out with the guns. When I say she can't hit a
thing, I don't mean to say that she doesn't occasionally
endanger the lives of her fellow-guns, because that
wouldn't be true. In fact, the chief Government Whip
won't allow Ministerial M.P.'s to go out with her; 'We
don't want to incur by-elections needlessly,' he quite
reasonably observed. Well, the other day she winged a
pheasant, and brought it to earth with a feather or two
knocked out of it; it was a runner, and my aunt saw
herself in danger of being done out of about the only
bird she'd hit during the present reign. Of course she
wasn't going to stand that; she followed it through
bracken and brushwood, and when it took to the open
country and started across a ploughed field she jumped on
to the shooting pony and went after it. The chase was a
long one, and when my aunt at last ran the bird to a
standstill she was nearer home than she was to the
shooting party; she had left that some five miles behind
her."
"Rather a long run for a wounded pheasant," snapped
Amblecope.
"The story rests on my aunt's authority," said
Treddleford coldly, "and she is local vice-president of
the Young Women's Christian Association. She trotted
three miles or so to her home, and it was not till the
middle of the afternoon that it was discovered that the
lunch for the entire shooting party was in a pannier
attached to the pony's saddle. Anyway, she got her
bird."
"Some birds, of course, take a lot of killing," said
Amblecope; "so do some fish. I remember once I was
fishing in the Exe, lovely trout stream, lots of fish,
though they don't run to any great size - "
"One of them did," announced Treddleford, with
emphasis. "My uncle, the Bishop of Southmolton, came
across a giant trout in a pool just off the main stream
of the Exe near Ugworthy; he tried it with every kind of
fly and worm every day for three weeks without an atom of
success, and then Fate intervened on his behalf. There
was a low stone bridge just over this pool, and on the
last day of his fishingholiday a motor van ran violently
into the parapet and turned completely over; no one was
hurt, but part of the parapet was knocked away, and the
entire load that the van was carrying was pitched over
and fell a little way into the pool. In a couple of
minutes the giant trout was flapping and twisting on bare
- prince [´prins]
n.王子；亲王；君主 (初中英语单词) - running [´rʌniŋ] a.奔跑的；流动的 (初中英语单词)
- promptly [´prɔmptli] ad.敏捷地；即时地 (初中英语单词)
- delightful [di´laitful] a.讨人喜欢的 (初中英语单词)
- remind [ri´maind] vt.提醒；使记(想)起 (初中英语单词)
- enormous [i´nɔ:məs] a.巨大地，很，极 (初中英语单词)
- terribly [´terəbli] ad.可怕地 (初中英语单词)
- triumph [´traiəmf] n.胜利 vi.得胜，战胜 (初中英语单词)
- carriage [´kæridʒ] n.马车；客车；货运 (初中英语单词)
- platform [´plætfɔ:m] n.(平)台；讲台；站台 (初中英语单词)
- volume [´vɔlju:m, ´vɑljəm] n.卷；书籍；体积；容量 (初中英语单词)
- contrast [´kɔntrɑ:st] n.对比 v.使对比(照) (初中英语单词)
- breath [breθ] n.呼吸；气息 (初中英语单词)
- restless [´restləs] a.没有休息的 (初中英语单词)
- prominent [´prɔminənt] a.突起的；凸出的 (初中英语单词)
- acquaintance [ə´kweintəns] n.相识；熟人，相识的人 (初中英语单词)
- spoken [´spəukən] speak的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- reading [´ri:diŋ] n.(阅)读；朗读；读物 (初中英语单词)
- supposed [sə´pəuzd] a.想象的；假定的 (初中英语单词)
- complicated [´kɔmplikeitid] a.结构复杂的；难懂的 (初中英语单词)
- remarkable [ri´mɑ:kəbl] a.值得注意的；显著的 (初中英语单词)
- winged [´wiŋd] a.有翼的 (初中英语单词)
- feather [´feðə] n.羽毛 (初中英语单词)
- coldly [´kəuldli] ad.冷淡地 (初中英语单词)
- saddle [´sædl] n.鞍子 v.装鞍(于) (初中英语单词)
- stream [stri:m] n.河 vi.流出；飘扬 (初中英语单词)
- bishop [´biʃəp] n.主教 (初中英语单词)
- holiday [´hɔlidi] n.假日，假期，节日 (初中英语单词)
- bachelor [´bætʃələ] n.未婚男子；学士 (高中英语单词)
- decided [di´saidid] a.明显的；决定的 (高中英语单词)
- approval [ə´pru:vəl] n.赞成，批准，认可 (高中英语单词)
- obedience [ə´bi:djəns] n.服从；顺从 (高中英语单词)
- assail [ə´seil] vt.猛击；困扰 (高中英语单词)
- consciousness [´kɔnʃəsnis] n.意识；觉悟；知觉 (高中英语单词)
- portrait [´pɔ:trit] n.肖像；相片；雕像 (高中英语单词)
- desperately [´despəritli] ad.绝望地；拼命地 (高中英语单词)
- representation [,reprizen´teiʃən] n.描写；表现(法) (高中英语单词)
- runner [´rʌnə] n.奔跑者；走私人(船) (高中英语单词)
- behalf [bi´hɑ:f] n.利益 (高中英语单词)
- excellence [´eksələns] n.优秀；杰出；优点 (英语四级单词)
- immensely [i´mensli] ad.极大地，无限地 (英语四级单词)
- morsel [´mɔ:səl] n.佳肴 vt.少量地分配 (英语四级单词)
- defensive [di´fensiv] a.&n.防御(的) (英语四级单词)
- bagdad [bæg´dæd] n.巴格达 (英语四级单词)
- annoyance [ə´nɔiəns] n.烦恼事(人) (英语四级单词)
- tedious [´ti:diəs] a.冗长的；乏味的 (英语四级单词)
- intruder [in´tru:də] n.闯入者；打扰者 (英语四级单词)
- abominable [ə´bɔminəbəl] a.可憎的；极坏的 (英语四级单词)
- vice-president [vais´prezid(ə)nt] n.副总统；副会长 (英语四级单词)
- bridge [bridʒ] n.桥(梁)；鼻梁；桥牌 (英语四级单词)
- fishing [´fiʃiŋ] n.钓鱼；捕鱼；渔业 (英语四级单词)
- unspeakable [ʌn´spi:kəbl] a.不能以言语表达的 (英语六级单词)
- ferocity [fə´rɔsiti] n.凶残，凶猛，暴行 (英语六级单词)
- myrtle [´mə:tl] n.桃金娘科 (英语六级单词)
- extraordinarily [ik´strɔ:dənərili] ad.非常，特别地 (英语六级单词)
- improper [im´prɔpə] a.不恰当的；不正确的 (英语六级单词)
- preparatory [pri´pærətəri] a.预备的 n.预备学校 (英语六级单词)
- imminent [´iminənt] a.临头的，逼近的 (英语六级单词)
- immunity [i´mju:niti] n.免疫；免除 (英语六级单词)
- holding [´həuldiŋ] n.保持，固定，存储 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
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