英語背誦文選第一冊(陳冠商)A Wet Sunday In A Country Inn

A  wet  Sunday  in  a  country  inn  !  Whoever  has  had  the  luck  to  experience

one(1) can alone judge of(2) my situation. The rain pattered against the

casements;  the  bells  tolled  for  church  with  a  melancholy  sound.  I  went

to  the  windows  in  quest  of  something  to  amuse  the  eye;  but  it  seemed  as

if  I  had  been  placed  completely  out  of  the  reach  of  ail  amusement.  The

windows  of  my  bed-room  looked  out(3)  among  tiled  roofs  and  stacks  of

chimneys, while those of my sitting-room commanded a full view of(4) the

stable yard. I know of nothing more calculated to make a man sick of this

world than a stable yard on a rainy day. The place was littered with wet

straw  that  had  been  kicked  about  by  travellers  and  stable-boys.  In  one

corner was a stagnant pool of water, surrounding an island of muck; there

were several half-drowned fowls crowded together under a cart, among which

was a miserable, crest-fallen cock, drenched out of ail life and spirit;

his drooping tail matted, as it were, into a single feather, along which

the  water  trickled  from  his  hack;  near  the  cart  was  a  half-  dozing  cow,

chewing her cud, and standing patiently to be rained on, with wreaths of

vapour(5)  rising  from  her  reeking

hide;  a  wall-eyed(6)  horse,  tired  of  the  loneliness  of  the  stable,  was

poking  his  spectral  head  out  of  a  window,  with  the  rain  dripping  on  it

from the eaves; an unhappy cur, chained to a dog-house hard by, uttered

something every now and then between a bark and a yelp; a drab of a kitchen

wench(7)  tramped  backwards  and  forwards  through  the  yard  in  pat-  tens,

looking  as  sulky  as  the  weather  itself;  everything,  iq  short,  was

comfortless  and  forlorn,  excepting  a  crew  of  hardened  ducks,  assembled

like boon companions round a puddle and making a riotous noise over their

liquor.