【英文文学】The Race of Life.docx
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1、【英文文学】The Race of LifeChapter 1. “A Boys Will is the Winds Will.”IF any man had told me a year ago that I should start out to write a book, I give you my word I should not have believed him. It would have been the very last job I should have thought of undertaking. Somehow Ive never been much of a f
2、ist with the pen. The branding iron and stockwhip have always been more in my line, and the saddle a much more familiar seat than the authors chair. However, fate is always at hand to arrange matters for us, whether we like it or not, and so it comes about that I find myself at this present moment s
3、eated at my table-pen in hand, with a small mountain of virgin foolscap in front of me, waiting to be covered with my sprawling penmanship. What the story will be like when I have finished it, and whether those who do me the honour of reading it will find it worthy of their consideration, is more th
4、an I can say. I have made up my mind to tell it, however, and that being so, well “chance it,” as we say in the Bush. Should it not turn out to be to your taste, well, my advice to you is to put it down at once and turn your attention to the work of somebody else who has had greater experience in th
5、is line of business than your humble servant. Give me a three-year old as green as grass, and Ill sit him until the cows come home; let me have a long days shearing, even when the wool is damp or theres grass seed in the fleece; a hut to be built, or a tank to be sunk, and its all the same to me; bu
6、t to sit down in cold blood and try to describe your past life, with all its good deeds (not very many of them in my case) and bad, successes and failures, hopes and fears, requires more cleverness, Im afraid, than I possess. However, Ill imitate the old single-stick players in the West of England,
7、and toss my hat on the stage as a sign that, no matter whether Im successful or not, I intend doing my best, and I cant say more than that. Here goes then.To begin with, I must tell you who I am, and whence I hail. First and foremost, my name is George Tregaskis-my father was also a George Tregaskis
8、, as, I believe, was his father before him. The old dad used to say that we came of good Cornish stock, and Im not quite sure that I did not once hear him tell somebody that there was a title in the family. But that did not interest me; for the reason, I suppose, that I was too young to understand t
9、he meaning of such things. My father was born in England, but my mother was Colonial, Ballarat being her native place. As for me, their only child, I first saw the light of day at a small station on the Murray River, which my father managed for a gentleman who lived in Melbourne, and whom I regarded
10、 as the greatest man in all the world, not even my own paternal parent excepted. Fortunately he did not trouble us much with visits, but when he did I trembled before him like a gum leaf in a storm. Even the fact that on one occasion he gave me half-a-crown on his departure could not altogether conv
11、ince me that he was a creature of flesh and blood like my own father or the hands upon the run. I can see him now, tall, burly, and the possessor of an enormous beard that reached almost to his waist. His face was broad and red and his voice deep and sonorous as a bell. When he laughed he seemed to
12、shake all over like a jelly; taken all round, he was a jovial, good-natured man, and proved a good friend to my mother and myself when my poor father was thrown from his horse and killed while out mustering in our back country. How well I remember that day! It seems to me as if I can even smell the
13、hot earth, and hear the chirrup of the cicadas in the gum trees by the river bank. Then came the arrival of Dick Bennet, the overseer, with a grave face, and as nervous as a plain turkey when youre after him on foot. His horse was all in a lather and so played out that I doubt if he could have trave
14、lled another couple of miles.“Georgie, boy,” Dick began, as he got out of his saddle and threw his reins on the ground, “wheres your mother? Hurry up and tell me, for Ive got something to say to her.”“Shes in the house,” I answered, and asked him to put me up in the saddle. He paid no attention to m
15、e, however, but was making for the house door when my mother made her appearance on the verandah. Little chap though I was, I can well recall the look on her face as her eyes fell upon him. She became deadly pale, and for a moment neither of them spoke, but stood looking at each other for all the wo
16、rld as if they were struck dumb. My mother was the first to speak.“What has happened?” she asked, and her voice seemed to come from deep down in her throat, while her hands were holding tight on to the rail before her as if to prevent herself from falling. “I can see there is something wrong, Mr. Be
17、nnet.”Dick turned half round and looked at me. I suppose he did not want me to overhear what he had to say. My mother bade him come inside, and they went into the house together. It was nearly ten minutes before he came out again, and, though I had to look more than once to make sure of it, there we
18、re big tears rolling down his cheeks. I could scarcely believe the evidence of my eyes, for Dick was not a man given to the display of emotion, and I had always been told that it was unworthy of a man to cry. I admired Dick from the bottom of my heart, and this unexpected weakness on his part came t
19、o me as somewhat of a shock. He left the verandah and came over to where I was standing by poor old Bronzewing, whose wide-spread nostrils and heaving flanks were good evidence as to the pace at which he had lately been compelled to travel.“Georgie, my poor little laddie,” he said, laying his hand u
20、pon my shoulder in a kindly way as he spoke, “run along into the house and find your mother. Shell be wanting you badly, if Im not mistaken, poor soul. Try and cheer her up, theres a good boy, but dont talk about your father unless she begins it.” And then, more to himself I fancy than to me, he add
21、ed, “Poor little man, I wonder what will happen to you now that hes gone? Youll have to hoe your row for yourself, and thats a fact.”Having seen me depart, he slipped his rein over his arm and went off in the direction of his own quarters, Bronzewing trailing after him looking more like a worn-out w
22、orking bullock than the smart animal that had left the station for the mustering camp three days before. I found my mother in her room, sitting beside her bed and looking straight before her as if she were turned to stone. Her eyes, in which there was no sign of a tear, were fixed upon a large photo
23、graph of my father hanging on the wall beside the window, and though I did not enter the room, I fear, any too quietly, she seemed quite unconscious of my presence.“Mother,” I began, “Dick said you wanted me.” And then I added anxiously, “You dont feel ill, do you, mother?”“No, my boy, Im not ill,”
24、she answered. “No! not ill. Though, were it not for you, I could wish that I might die. Oh, God, why could You not have taken my life instead of his?” Then drawing me to her, she pressed me to her heart and kissed me again and again. Later she found relief in tears, and between her sobs I learnt all
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