书城历史英国历史读本:与《英国语文》同步的经典学生历史读本
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第111章 公元1603~1881年的英格兰(19)

3.When he arrived there,he found that a colonel was not the proper person to give him the oath,and that he must go all the way to Inverary and swear before the sheriff.It took him six days to travel through the snow to that town;and at first the sheriff did not think thathe could receive the oath so late.But,when he heard the chieftain’s reason for being late,he agreed to allow him to swear;and so old MacIan went home,glad at having,as he thought,escaped from a great danger.

4.But he had not really escaped.Sir John Dalrymple,the Master of Stair,heard that he had come late,and resolved to make an example of him.He got King William to sign a paper giving orders for the destruction of the clan of Glencoe;and he wrote to some of his officials in the west,desiring the work to be done secretly and suddenly,and expressing a hope that the soldiers would not trouble the Government by taking prisoners.

5.About a month afterwards,a party of one hundred and twenty men,under two officers,entered the dark and barren pass of Glencoe,and went straight to the rude houses of the Macdonalds.They came pretending that they were friends in need of quarters,and for a fortnight they lived among the simple mountaineers,amusing themselves with sports by day and with card-playingin the long evenings.All the while the captain was gathering information andsending it off to his colonel6.At last,one morning at five,the soldiers went into the houses and began to kill the Highlanders.When they came to the door of the chieftain‘s house,he thought they were coming in as friends,and called for some liquor,but while he was hastily dressing himself,the report of a musket rang through the room,and he fell dead with a bullet through his brain.His wife too was attacked,and died next day.

7.The noise of the guns gave many persons a warning,which led them to run away to the neighbouring mountains.There they had no food,no shelter;and the icy winds of February were sweeping the snowy hills.Thirty-eight were slaughtered by the soldiers:how many died among the snow we cannot tell.This dreadful piece of treachery is called the Massacre of Glencoe.

中文阅读

1.威廉三世登上英国王位几年后,一些帮助他管理苏格兰王国的人决定要让苏格兰高地人彻底臣服。于是,他们发布了一道命令,要求苏格兰高地部族的人全都要宣誓,拥戴威廉为他们的国王,在给定的日期之前拒绝宣誓或者忘记宣誓的人,格杀勿论。

2.几乎所有人都前来宣誓,这让那些寻找借口要给苏格兰高地部族一个沉痛教训的苏格兰政治家们大为失望。有一个叫做麦克兰的人,即位于阿吉雷西尔郡格兰克地区的麦克唐纳家族的首领,仅在最后一刻才前往威廉堡宣誓效忠国王。

3.到达威廉堡时,他发现在场的一个上校并不适合于为他宣读誓言,他必须赶到因弗拉里镇,在郡长面前宣誓。他花了六天时间,才穿过冰天雪地来到这个小镇,起初郡长对他接受誓言时间太晚的理由并不以为然。但是,当他听到该首领解释宣誓迟到的原因之后,同意让他宣誓。因此,年迈的麦克兰回到家以后,还暗自高兴躲过了一劫。

4.不过,他并未真的逃过了此劫。阶层事务主管约翰·达尔林普尔爵士听说他去晚了,决定惩罚他。他怂恿威廉国王签署了一份文件,下令镇压格兰克部族的犯上,并且给他位于西部的部分军官写信,希望他们从速秘密处理此事,并表达了自己的愿望,即士兵们不要俘虏部族里的人而给政府添麻烦。

5.大约一个月以后,一支由120人组成的小分队,在两名军官的带领下,进入格兰克阴暗而贫瘠的隘口,并私自来到麦克唐纳家族破旧的家中。他们假意说自己是借宿的朋友,已经与纯朴的山地人一起生活了两个星期了,白天搞体育活动,漫漫长夜里则靠打牌自娱自乐。但分队队长却一直在收集信息,并发回给上校。

6.在某天清晨的5点钟,士兵们终于得以进入室内,开始杀害高地人。当他们来到首领的门口时,首领认为他们是作为朋友进来的,便要了一点酒让他们喝;但是,当他还在匆忙地穿衣服的时候,一支步枪的开火声便响彻房间,一颗子弹穿透他的脑门,将他当场击毙。他的妻子也遭到攻击,并于第二天去世。

7.杂乱的枪炮声给许多人提了醒,使他们得以逃到附近的山区。在那里,他们没有食物,没有住所,二月冰冷的寒风席卷着皑皑的山区。38个人遭到士兵屠杀,还有多少人死于风雪就不得而知了。这次可怕的欺诈行为被称为“格兰克大屠杀”。

123

THE DARIEN COLONY

达里恩殖民地

assistance,help.

charity,good-will;brotherly love.continents,large portions of land.energetic,active.

enterprising,adventurous.expected,looked for.expedition,party of explorers.

fertility,productiveness.fostering,cherishing.induced,prevailed on;got.interlaced,laced together.noisome,poisonous.pestilential,plague-stricken.symptoms,signs.

1.Between the two American continents there is a narrow neck of land,which is called the Isthmus of Darien.It is so very narrow in comparison with the huge masses of land to the north and south that enterprising men haveaoftener than once thought of cutting a canalthrough it for the purpose ofjoining the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans,and saving ships the trouble,time,and danger of going round Cape Horn.

2.William Paterson,the energetic founder of the Bank of England,fixed on this place as a suitable site for a colony,which would open a trade with India towards the west;and he took no rest until he had induced his countrymen (the Scotch)to raise what was to them a very large sum of money for this purpose.

3.Three ships,carrying twelve hundred men,sailed from the port of Leith,amid the cheers and weeping of a great multitude,and in about three months reached a shore abounding in strange plants and animals.The trunks of the bamboo and the cocoanut-tree were interlaced with creeping plants,the large blossoms of which,of crimson and white and blue,made a very pretty picture.

All around,the colonists found fields of pine-apples and golden maize,which proved the fertility of the soil.Their hearts were very joyful,as they set about building a fortress with planks of rosewood and the sandal-tree.

a A canal.-At present a railway crosses the Isthmus of Darien;and a canal and ship railway,to connect the Atlantic with the Pacific,are being constructed (1881),under the direction of the engineer of the Sues Canal.

b Leith.-The port of Edinburgh;on the Firth of Forth.

4.But the joy lasted only a short time.In spite of the friendship of the Indians,who supplied them with fresh food,symptoms of misfortune began to show themselves.Their first evils arose from disunion within their own fortress;then came the annoyance of finding their stock of provisions,brought from Scotland,grown,mouldy and unfit for use.The rain began to fall,and the fair shore was suddenly changed into a pestilential swamp.