(原版)澳大利亞語文第六冊 LESSON 17

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LESSON 17 THE BARON AND THE CHARCOAL BURNER

THE BARON AND THE CHARCOAL BURNER

II

The question of wages had next to be arranged, and though the baron tried hard to get his own terms, he met with a determined opposition on that point also, and was obliged in the end to accept the charcoal burner's proposal. Then, when that matter was settled, he put on his most commanding manner, and, speaking in his sternest tone, said:

There is one thing I must tell you, though perhaps you know it already. I don't allow poaching; and I won't have you kill so much as a hare or a pigeon on my lands. In order to make sure that my orders are obeyed, I cannot allow you to have either a trap, a net, or a snare, or any kind of weapon. There must not even be a boar-spear in your hut.

I will leave your game alone, sir; but to forbid my having weapons of any kind, seems to me to be carrying things too far. What am I to do if a wild boar or a wolf attacks me? Those animals are not so very rare in our forests.

Boars don't attack men unless they are meddled with. Leave them alone and they will take no notice of you. As for wolves, you have your club and your axe to defend yourself with, haven't you? I stand by what I have said: you are to have no weapons of any kind.

Very well, sir. I am not a poacher, anyhow. I shall take no weapons with me, and I will neither kill nor wound game of any kind, big or small.

Next day, Louis built a hut in the wood; and the day after that he began charring the first lot of logs, which consisted of two hundred cords. The remaining four hundred made Up another lot, a mile or so farther from the hut.

THE BARON TRIED HARD TO GET HIS OWN TERMS

In the last days of December, as he was riding through the wood, the baron happened to pass quite close to the lair [1] of a wild boar. The animal rushed out suddenly. Without hesitation, the baron fired at it with the musket which he always carried. He hit the beast but did not kill it. It was one of those surly old boars that go about alone and are noted for their savage temper. It was of huge size. Maddened with pain, it at once charged down on the man who had wounded it.

The horse which the baron rode was a young one. The noise of the musket had frightened it already; and now it lost its head altogether. It backed and reared so wildly that the rider, unable to keep his saddle, was flung to the ground. Springing up as nimbly as he could, the baron attempted, to draw his hunting-knife. But it had fallen from "the sheath and now lay hidden in the grass. The wild boar, foaming with rage, was close upon him, and he was weaponless!

It was fortunate for the baron that he happened to be only a short distance from the first hut which Louis had built. Louis had left it only two days earlier to go and char the second lot of wood. The hurdle [2] that had done duty as a door lay aside, so that there was a free entrance.

The baron rushed headlong into the hut. He barely had time to lift the hurdle, and to block up the doorway, when the boar came up and began to attack the frail barrier. Kept up by the baron with all his weight and all his might, it stood the first shock, and the boar stopped to take a moment's breathing-time. The baron availed himself of the pause to prop up the hurdle with a stake.

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[1] lair: Den, home.

[2] hurdle: A light wooden frame.