现代大学英语精读3课文电子版

Michael Welzenbach

1. When I was 12 years old, my family moved to England,

the fourth major move in my short life. My father’s government job demanded that he go overseas every few years, so I was used to wrenching myself away from friends.

2. We rented an 18th-century farmhouse in Berkshire.

Nearby were ancient castles and churches. Loving

nature, however, I was most delighted by the endless patchwork of farms and woodland that surrounded our house. In the deep woods that verged against our back fence, a network of paths led almost everywhere, and pheasants rocketed off into the dense laurels ahead as you walked.

3. I spent most of my time roaming the woods and fields

alone, playing Robin Hood, daydreaming, collecting bugs and bird-watching. It was heaven for a boy —but

a lonely heaven. Keeping to myself was my way of not

forming attachments that I would only have to abandon

the next time we moved. But one day I became attached through no design of my own.

4. We had been in England about six months when old farmer

Crawford gave me permission to roam about his immense property. I started hiking there every weekend, up a long, sloping hill to an almost impenetrable stand of trees called Bear Wood. It was my secret fortress, almost a holy place, I thought. Slipping through a barbed-wire fence, I’d leave the bright sun and the twitter and rustle of insects and animals outside and creep into another world — a vaulted cathedral, with tree trunks for pillars and years’ accumulation of long brown needles for a softly carpeted floor. My own breathing rang in my ears, and the slightest stirring of any woodland creature echoed through this private paradise.

5. One spring afternoon I wandered near where I thought

I’d glimpsed a pond the week before. I proceeded

quietly, careful not to alarm a bird that might loudly warn other creatures to hide.

6. Perhaps this is why the frail old lady I nearly ran into

was as startled as I was. She caught her breath,

instinctively touching her throat with her hand. Then, recovering quickly, she gave a welcoming smile that instantly put me at ease. A pair of powerful-looking binoculars dangled from her neck. “Hello, young

man,” she said. “Are you American or Canadian?”7. American, I explained in a rush, and I lived over the

hill, and I was just seeing if there was a pond, and farmer Crawford had said it was okay, and anyhow, I was on my way home, so good-bye.

8. As I started to turn, the woman smiled and asked, “Did

you see the little owl from the wood over there today?”

She pointed toward the edge of the wood.

9. She knew about the owls? I was amazed.

10. “No,”I replied, “but I’ve seen them before. Never