金典外文赏析

have done me good if - if circumstances had been more favourable. If only we'd had a

gun."

"Guns be blowed," said the Cabby. "I think I'll go and see if I can give Strawberry a rub

down. That horse 'as more sense than some 'umans as I could mention." He walked back

to Strawberry and began making the hissing noises that grooms make.

"Do you still think that Lion could be killed by a gun?" asked Digory. "He didn't mind

the iron bar much."

"With all her faults," said Uncle Andrew, "that's a plucky gel, my boy. It was a spirited

thing to do." He rubbed his hands and cracked his knuckles, as if he were once more

forgetting how the Witch frightened him whenever she was really there.

"It was a wicked thing to do," said Polly. "What harm had he done her?"

"Hullo! What's that?" said Digory. He had darted forward to examine something only a

few yards away. "I say, Polly," he called back. "Do come and look."

Uncle Andrew came with her; not because he wanted to see but because he wanted to

keep close to the children there might be a chance of stealing their rings. But when he

saw what Digory was looking at, even he began to take an interest. It was a perfect little

model of a lamp-post, about three feet high but lengthening, and thickening in proportion,

as they watched it; in fact growing just as the trees had grown.

"It's alive too - I mean, it's lit," said Digory. And so it was; though of course, the

brightness of the sun made the little flame in the lantern hard to see unless your shadow

fell on it.

"Remarkable, most remarkable," muttered Uncle Andrew. "Even I never dreamt of Magic

like this. We're in a world where everything, even a lamp-post, comes to life and grows.

Now I wonder what sort of seed a lamppost grows from?"

"Don't you see?" said Digory. "This is where the bar fell - the bar she tore off the lamp-

post at home. It sank into the ground and now it's coming up as a young lamppost." (But

not so very young now; it was as tall as Digory while he said this.)

"That's it! Stupendous, stupendous," said Uncle Andrew, rubbing his hands harder than

ever. "Ho, ho! They laughed at my Magic. That fool of a sister of mine thinks I'm a

lunatic. I wonder what they'll say now? I have discovered a world where everything is

bursting with life and growth. Columbus, now, they talk about Columbus. But what was

America to this? The commercial possibilities of this country are unbounded. Bring a few

old bits of scrap iron here, bury 'em, and up they come as brand new railway engines,

battleships, anything you please. They'll cost nothing, and I can sell 'em at full prices in

England. I shall be a millionaire. And then the climate! I feel years younger already. I can

run it as a health resort. A good sanatorium here might be worth twenty thousand a year.