Lesson 2 An Adventure with a Bear

Charles Reade

Two friends, a young artist called Gerard and a soldier named Denys, are travelling on foot through Germany about the middle of the fifteenth century, when they meet with the following adventure.

1、One day, as Gerard was walking like one in a dream, thinking of home, and scarcely seeing the road he trod, his companion laid a hand on his shoulder, and strung his crossbow with glittering eye. “Hush!” said he, in a low whisper that startled Gerard more than thunder.

2、Gerard grasped his axe tight, and shook a little. He heard a rustling in the wood nearby, and at the same moment Denys sprang into the wood, and his crossbow went to his shoulder. Twang! Went the metal string; and after an instant’s suspense he roared,“Run forward! Guard the road! He is here! He is here!”

3、Gerard darted forward, and as he ran a young bear burst out of the wood right upon him. Finding the way blocked, it reared upon its hind legs with a snarl, and though not half-grown, opened its formidable jaws and long claws. Gerard, in a fury of excitement, flung himself on it, and delivered a tremendous blow on its nose with his axe, and the creature staggered; another, and it lay groveling, with Gerard hacking it.

4、“Hello! Stop!” cried Denys. “You are mad to spoil the meat.”

5、“I took it for a robber,” said Gerard, panting. “I mean, I had made ready for a robber,so I could not hold my hand.”

6、“See, those chattering travelers have stuffed your head full of thieves and murderers.No, I’ll carry the beast; and you take my crossbow.”

7、“We will carry it by turns, then,” said Gerard, “for this is a heavy load. Poor thing,how its blood drips! Why did we slay it?”

8、“For supper, and the reward which the bailiff of the next town will give us.”

9、They had gone some distance along the road when Gerard’s ear was attracted by a sound behind him. It was a peculiar sound, too, like something heavy, but not hard,rushing softly over the dead leaves. He turned round with some little curiosity. A huge creature was coming down the road at about sixty paces distance.

10、He looked at it in a sort of calm, almost sleep-like condition at first, but the next moment he turned ashy pale.

11、“Denys!” he cried.

12、Denys whirled round.

13、It was a bear! It was tearing along with its huge head down, running on a hot scent.

14、The very moment he saw it, Denys said in a sickening whisper,

15、“The Cub!”

16、Oh the horror of that one word, whispered hoarsely, with staring eyes! For in that syllable it all flashed upon them both like a sudden stroke of lightning in the dark—the trail of blood, the murdered cub, the mother upon them.

17、All this in a moment of time. The next, she saw them. Huge as she was, she seemed to double herself (it was her long hair bristling with rage). She raised her head big as a bull’s, her jaws opened wide at them, her eyes turned to blood and flame, and she rushed upon them, scattering the leaves about her like a whirlwind as she came.

18、“Shoot!” screamed Denys, but Gerard stood shaking from head to foot, useless.

19、“Shoot, man, shoot! Alas! Too late! Tree! Tree!” He dropped the cub, pushed Gerard across the road, and flew to the first tree and climbed it, Gerard doing the same on his side.

20、With all their speed, one or other would have been torn to fragments at the foot of his tree; but the bear stopped a moment at the cub.

21、Without taking her bloodshot eyes off those she was hunting, she smelt it all round, and found that it was dead—quite dead. She gave a yell such as neither of the hunted ones had ever heard, and flew after Denys. She reared and struck at him as he climbed. He was just out of reach.

22、Instantly she seized the tree, and with her huge teeth tore a great piece out of it with a crash. Then she reared again, dug her claws deep into the bark, and began to mourn it slowly, but as surely as a monkey.

23、Denys’s evil star had led him to a dead tree, a mere shaft, and of no very great height. He climbed faster than the bear, and was soon at the top. He looked this way and that for some bough of another tree to spring to. There was none; and if he jumped down, he knew the bear would be upon him before he could recover the fall, and make short work of him. Moreover, Denys was little used to turning his back on danger, and his blood was rising at being hunted. He turned back.

24、“My hour has come,” thought he. “Let me meet death like a man.” He kneeled down and grasped a small branch to steady himself, drew his long knife, and, clenching his teeth, prepared to stab the huge brute as soon as it should mount within reach.

25、Of this combat the result was not doubtful. The monster’s head and neck could scarcely be pierced for bone and masses of hair. The man was going to sting the bear,and the bear to crack the man like a nut.

26、Gerard’s heart was better than his nerves. He saw his friend’s mortal danger, and passed at once from fear to rage. He slipped down his tree in a moment, caught up the crossbow, which he had dropped in the road, and running up, sent a bolt into the bear’s body with a loud shout. The bear gave a snarl of rage and pain, and turned its head.

27、“Keep away!” cried Denys, “or you are a dead man.”

28、“I don’t care!” and in a moment he had another bolt ready and shot it fiercely into the bear, screaming, “Take that! Take that!”

29、“Get away!” cried Denys. “She will be after you next.”

30、He was right. The bear, finding so formidable and noisy a foe behind her, slipped growling down the tree, rending deep furrows in it as she slipped. Gerard ran back to his tree and climbed it swiftly. But while his legs were dangling some eight feet from the ground, the bear came rearing and struck with her forepaw, and out flew a piece of blood-stained cloth from Gerard’s clothes.

31、He climbed, and climbed; and presently he heard, as it were in the air, a voice say,“Go out on the bough!” He looked, and there was a long massive branch before him,shooting upwards at a slight angle. He threw his body across it, and by a series of violent efforts worked up it to the end.

32、Then he looked round, panting.

33、The bear was mounting the tree on the other side. He heard her claws scrape, and saw her bulge on both sides of the massive tree. Her eyes not being very quick, she reached the fork and passed it, mounting the main stem. Gerard drew breath more freely.The bear either heard him, or found by scent she was wrong. She paused; presently she caught sight of him. She eyed him steadily, then quietly descended to the fork.

34、Slowly and cautiously she stretched out a paw and tried the bough. It was a stiff oak branch, sound as iron. Instinct taught the creature this. She crawled carefully out on the bough, growling savagely as she came.

35、Gerard looked wildly down. He was forty feet from the ground. Death below!Death moving slowly but surely on him in a still more horrible form! His hair bristled.The sweat poured from him. He sat helpless, awe-struck, tongue-tied.

36、The bear crawled on. And now the stupor of death fell on the doomed man; he saw the open jaws and blood-shot eyes coming, but in a mist.

37、As in a mist he heard a twang. He glanced down; Denys, white and silent as death,was shooting up at the bear. The bear snarled at the twang, but crawled on. Again the crossbow twanged; and the next moment the bear was close upon Gerard where he sat,with hair standing stiff on end, and eyes starting from their sockets.

38、The bear opened her jaws, and blood spouted from them as from a pump. The bough rocked. The wounded monster was reeling; it clung; it stuck its claws deep into the wood; it topped. Its claws held firm, but its body rolled off, and the sudden shock to the branch shook Gerard forward on his chest, with his face upon one of the bear’s straining paws.

39、At this, by a violent effort, she raised her head up, up, till he felt her hot breath.Then her huge teeth snapped together close below him in the air, with a last effort of baffled hate. The heavy body rent the claws out of the bough, then struck the earth with a tremendous thump. She paused still, and her limbs quivered; but a hare was not so harmless, and soon she breathed her last.

(1,558 words)

Exercises

Ⅰ. How well did you read?

1. [Note the reason] In Para. 4, Denys asked Gerard to stop because ______.

A. he was afraid the mother bear would come soon

B. he didn’t want to waste time in the jungle

C. he didn’t want to destroy the meat

2. [Check the details] Denys and Gerard were able to climb onto a tree because the bear ______.

A. stopped to look at her child for a moment

B. was wondering what had happened

C. couldn’t climb trees herself

3. How do you understand the first sentence in Para.26 “Gerard’s heart was better than his nerves.”?

4. [See the result] The bear died of ______.

A. crossbow injuries

B. a fall off the tree

C. gunshot wound

Ⅱ. Read for words.

Look back at the paragraphs and see how the following words are used. Decide which of the three meanings fits best.

1. dart (Para. 3)

A. to look at somebody suddenly and quickly

B. to move suddenly and quickly

C. a small, pointed object

2. descend (Para. 33)

A. to come or go down from a higher place

B. to arrive and begin to affect somebody

C. to be related to somebody who lived a long time ago

3. spout (Para. 38)

A. to come out in a stream with great force

B. to speak a lot about something

C. a pipe or tube on a container

4. rock (Para. 38)

A. to move gently from side to side

B. to shock somebody or make them afraid

C. to shake or to make something shake violently

5. baffle (Para. 39)

A. a screen to control the flow of sound, light or liquid

B. to confuse somebody completely

C. to try in vain

Ⅲ. Writing practice.

Retell the part where Denys and Gerard killed the mother bear.