A Child's History of England.63

As the King his father had sent entreaties [请求] to him to return home, he now began the journey. He had got as far as Italy, when he met messengers who brought him intelligence of the King's death. Hearing that all was quiet at home, he made no haste to return to his own dominions, but paid a visit to the Pope, and went in state through various Italian Towns, where he was welcomed with acclamations as a mighty champion of the Cross from the Holy Land, and where he received presents of purple mantles [披风] and prancing horses, and went along in great triumph. The shouting people little knew that he was the last English monarch who would ever embark in a crusade, or that within twenty years every conquest which the Christians had made in the Holy Land at the cost of so much blood, would be won back by the Turks. But all this came to pass.

There was, and there is, an old town standing in a plain in France, called Châlons. When the King was coming towards this place on his way to England, a wily [狡诈的] French Lord, called the Count of Châlons, sent him a polite challenge to come with his knights and hold a fair tournament with the Count and his knights, and make a day of it with sword and lance [长矛]. It was represented to the King that the Count of Châlons was not to be trusted, and that, instead of a holiday fight for mere show and in good humour [mood], he secretly meant a real battle, in which the English should be defeated by superior force.

make a day of it: spend all day doing sth for pleasure.

The King, however, nothing afraid, went to the appointed place on the appointed day with a thousand followers. When the Count came with two thousand and attacked the English in earnest, the English rushed at them with such valour [勇武] that the Count's men and the Count's horses soon began to be tumbled down all over the field. The Count himself seized the King round the neck, but the King tumbled him out of his saddle in return for the compliment :-), and, jumping from his own horse, and standing over him, beat away at his iron armour like a blacksmith hammering on his anvil [铁砧]. Even when the Count owned [承认] himself defeated and offered his sword, the King would not do him the honour to take it, but made him yield it up to a common soldier. There had been such fury shown in this fight, that it was afterwards called the little Battle of Châlons.

The English were very well disposed [having a tendency] to be proud of their King after these adventures; so, when he landed at Dover in the year one thousand two hundred and seventy-four (being then thirty-six years old), and went on to Westminster where he and his good Queen were crowned with great magnificence, splendid rejoicings took place. For the coronation-feast there were provided, among other eatables, four hundred oxen, four hundred sheep, four hundred and fifty pigs, eighteen wild boars, three hundred flitches of bacon, and twenty thousand fowls. The fountains and conduits [大水管] in the street flowed with red and white wine instead of water; the rich citizens hung silks and cloths of the brightest colours out of their windows to increase the beauty of the show, and threw out gold and silver by whole handfuls to make scrambles for the crowd. In short, there was such eating and drinking, such music and capering [jump, leap], such a ringing of bells and tossing of caps [扔帽子], such a shouting, and singing, and revelling [狂欢], as the narrow overhanging streets of old London City had not witnessed for many a long day. All the people were merry except the poor Jews, who, trembling within their houses, and scarcely daring to peep out, began to foresee that they would have to find the money for this joviality sooner or later.

wild boar不是凑字数。boar: 1. 公野猪; 2. 未阉的公猪. flitch: a salted and cured [烟熏烤] side [半边躯体] of bacon. jovial: friendly and happy.

六级/考研单词: intellect, haste, holy, purple, triumph, sovereign, embark, knight, tournament, sword, mere, humour, superior, earnest, tumble, saddle, compliment, armour, hammer, yield, fury, disposition, adventure, magnificent, splendid, rejoice, ox, goat, fountain, silk, silver, scramble, merry, tremble, scarce, dare, peep, foresee, cure

a overhanging narrow street: