A Child's History of England.201

He was not at all afraid to die; but he was anxious to die easily. When some one touched the axe while he was speaking, he broke off [suddenly stop talking] and called out, 'Take heed of [小心] the axe! take heed of the axe! [别把斧子刃磕坏了]' He also said to Colonel Hacker, 'Take care that they do not put me to pain.' He told the executioner, 'I shall say but [only] very short prayers, and then thrust out my hands' - as the sign to strike.

He put his hair up, under a white satin [缎子] cap which the bishop had carried, and said, 'I have a good cause [事业] and a gracious God on my side.' The bishop told him that he had but [only] one stage more to travel in this weary [令人厌倦的] world, and that, though it was a turbulent and troublesome stage, it was a short one, and would carry him a great way - all the way from earth to Heaven. The King's last word, as he gave his cloak and the George - the decoration from his breast - to the bishop, was, 'Remember!' He then kneeled down, laid his head on the block, spread out his hands, and was instantly killed. One universal groan broke from the crowd; and the soldiers, who had sat on their horses and stood in their ranks immovable as statues, were of a sudden all in motion, clearing the streets.

Thus, in the forty-ninth year of his age, falling at the same time of his career as Strafford had fallen in his, perished [死亡] Charles the First. With all my sorrow for him, I cannot agree with him that he died 'the martyr [烈士] of the people;' for the people had been martyrs to him, and to his ideas of a King's rights, long before. Indeed, I am afraid that he was but [only] a bad judge of martyrs; for he had called that infamous Duke of Buckingham 'the Martyr of his Sovereign [君主].'

六级/考研单词: ax, colonel, hack, thrust, bishop, weary, turbulent, cloak, breast, kneel, groan, rank, statue, gradual, thereby, perish, sorrow, martyr, notorious, sovereign