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典范英语
9
Sing for your Supper
Nick
Warburton
Red Beard
The smell of mutton pies woke Jamie up.
His nose twitched before his eyes opened.
Jamie’s
mother
was
dead.
His
father
had
gone
to
sea
and
not
come
back.
He
remembered the big round
sails as the little galleon moved out of Plymouth
harbour,
but he’d forg
otten
what his father looked like.
For two
years he’d lived on the streets
and
begged for his food, so he got used to sniffing
out pies.
He’d
been dozing on a pile of straw beside the horse
trough when the man walked
by with his
tray.
Pies,
Jamie thought at once. Fat warm pies.
He didn’t have a coin to
his name, but he jumped up and followed the
man.
He was
heading
for The Boar’s Head.
Jamie saw him
push his tray into the crowd at the door and
disappear.
‘After him,’ Jamie said to
himself.
He dropped to his knees and crawled
through a forest of sturdy legs. Jamie could
tell by a sniff that the pie man had
stopped by a table in the corner. Keeping an eye
open for the innkeeper, he crawled on.
The pie man had set two steaming pies on the
table. He was counting a handful of
coins into his purse.
His
customers
weren’t
ordinary
sailors.
They
wore
stiff
ruffs
and
a
line
of
fancy
buttons
down the front of their tunics. Jamie had seen one
of them around Plymouth
before
–
the one with the red curly
hair and the pointed beard.
He
must
be
important,
Jamie
thought.
Whenever
he
goes
there’s
bustle
and
talk.
But he looks like a man who might share
his pie with a hungry boy.
Jamie saw him
push his tray into the crowd at the door and
disappear
.
‘After
him
。
’Jamie said to
himself
.
He dropped to his knees and
crawled through a forest of sturdy
legs
.
Jamie could
tell by a sniff that the pie man had
stopped by a table in the
corner
.
Keeping an eye
open for the innkeeper, he crawled
on
.
The pie man had set two
steaming pies on the
table
.
He was
counting a handful of coins into his
purse
.
His customers weren’t
ordinary sailors
.
They wore
stiff ruffs and a line of fancy
CHAPTER
1
buttons down the front of their
tunics
.
Jamie had seen one of
them around Plymouth
before--the one
with the red curly hair and the pointed
beard
.
He must be
important
,
Jamie thought.
Wherever he goes there’
s
bustle and talk .But
he looks like a
man who might share his pie with a hungry boy.
‘No mutton pies
afte
r we set sai1,' the man with the
red bead was saying to his friend.
'Ship's biscuits and hard cheese and
not much else. '
‘
But may be some Spanish
gold to spend when we get back, eh, Francis?' his
friend
said.
Francis. So that was his name. And
Spanish gold. That meant sea-fights, didn't it?
Maybe they were pirates.
'Well, Master Francis,' Jamie said to
himself, 'I can't wait for your gold but I'd like
to
share a bit of your pie.'
And he popped
up from behind the table as the redheaded man was
about to eat.
'Can I sing you a song, Master
Francis?' Jamie asked him. Francis blinked at him
with his mouth stil1 open.
'Please, Master,' Jamie
said.' A song for a mouthful of pie.'
The man laughed and asked
him if he had a good voice.
'A wonderful voice, sir.
Sweet as the birds, I promise.'
‘If you
want to earn the Price of a Pie,' said Francis's
friend, 'you can go down to
the harbour
and help load our Ship.'
what ship is
that, sir?' Jamie asked.
'
The Pelican.
And
it's being
loaded for a voyage
to…'
But before he could say
another word, Francis held up a hand to stop him.
'Quiet, Wi11,' he said. 'A busy inn is
not the place to talk about our plans.'
Will
shut
his
mouth
and
looked
round
the
noisy
room.
Jamie
looked
round,
too.
And sure enough- or so
he thought- there was a thin man at the
next table, leaning
towards them as if
to catch every word. For a second Jamie's eye met
his, and the man
scowled.
A
face to sour the milk, Jamie thought. And full of
trouble, too. After two years on
the
streets, Jamie knew trouble when he saw it.
A shiver of fear ran up his spine. But
Francis was speaking to him again.
'Come on then, lad,' he said. 'Sing
up.'
Jamie opened his mouth to Sing,
but a broad hand took hold of his neck and he felt
himself jerked to his feet.
'I've told you before,' boomed a voice.
'You leave my gentlemen in peace.'
It
was
the
innkeeper.
He
crooked
an
arm
round
Jamie's
throat
and
crushed
him
against his greasy apron.
Jamie kicked out and flailed his arms
but it was no use. The innkeeper hauled him
backwards to the door and swung him out
into the night.
He twisted through the
air and landed with a thud in the street. Instead
of the smell
of
mutton,
his
nose
was
fi1led
with
the
stench of
straw
and
horse
dung.
It
was
the
second time he had been thrown out of
The Boar's Head that night.
He stood up
and shook himself. Across the street he saw the
g1ow of candle-light
from The Swan. The
hum of voices inside tempted him to try his luck
there, but he'd
been thrown out of The
Swan, too. He didn't feel like being dumped in
horse muck a
fourth time.
'Oh well,' he mumbled as he wiped
himself down, 'maybe I should go down to the
harbour. If they're loading for a
voyage, maybe I can pick up some scraps.'
Soon
he
heard
the
lap
of
water
against
wooden
hulls
and
ropes
slapping
in
the
breeze. He saw masts
swaying against
the blue-
black sky. The ship
in
front
of him
was The Pelican. There were
others, too, lined up behind it.
The
harbour
was
busy
for
the
time
of
night.
Dark
figures
with
sacks
on
their
shoulders hurried backwards and
forwards.
Some
dumped
their
loads
on
the
harbour
wall
and
others
tottered
up
planks onto the ships.
He stopped one of the sailors and asked
if he could help.
'Clear off, little
'un,' the sailor growled. You'll only get under
our feet.'
Jamie
sighed
and
sat
down
in
the
shadow
of
a wall.
His
stomach
grumbled
with
hunger in the dark. His
head hurt. He watched the men loading their
stores. He'd seen
ships being loaded
many times. Once he'd seen a sack drop and split
open, sending
cheeses rolling over the
cobbles.
A good round cheese would do
nicely now, he thought. Maybe someone'll drop a
few sacks tonight. Sack after sack he
saw carried onto the ships. But no one stumbled.
Nothing
spilled.
At
last
the
men
stopped
work
and
went
off
together,
laughing
and
joking.
For a
while Jamie watched the moon climb s1owly in the
sky. Then he stood up and
stretched.
'Nothing doing here,' he said softly to
himself. He was about to wander back into
Plymouth Town when something caught his
eye.
Two of the men came back.
〇
r were they the same men?
It was too dark to see
properly and
they were wrapped in long cloaks.
They
moved like the men who'd loaded the ships,
trotting along with their heads
bowed,
but there was something different about them.
At first Jamie couldn't think what it
was. Then it came to him. They had no sacks
on their backs. They were running up
the plank onto The Pelican but they carried no
stores. He saw them drop into the ship
and disappear in shadow. Jamie sat down again
and waited.
A man with a
lantern on a pole came wandering along- the
watchman, keeping his
eye on the ships
with their load of fresh stores. He walked
steadily a1ong the harbour
wa1l
until
he
reached
the
ship
furthest
from
The
Pelican.
Then
he
paused
for
a
moment
before turning round. It was then that the two men
came scuttling down the
plank again.
One was tall with pale hands which
fluttered in the dark. Jamie knew him. It was
the sour-faced man from The Boar's
Head. The other man was short and thick-set.
They moved nimbly and silently, and
this time they were carrying some-thing, At
least, the short one was. It was more
like a black bag than a sack and the short man
carried it on his shoulder like a
barrel.
Jamie Shrank back
into the shadow of a wa11. He saw the men look
round and spot
the Watchman. The tall
man stooped and picked up a stone in his pale
hands.
He hurled it high
over the masts of me Pelican and Jamie heard it
drop into the sea
with a deep splash.
Along the harbour wall the watchman
heard it too. He spun round and held himself
still. Then he lifted his lantern and
peered between the ships, trying to see where the
sound had come from.
While he was still staring at the sea,
the men hurried away in the opposite direction,
their cloaks flapping behind them as
they ran.
Pale
hands
CHAPTER 2
Jamie's
mind
was
racing.
He
knew
that
something
odd
was
going
on.
He
waited
until the men were
almost out of sight, then set off after them. When
they turned into
a side street, he
forced himself to run faster. Mustn't lose them
now, he thought as he
pounded along.
They'll disappear down some dark alley. I must
keep up.
Jamie had seen plenty of
thieves on the streets, but these two were
different- and he
was sure they were
dangerous
Common sense told
him to stay out of it. But he was curious. And
maybe there was
the chance of pleasing
Red Beard and earning some pie. Maybe even
something better
than pie.
'Mustn't lose them,' he said to himself
over and over.
'Mustn't
lose them.'
As
soon
as
the
men
reached
the
safety
of
a
side
street,
they
stopped
running
to
catch their breath.
They were bending down to
examine the thing in the black bag, when Jamie
hurtled
round the corner and ran
straight into them.
He fell over one and ro1led onto
the
other. There were rough
shouts, the rustle of
cloaks and a
waving of arms.
Jamie's struggle didn't last long.
Soon he felt a knee on his chest and
long fingers tightening on his arm. He twisted
his head and saw the same pale hand
that had thrown the stone
。
There was a silver
ring on
the middle finger. A face came close and spoke to
him in a harsh voice.
And where do you
think you're going?'
It
was
the
broad
man,
the
one
who
was
kneeling
on
him,
and
the
Stench
of
his
breath made Jamie flinch.
'
I'm sorry, master,' he said. 'I'm Sorry.'
Then the tall man spoke and his voice
was a thin whisper.
'He's following us,
Tom. I saw him talking to Red Beard in The Boar's
Head.'
No,
sir,'
said
Jamie.
Tm
not
following
you,
I'm
running
away,
sir.
Honest.
The
watchman's after me.'
The
fingers loosened on Jamie's arm and the men darted
a look at each other. They
glanced
nervously back at the corner of the street.
They only looked away for a second but
it was enough for Jamie. He wriggled from
under Tom's knee and scrambled to his
feet.
The men grabbed at him, missed,
and he was charging off into the darkness.
'Hey! Come back here!' the man called
Tom shouted after him.
Jamie
dived
into
an
alley
and
barked
his
shin
against
something
he
couldn't
see.
From
the
way
it
clattered
against
the
wall
behind
him
he
guessed
it
was
an
empty
barrel.
The men came lumbering after him and one of them
kicked the barrel too.
Jamie came to a
gap between two houses and ran blindly into it,
hoping there
’
d be
nothing in his way this time. There
wasn
’
t.
He groped
along a wall until he found a low fence. he swung
himself over it and
dropped into a
little garden.
His
fingers
touched
damp
cabbage
leaves
and
a
fish
head.
He
crouched
there
wide-eyed, trying to
still his gasping breath.
Heavy feet
thudded by him, only yards away. The sound
disappeared into the night
and
then
there
was
silence.
He
waited.
A
dog
barked
in
the
distance.
A
sharp
pain
began to throb in his
leg. He hadn't noticed it when he was running.
After two or three more minutes he let
out a long sigh and climbed painfully out of
the garden.
‘
You
should save your nose for sniffing out pies,
Jamie,
’
he told himself.
’
And keep
it
clear of bad men in long
cloaks,
’
He
imagined
what
the
men
might
do
if
they
caught
him.
The
thought
made
him
shudder.
Maybe
he
should
look
for
Red
Beard-Master
Francis.
And
then
what?
Tell
him
what
he
’
d
seen?
No.
Men
like
him
didn
’
t
believe
beggar
boys
like
Jamie.
Still,
he
thought, it
’
ll be
sager in the warm glow from busy inns than alone
here in the dark.
So he rubbed his leg
and started slowly through back streets and
alleyways towards
the heart of the
town. After a while he found himself outside The
Boar
’
s Head again.
‘
Well, here I am
again,
’
Jamie said out loud,
And
I
’
m worse off than I was
before. Still, I
’
ll be safe
and warm in here, as long as
I keep my
head down.
’
He
slid in at the door and looked cautiously around.
The place was full, and noisy with talk
and laughter. The pie seller had gone but he
thought he might be able to scrounge a
scrap of bread. He squeezed onto the nearest
bench and made himself as small as he
could.
The men next to him kept their
backs turned and talked in low voices. Jamie could
see two beakers of ale on the table in
front of them. There was no bread, though, so he
soon lost interest in them.
He was looking round for more promising
customers when one of the men reached
out to pick up his beaker.
Jamie turned and looked, then looked
again and his heart gave a sudden jump.
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