英语博客(A cup of English):069 Storytime part 1.

　　Once upon a time, in a land far, far way....no, hang on a minute, that's no good. All stories start like that. How about we have something different for this story. Mmm, I know: Very, very recently, in a place that is close to where I live, something strange and fascinating happened. It is a tale of mystery, that has changed our village forever. It all started on a warm Spring Sunday. It was a glorious, lazy afternoon. Church was over, and people were relaxing on their porches and in their gardens; children were running around playing, and the sound of birds chirping² filled the air. It was approaching three o'clock. The bell tower of the local church overlooked the whole village, and when the hour was chimed, the sound would ring out in a clear and familiar way. Today, however, it was different. At first, the bells rang rhythmically³, normally; nobody really took any notice as the sound was so well known and expected. But, suddenly, there was a huge crashing of metal, like the bells were being thrown together. High notes and low notes were screaming in a violent, angry chaos⁴. It went on and on.
Everybody looked up, stood up, and turned their heads towards the church on the hill. What on earth was going on? Who was up in the bell tower? Was this some kind of joke? A couple of men ran up the hill to see what was happening, but the angry noise continued until they were almost at the church door, when suddenly it stopped. Running out of the church, with a crazed look on her face, came Mrs Brompton, the church bell ringer and cleaner.
"Help!" she cried, her face pale, and her hair sticking up in all directions. "Ooo, it's horrible! Just horrible!" she yelled, grabbing the beard of one of the men, and shaking his head, as if to make him understand. "Ow!" exclaimed Mr. Meads, prying⁵ her hands off of his beard, "Now, Mrs Brompton, what on earth is going on? What's happened?" At those words, Mrs Brompton went very quiet, she wanted to speak but she couldn't. She grabbed Mr. Mead's beard again with one hand and tried to say something. "....a curse!" came out in a whisper, and, at that, her eyes rolled to the back of her head and she fainted, falling to the ground like lead.
After the ambulance took Mrs Brompton, the vicar and a group of men searched the church, every room, every nook, every staircase. They found nothing unusual. Even in the bell tower, nothing was out of place. The huge, metal bells hung silently, expressionless, but something about the room felt different. The group of men had assembled here again. Having found no clues at all, they automatically came back to the room where the chaos had started. They stood silently thinking. "Oh, Mrs Brompton's off her rocker, I'd say," said Jeffrey Mullins with a wave of his hand. But his humor wasn't reflected in the other faces. The vicar, Reverend Holtworth, had a particularly serious expression; his face was grey, and his eyes were heavy with thoughts. "It'll be nothing to worry about, I'm sure, vicar, "said Thomas Black. "I bet Betsy just had a funny turn and got tangled⁶ up in the ropes." But Rev¹. Holtworth said nothing in response.
The sun was low in the sky as they left the church. The men headed down the path back to the village. Thomas Black stayed behind to talk to the vicar. Standing⁷ there, they could hear Jeffrey Mullins, "The old bat has given everybody something to talk about, hasn't she?" he said with a loud laugh, and the others joined in. Black and the vicar stood in silence for a few moments. "I'm sure when we hear from Betsy it'll all turn out to be nothing," Black said as if asking a question. The vicar said nothing in response, but gave Black a weak smile and a quick nod, as if to reassure⁸ him. "If you need anything, you know my number," called out Black as he headed down the path. The sun was setting now, and the birds had fallen silent. Rev. Holtworth stood staring at the bell tower, and uttered under his breath, "There was nobody in the bell tower this afternoon."

1 rev   

v.发动机旋转，加快速度

参考例句：

• It's his job to rev up the audience before the show starts.他要负责在表演开始前鼓动观众的热情。
• Don't rev the engine so hard.别让发动机转得太快。

2 chirping   

鸟叫，虫鸣( chirp的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The birds,chirping relentlessly,woke us up at daybreak. 破晓时鸟儿不断吱吱地叫，把我们吵醒了。
• The birds are chirping merrily. 鸟儿在欢快地鸣叫着。

3 rhythmically   

adv.有节奏地

参考例句：

• A pigeon strutted along the roof, cooing rhythmically. 一只鸽子沿着屋顶大摇大摆地走，有节奏地咕咕叫。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Exposures of rhythmically banded protore are common in the workings. 在工作面中常见有韵律条带“原矿石”。 来自辞典例句

4 chaos   

n.混乱，无秩序

参考例句：

• After the failure of electricity supply the city was in chaos.停电后，城市一片混乱。
• The typhoon left chaos behind it.台风后一片混乱。

5 prying   

adj.爱打听的v.打听，刺探（他人的私事）( pry的现在分词 )；撬开

参考例句：

• I'm sick of you prying into my personal life! 我讨厌你刺探我的私生活！
• She is always prying into other people's affairs. 她总是打听别人的私事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 tangled   

adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• Your hair's so tangled that I can't comb it. 你的头发太乱了，我梳不动。
• A movement caught his eye in the tangled undergrowth. 乱灌木丛里的晃动引起了他的注意。

7 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

8 reassure   

v.使放心，使消除疑虑

参考例句：

• This seemed to reassure him and he continued more confidently.这似乎使他放心一点，于是他更有信心地继续说了下去。
• The airline tried to reassure the customers that the planes were safe.航空公司尽力让乘客相信飞机是安全的。