In the second campaign, the English gained a considerable victory at Verneuil, in a battle which was chiefly remarkable, otherwise, for their resorting to the odd expedient [權宜手段] of tying their baggage-horses together by the heads and tails, and jumbling [堆] them up with the baggage, so as to convert them into a sort of live fortification - which was found useful to the troops, but which I should think was not agreeable to the horses. For three years afterwards very little was done, owing to both sides being too poor for war, which is a very expensive entertainment; but, a council was then held in Paris, in which it was decided to lay siege to the town of Orleans, which was a place of great importance to the Dauphin's cause. An English army of ten thousand men was despatched [派遣] on this service, under the command of the Earl of Salisbury, a general of fame. He being unfortunately killed early in the siege, the Earl of Suffolk took his place; under whom (reinforced by Sir John Falstaff, who brought up four hundred waggons laden [裝滿] with salt herrings [醃鯡魚] and other provisions for the troops, and, beating off the French who tried to intercept him, came victorious out of a hot skirmish [遭遇戰], which was afterwards called in jest [笑話] the Battle of the Herrings) the town of Orleans was so completely hemmed [包圍] in, that the besieged proposed to yield it up to their countryman the Duke of Burgundy. The English general, however, replied that his English men had won it, so far, by their blood and valour, and that his English men must have it. There seemed to be no hope for the town, or for the Dauphin, who was so dismayed [worried, disappointed, and upset] that he even thought of flying [flee] to Scotland or to Spain - when a peasant girl rose up and changed the whole state of affairs.

The story of this peasant girl I have now to tell.

PART THE SECOND: THE STORY OF JOAN OF ARC [貞德]

In a remote village among some wild hills in the province of Lorraine, there lived a countryman whose name was Jacques d'Arc. He had a daughter, Joan of Arc, who was at this time in her twentieth year. She had been a solitary [喜歡獨處的] girl from her childhood; she had often tended sheep and cattle for whole days where no human figure was seen or human voice heard; and she had often knelt, for hours together, in the gloomy, empty, little village chapel [小教堂], looking up at the altar and at the dim lamp burning before it, until she fancied that she saw shadowy figures standing there, and even that she heard them speak to her. The people in that part of France were very ignorant and superstitious, and they had many ghostly tales to tell about what they had dreamed, and what they saw among the lonely hills when the clouds and the mists were resting on them. So, they easily believed that Joan saw strange sights, and they whispered among themselves that angels and spirits talked to her.

At last, Joan told her father that she had one day been surprised by a great unearthly light, and had afterwards heard a solemn voice, which said it was Saint Michael's voice, telling her that she was to go and help the Dauphin. Soon after this (she said), Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret had appeared to her with sparkling crowns upon their heads, and had encouraged her to be virtuous and resolute. These visions had returned sometimes; but the Voices very often; and the voices always said, 'Joan, thou [you] art [are] appointed by Heaven to go and help the Dauphin!' She almost always heard them while the chapel bells were ringing.

六級/考研單詞: luggage, convert, expense, entertain, siege, dispatch, fame, reinforce, wagon, besiege, yield, dismay, disappoint, peasant, arc, province, solitary, seldom, goat, cattle, kneel, gloom, chapel, dim, ignorant, superstition, ghost, tale, lonely, mist, angel, solemn, saint, sparkle