更多英文有声读物中英对照同步视频请加V信公众号：yyxxzlk

1.The Wagon to Longpuddle
It is a Saturday afternoon in autumn, in the High Street of a well-known town. 
A large carrier's wagon stands outside the Town Hall, 
and the horses wait quietly, eating from their nose-bags. 
On the side of the wagon, in large yellow letters, are the words, ‘BURTHEN, CARRIER TO LONGPUDDLE.’
It is now half-past three by the clock on the Town Hall, and the wagon will leave at four. 
Slowly, people begin to arrive and take their seats. 
First, two women climb up, and then a third, who is the postmistress at Longpuddle. 
At five minutes to four, more people arrive. 
There is Mr Profitt, the schoolteacher, and Christopher Twink, the builder, with his old father. 
Then come a farmer and his wife, and last of all, Mr Flaxton, the church clerk.
By now Burthen, the carrier, is getting the horses ready, and soon he climbs up to the driving seat.
‘Is everybody here?’ he asks the passengers.
The people who are not there do not reply, of course,
and a minute or two later the wagon begins to move along the High Street. 
When it comes to the bridge over the river at the bottom end of the town, the postmistress suddenly calls out to the carrier.
‘Mr Burthen,’ she says. ‘There's a man calling you, over there by the corner. I think he wants you to stop for him.’
Burthen stops the wagon, and waits while the man comes towards them. 
‘Now who's that, then?' he says. ‘That's not a Longpuddle man.’
‘I’ve never seen him before,’ says the schoolteacher. 
Then the stranger arrives. ‘Can you take another passenger for Longpuddle?’ he asks.
‘We can take one more,’ says the carrier. ‘Where are you from, sir? You're not from round here, are you?’
‘I am,’ says the stranger. ‘I was born at Longpuddle, and my father and grandfather before me.’
The postmistress is watching him with interest. ‘Oh!’ she says suddenly. 
‘I know who you are! You're John Lackland's son—he who went to America thirty years ago with his wife and family.’
‘That's right,’ says the stranger, smiling. ‘John Lackland was my father. 
‘And now I've come home to have a look at the old village, and find some old friends. 
‘Are the same families still living there?’
‘Many of them are,’ says the church clerk. ‘Which names do you remember?’
‘There was a boy called Tony Kytes, I remember.’ 
‘Oh yes,’ says the clerk. ‘Tony Kytes is a married man now. Lives over at Mellstock, I think.’
‘And he nearly got married to three women,’ laughs the carrier. 
‘There's a good story about Tony and all his young women.’
‘Tell me about it,’ says John Lackland's son.
And this is the carrier's story.