有声英语少儿童话故事 顽童故事 斯莱特山的雪堡 第2章

Slatter’sHill, or No-man’s-land, as it was generally called, was a rise of groundcovering, perhaps, an acre and a quarter, situated on an imaginary line,marking the boundary between the two districts. An immense stratum of granite,which here and there thrust out a wrinkled boulder, prevented the site frombeing used for building purposes. The street ran on either side of the hill,from one part of which a quantity of rock had been removed to form theunderpinning of the new jail. This excavation made the approach from that pointall but impossible, especially when the ragged ledges were a-glitter with ice.You see what a spot it was for a snow-fort.

Oneevening twenty or thirty of the North-Enders quietly took possession ofSlatter’s Hill, and threw up a strong line of breastworks, something after thisshape:

Therear of the entrenchment, being protected by the quarry, was left open. Thewalls were four feet high, and twenty-two inches thick, strengthened at theangles by stakes driven firmly into the ground.