[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
the raging attack, knowing that, weaponless, he had little chance against the
beast.
It was within a couple of yards of him when he heard Ira Warenn s voice, saw
her materialise between him and the boar. Yet it was not mere materialisation.
As suddenly as she had ceased to be in his hold, she was there, solid and
real, no ghost that became visible, but a woman who stepped from somewhere and
stood between him and the charging brute.
The boar recoiled so suddenly as to fall in trying to turn, and slid
ignominiously along the grass, with a squeal that told how it had not yet
overcome hereditary porkishness, nor got back in full the courage of its wild,
far-back ancestors. The girl pointed an accusing finger at it.
Bacon! she said, with vibrant anger, and Gees wanted to laugh. Adolphus lay
on his side, and put his forepaws over his face.
He knows what I mean. She turned to Gees. It s my lowest term for him, the
one I use when he has done wrong. As great a punishment as using a whip on
him. I I had to take that step to save myself from falling, or else I didn t
think he would blame my disappearance on you. He couldn t understand it, of
course, and his piggy brain had the impression that you had destroyed me, so
he tried to destroy you.
I see. Gees got back the composure he had almost lost in the fearful moments
of the boar s impending attack. You didn t think I had strength and balance
enough to hold you up.
I knew, when I tried to save myself by holding to you, that you must not hold
me up, she answered coolly. Shall we go on down?
By all means, he almost snapped, and began the descent toward the farmhouse,
leaving her to follow as she chose.
She said, Follow on, Dolph to heel! and came level with him. So they went
down and down, and came to the comparative level on which the house and
buildings were set. There at the back of the house stood Ephraim Knapper, and
as they came toward him, he scratched his head and replaced the old hat that
his fingers moved in scratching. It was a gesture of bewilderment, almost or
so Gees saw it. Ira
Warenn half-turned and, without speaking, gestured the boar with a pointing
finger toward a pen, clean-strawed, of which half was roofed over and under
the roof the straw was thick enough for the animal to burrow and hide in it.
He entered, as meekly as a newly whipped dog, and as she closed the door of
the pen and shot the bar she uttered the one word Bacon! at which the beast
ran under the roof and hid in the straw.
She turned to Knapper. Feed him, Ephraim, she bade.
Aye, Miss Wren, he answered. The sow s bedded, wi her litter.
Thank you. When you have fed Adolphus, you may go.
Thank ye, miss. I ll tend to him.
She went, then, round to the front of the house, and Gees went with her. By
the front door she paused, thoughtful.
Do you notice that these men never drop their aspirates? she asked. Their
dialect does not include that perversion of speech.
I don t think theirs is a perversion, he said. But I was questioning in my
mind it s nothing, though.
Just nothing! A trace of mockery marred the music of her voice. But I ll
tell you. We Warenns have held this farm since our castle was destroyed you
were thinking of how my father owed rent when he died, and so Jerome Naylor
came to threaten me. It was not that we could not pay, but that my father
would not pay, till the roof had been put back on the barn. You see there is a
roof on it now my father demanded what was due from his landlord before he
would pay what was due from him. And what I
Page 53
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
need, I have. You understand?
That it isn t safe even to think, with you, he answered.
She smiled, the smile that was more in her eyes than on her lips, and again he
recalled Naylor s definition of her as allure unutterable. She said, Most
of your thoughts are deep red or even violet-purple, and still quite
transparent. Only the black and grey are beyond reading. But all this is new
to me I am still learning.
Learning what? he asked, with the harshness of incredulity.
If I told you, you wouldn t understand yet, she answered.
Yet? Echoing the word, he looked full into her eyes, and knew he would never
be able to determine their colour. In that, though not in the shade of colour,
they were like a phosphorescent wave he had once seen in the
Mediterranean once and never again. A hue that does not belong on earth, an
indescribable beauty of light. So, but of darkness rather than of light, was
the depth of her eyes, a dark radiance to which he could put no name.
I believe you will, she said. If Listen!
He heard it the musical, yet terrible, clanging resonance that she had said
came from the sword in the chest, the singing sword. He asked, when it died
down, What does it mean?
She shook her head. I have not asked, she answered. I have not been told.
I the wine will you come in with me? I need warmth the wine. Will you drink it
with me?
Why? he asked prosaically.
Because I am afraid the sword s song. Will you?
He nodded assent, and she led the way toward the door. Following her, he
entered the house. The song of the sword had ceased. Daylight was just
beginning to fail, and the comfortless furnishings of the room he knew were
losing some of their dinginess as dusk softened their outlines. The girl said,
Wait,
and left him standing by the carven-lidded chest, seeing its age-gleaned sheen
as almost luminous in the first beginning of night s gloom.
CHAPTER V
ENCHANTMENT
SHE RETURNED, and, facing her, Gees saw that she had brought the squat bottle,
and the two glasses that according to her a Varangian had taken home with him
from Byzantium. He asked, What do you want with me? and even to himself the
words sounded querulous.
She asked in turn, What do you want with me? and he heard laughter in the
question. It angered him, unreasonably.
Nothing! He almost shouted it. You and your pigs!
And Peter don t forget Peter. She sounded not in the least perturbed by his
wrath. Peter? She made a call of it. Oh, Peter!
A flurry of movement, a black shape that leaped to her shoulders, and sat
regarding Gees with baleful, greenish eyes, more fully alight than the gloom
of the room warranted. He said, I knew it all the time you are a witch. And
that isn t a cat at all it ll turn into a bandersnatch any minute. Or a tove a
slithy one.
It s the wrong season they re summer creatures, she said calmly, and tickled
Peter s ear as he sat back of her shoulders and purred, like a sawmill cutting
hardwood. She took up the bottle and withdrew its cork, to poise it over one
of the two flimsy glasses.
That s for yourself, because you re cold, he said. I know that stuff is a
fire that trickles down to your toes. But I m not cold don t fill the other
glass. Is it cowslip wine again?
No, she answered, deliberately. This is the liquor Freya poured for Odin,
the potion that made him give up the Ring which hid her from the giants, so
that they took the gold instead of her as their price for building Valhalla. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl fopke.keep.pl
the raging attack, knowing that, weaponless, he had little chance against the
beast.
It was within a couple of yards of him when he heard Ira Warenn s voice, saw
her materialise between him and the boar. Yet it was not mere materialisation.
As suddenly as she had ceased to be in his hold, she was there, solid and
real, no ghost that became visible, but a woman who stepped from somewhere and
stood between him and the charging brute.
The boar recoiled so suddenly as to fall in trying to turn, and slid
ignominiously along the grass, with a squeal that told how it had not yet
overcome hereditary porkishness, nor got back in full the courage of its wild,
far-back ancestors. The girl pointed an accusing finger at it.
Bacon! she said, with vibrant anger, and Gees wanted to laugh. Adolphus lay
on his side, and put his forepaws over his face.
He knows what I mean. She turned to Gees. It s my lowest term for him, the
one I use when he has done wrong. As great a punishment as using a whip on
him. I I had to take that step to save myself from falling, or else I didn t
think he would blame my disappearance on you. He couldn t understand it, of
course, and his piggy brain had the impression that you had destroyed me, so
he tried to destroy you.
I see. Gees got back the composure he had almost lost in the fearful moments
of the boar s impending attack. You didn t think I had strength and balance
enough to hold you up.
I knew, when I tried to save myself by holding to you, that you must not hold
me up, she answered coolly. Shall we go on down?
By all means, he almost snapped, and began the descent toward the farmhouse,
leaving her to follow as she chose.
She said, Follow on, Dolph to heel! and came level with him. So they went
down and down, and came to the comparative level on which the house and
buildings were set. There at the back of the house stood Ephraim Knapper, and
as they came toward him, he scratched his head and replaced the old hat that
his fingers moved in scratching. It was a gesture of bewilderment, almost or
so Gees saw it. Ira
Warenn half-turned and, without speaking, gestured the boar with a pointing
finger toward a pen, clean-strawed, of which half was roofed over and under
the roof the straw was thick enough for the animal to burrow and hide in it.
He entered, as meekly as a newly whipped dog, and as she closed the door of
the pen and shot the bar she uttered the one word Bacon! at which the beast
ran under the roof and hid in the straw.
She turned to Knapper. Feed him, Ephraim, she bade.
Aye, Miss Wren, he answered. The sow s bedded, wi her litter.
Thank you. When you have fed Adolphus, you may go.
Thank ye, miss. I ll tend to him.
She went, then, round to the front of the house, and Gees went with her. By
the front door she paused, thoughtful.
Do you notice that these men never drop their aspirates? she asked. Their
dialect does not include that perversion of speech.
I don t think theirs is a perversion, he said. But I was questioning in my
mind it s nothing, though.
Just nothing! A trace of mockery marred the music of her voice. But I ll
tell you. We Warenns have held this farm since our castle was destroyed you
were thinking of how my father owed rent when he died, and so Jerome Naylor
came to threaten me. It was not that we could not pay, but that my father
would not pay, till the roof had been put back on the barn. You see there is a
roof on it now my father demanded what was due from his landlord before he
would pay what was due from him. And what I
Page 53
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
need, I have. You understand?
That it isn t safe even to think, with you, he answered.
She smiled, the smile that was more in her eyes than on her lips, and again he
recalled Naylor s definition of her as allure unutterable. She said, Most
of your thoughts are deep red or even violet-purple, and still quite
transparent. Only the black and grey are beyond reading. But all this is new
to me I am still learning.
Learning what? he asked, with the harshness of incredulity.
If I told you, you wouldn t understand yet, she answered.
Yet? Echoing the word, he looked full into her eyes, and knew he would never
be able to determine their colour. In that, though not in the shade of colour,
they were like a phosphorescent wave he had once seen in the
Mediterranean once and never again. A hue that does not belong on earth, an
indescribable beauty of light. So, but of darkness rather than of light, was
the depth of her eyes, a dark radiance to which he could put no name.
I believe you will, she said. If Listen!
He heard it the musical, yet terrible, clanging resonance that she had said
came from the sword in the chest, the singing sword. He asked, when it died
down, What does it mean?
She shook her head. I have not asked, she answered. I have not been told.
I the wine will you come in with me? I need warmth the wine. Will you drink it
with me?
Why? he asked prosaically.
Because I am afraid the sword s song. Will you?
He nodded assent, and she led the way toward the door. Following her, he
entered the house. The song of the sword had ceased. Daylight was just
beginning to fail, and the comfortless furnishings of the room he knew were
losing some of their dinginess as dusk softened their outlines. The girl said,
Wait,
and left him standing by the carven-lidded chest, seeing its age-gleaned sheen
as almost luminous in the first beginning of night s gloom.
CHAPTER V
ENCHANTMENT
SHE RETURNED, and, facing her, Gees saw that she had brought the squat bottle,
and the two glasses that according to her a Varangian had taken home with him
from Byzantium. He asked, What do you want with me? and even to himself the
words sounded querulous.
She asked in turn, What do you want with me? and he heard laughter in the
question. It angered him, unreasonably.
Nothing! He almost shouted it. You and your pigs!
And Peter don t forget Peter. She sounded not in the least perturbed by his
wrath. Peter? She made a call of it. Oh, Peter!
A flurry of movement, a black shape that leaped to her shoulders, and sat
regarding Gees with baleful, greenish eyes, more fully alight than the gloom
of the room warranted. He said, I knew it all the time you are a witch. And
that isn t a cat at all it ll turn into a bandersnatch any minute. Or a tove a
slithy one.
It s the wrong season they re summer creatures, she said calmly, and tickled
Peter s ear as he sat back of her shoulders and purred, like a sawmill cutting
hardwood. She took up the bottle and withdrew its cork, to poise it over one
of the two flimsy glasses.
That s for yourself, because you re cold, he said. I know that stuff is a
fire that trickles down to your toes. But I m not cold don t fill the other
glass. Is it cowslip wine again?
No, she answered, deliberately. This is the liquor Freya poured for Odin,
the potion that made him give up the Ring which hid her from the giants, so
that they took the gold instead of her as their price for building Valhalla. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]