Таинственный сад / The secret garden. Фрэнсис-Элиза Ходжсон Бёрнетт

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ looked at the bare flower-bed at her left side. The flower-bed was not quite bare. It was bare of flowers, but there were tall and low shrubs. The robin hopped about under them. He stopped on it to look for a worm. A dog scratched quite a deep hole there.

      Mary looked at it and saw something in the soil. It was an old key!

      Mary stood up and looked at it.

      “Perhaps it is the key to the secret garden!” she said in a whisper.

      Mary put the key in her pocket. She will always carry it with her when she goes out – to find the hidden door.

      Chapter VIII

      The Robin who showed the way

      “I’ve brought you a present,” Martha said in the morning, with a cheerful grin.

      “A present!” exclaimed Mary.

      “Yes. It’s a skipping-rope.”

      She brought it out from under her apron and exhibited it quite proudly. It was a strong, slender rope with a striped red and blue handle at each end. Mary gazed at it with a mystified expression.

      “What is it for?” she asked curiously.

      “Just watch me!” cried out Martha.

      And she ran into the middle of the room and, taking a handle in each hand, began to skip, and skip, and skip.

      “I could skip longer than that,” Martha said when she stopped. “But I’m fat now.”

      Mary was excited.

      “It looks nice,” she said. “Do you think I could ever skip like that?”

      “You just try it,” urged Martha.

      Mary’s arms and legs were weak, but she liked it so much that she did not want to stop. She opened the door to go out, and then suddenly thought of something and turned back rather slowly.

      “Martha,” she said, “the money for this rope was your wages. Thank you.”

      She said it stiffly and held out her hand[17] because she did not know what else to do.

      Martha laughed. Mary felt a little awkward as she went out of the room.

      The skipping-rope was a wonderful thing. She counted and skipped, and skipped and counted, until her cheeks were quite red. The sun was shining and a little wind was blowing. She skipped round the fountain garden, and up one walk and down another. She skipped at last into the kitchen-garden and saw Ben Weatherstaff digging and talking to his robin, which was hopping about him. She skipped down the walk toward him and he lifted his head and looked at her with a curious expression.

      “Well!” he exclaimed. “Upon my word![18] You have child’s blood in your veins instead of sour buttermilk.”

      “I never skipped before,” Mary said. “I’m just beginning.”

      “Keep on,” said Ben.

      Mary skipped round all the gardens and round the orchard. The robin followed her and greeted her with a chirp. The girl laughed.

      “Yesterday you showed me the key,” she said. “Show me the door today!”

      The robin flew to the top of the wall and sang a loud, lovely trill. One of the nice little gusts of wind rushed down the walk. It waved the branches of the trees. Mary stepped close to the robin, and suddenly the gust of wind swung aside some loose ivy trails. She saw a round knob which was covered by the leaves. It was the knob of a door.

      She put her hands under the leaves and began to pull and push them aside. Mary’s heart began to thump and her hands to shake a little in her delight and excitement. What was this under her hands which was square and made of iron?

      It was the lock of the door! She put her hand in her pocket, drew out the key and put the key in and turned it.

      The door opened slowly. She slipped through it, and shut it behind her. She was standing inside the secret garden.

      Chapter IX

      A very strange house

      It was the most mysterious-looking place anyone can imagine. The high walls were covered with the leafless stems of climbing roses. Mary Lennox knew they were roses because she saw many roses in India. All the ground was covered with grass. There were many trees in the garden, too. here were neither leaves nor roses on them now and Mary did not know whether they were dead or alive.

      “How still it is!” she whispered. “How still!”

      Then she waited a moment and listened at the stillness. The robin did not flutter his wings; he sat and looked at Mary.

      “No wonder,” she whispered again. “I am the first person who has spoken in here for ten years.”

      She moved away from the door. She was glad that there was grass under her feet and that her steps made no sounds. She walked under one of the gray arches between the trees.

      “Are they are all dead?” she said. “Is it a dead garden?”

      She was inside the wonderful secret garden. The sun was shining inside the four walls and the high arch of blue sky seemed even more brilliant than it was over the moor. The robin flew after her from one bush to another. Everything was strange and silent, but somehow she did not feel lonely at all.

      She did not want it to be a dead garden. Her skipping-rope hung over her arm. She came near the alcove. There was a flower-bed in it, and she knelt down.

      “These might be crocuses or snowdrops or daffodils,” she whispered.

      She bent very close to them and sniffed the fresh scent of the damp earth. She liked it very much. “Perhaps there are some other ones coming up in other. I will go all over the garden and look.”

      She did not skip, but walked. She went slowly. She looked in the old border beds and among the grass.

      “It isn’t a dead garden,” she cried out softly to herself. “Even if the roses are dead, there are other things alive.”

      She found a sharp piece of wood and dug and weeded out the weeds and grass until she made nice little clear places around them.

      “Now they can breathe,” she said. “I am going to do more. I’ll do all I can see. If I have no time today I can come tomorrow.”

      She went from place to place, and dug and weeded, and enjoyed herself immensely. The robin was busy. He was very much pleased to see that.

      Mary worked in her garden until it was time to go to her midday dinner. She put on her coat and hat, and picked up her skipping-rope. She was really happy.

      “I shall come back this afternoon,” she said, looking all round at her new kingdom, and speaking to the trees and the rose-bushes.

      Then she ran lightly across the grass, pushed the old door and slipped through it under the ivy. She had such red cheeks and such bright eyes СКАЧАТЬ