Dawn. Генри Райдер Хаггард

Чтение книги онлайн.

      "It is pleasant to-night, is it not, Mr. Fraser?” said the little maid, "though everything is dying. The things die softly without any pain this year; last year they were all killed in the rain and wind. Look at that cloud floating across the moon, is it not beautiful? I wonder what it is the shadow of; I think all the clouds are shadows of something up in heaven.”

      "And when there are no clouds?”

      "Oh! then heaven is quite still and happy.”

      "But heaven is always happy.”

      "Is it? I don’t understand how it can be always happy if we go there. There must be so many to be sorry for.”

      Mr. Fraser mused a little; that last remark was difficult to answer. He looked at the fleecy cloud, and, falling into her humour, said—

      "I think your cloud is the shadow of an eagle carrying a lamb to its little ones.”

      "And I think,” she answered confidently, "that it is the shadow of an angel carrying a baby home.”

      Again he was silenced; the idea was infinitely more poetical than his own.

      "This,” he reflected, "is a child of a curious mental calibre.”

      Before he could pursue the thought further, she broke in upon it in quite a different strain.

      "Have you seen Jack and Jill? They are jolly.”

      "Who are Jack and Jill?”

      "Why, my ravens, of course. I got them out of the old tree with a hole in it at the end of the lake.”

      "The tree at the end of the lake! Why, the hole where the ravens nest is fifty feet up. Who got them for you?”

      "I got them myself. Sam—you know Sam—was afraid to go up. He said he should fall, and that the old birds would peck his eyes. So I went by myself one morning quite early, with a bag tied round my neck, and got up. It was hard work, and I nearly tumbled once; but I got on the bough beneath the hole at last. It shook very much; it is so rotten, you have no idea. There were three little ones in the nest, all with great mouths. I took two, and left one for the old birds. When I was nearly down again, the old birds found me out, and flew at me, and beat my head with their wings, and pecked—oh, they did peck! Look here,” and she showed him a scar on her hand; "that’s where they pecked. But I stuck to my bag, and got down at last, and I’m glad I did, for we are great friends now; and I am sure the cross old birds would be quite pleased if they knew how nicely I am educating their young ones, and how their manners have improved. But I say, Mr. Fraser, don’t tell Pigott; she cannot climb trees, and does not like to see me do it. She does not know I went after them myself.”

      Mr. Fraser laughed.

      "I won’t tell her, Angela, my dear; but you must be careful—you might tumble and kill yourself.”

      "I don’t think I shall, Mr. Fraser, unless I am meant to. God looks after me as much when I am up a tree as when I am upon the ground.”

      Once more he had nothing to say; he could not venture to disturb her faith.

      "I will walk home with you, my dear. Tell me. Angela, would you like to learn?”

      "Learn!—learn what?”

      "Books, and the languages that other nations, nations that have passed away, used to talk, and how to calculate numbers and distances.”

      "Yes, I should like to learn very much; but who will teach me? I have learnt all Pigott knows two years ago, and since then I have been trying to learn about the trees and flowers and stars; but I look and watch, and can’t understand.”

      "Ah! my dear, contact with Nature is the highest education; but the mind that would appreciate her wonders must have a foundation of knowledge to work upon. The uneducated man is rarely sensitive to the thousand beauties and marvels of the fields around him, and the skies above him. But, if you like, I will teach you, Angela. I am practically an idle man, and it will give me great pleasure; but you must promise to work and do what I tell you.”

      "Oh, how good you are! Of course I will work. When am I to begin?”

      "I don’t know—to-morrow, if you like; but I must speak to your father first.”

      Her face fell a little at the mention of her father’s name, but presently she said, quietly—

      "My father, he will not care if I learn or not. I hardly ever see my father; he does not like me. I see nobody but Pigott and you and old Jakes, and Sam sometimes. You need not ask my father; he will never miss me whilst I am learning. Ask Pigott.”

      At that moment Pigott herself hove into view, in a great flurry.

      "Oh, here you are, Miss Angela! Where have you been to, you naughty girl? At some of your star-gazing tricks again, I’ll be bound, frightening the life out of a body. It’s just too bad of you, Miss Angela.”

      The little girl looked at her with a peculiarly winning smile, and took her very solid hand between her own tiny palms.

      "Don’t be cross, Pigott, dear,” she said. "I didn’t mean to frighten you. I couldn’t help going—I couldn’t indeed; and then I stopped talking to Mr. Fraser.”

      "There, there, I should just like to know who can be cross with you when you put on those ways. Are your feet wet? Ah! I thought so. Run on in and take them off.”

      "Won’t that be just a little difficult?” and she was gone with a merry laugh.

      "There, sir, that’s just like her, catching a body up like and twisting what she says, till you don’t know which is head and which is heels. I’ll be bound you found her down yonder;” and she nodded towards the churchyard.

      "Yes.”

      Pigott drew a little nearer, and spoke in a low voice.

      "‘Tis my belief, sir, that that child sees things; she is just the oddest child I ever saw. There’s nothing she likes better than to slip out of a night, and to go to that there beastly churchyard, saving your presence, for ‘company,’ as she calls it—nice sort of company, indeed. And it is just the same way with storms. You remember that dreadful gale a month ago, the one that took down the North Grove and blew the spire off Rewtham Church. Well, just when it was at its worst, and I was a-sitting and praying that the roof might keep over our heads, I look round for Angela, and can’t see her. ‘Some of your tricks again,’ thinks I to myself; and just then up comes Mrs. Jakes to say that Sam had seen little missy creeping down the tunnel walk. I was that scared that I ran down, got hold of Sam, for Jakes said he wouldn’t go out with all them trees a-flying about in the air like straws—no, not for a thousand pounds, and off we set after her.” Here Pigott paused to groan at the recollection of that walk.

      "Well,” said Mr. Fraser, who was rather interested—everything about this queer child interested him; "where did you find her?”

      "Well, sir, you know where the old wall runs out into the water, before Caresfoot’s Staff there? Well, at the end of it there’s a post sunk in, with a ring in it to tie boats to. Now, would you believe it? out there at the end of the wall, and tied to the ring by a scarf passed round her middle, was that dreadful child. She was standing there, her back against the post, right in the teeth of the gale, with the spray dashing over her, her arms stretched СКАЧАТЬ