The Horse and His Boy. Клайв Стейплз Льюис

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СКАЧАТЬ Two

      A Wayside Adventure

      It was nearly noon on the following day when Shasta was wakened by something warm and soft moving over his face. He opened his eyes and found himself staring into the long face of a horse; its nose and lips were almost touching his. He remembered the exciting events of the previous night and sat up. But as he did so he groaned.

      “Ow, Bree,” he gasped. “I’m so sore. All over. I can hardly move.”

      “Good morning, small one,” said Bree. “I was afraid you might feel a bit stiff. It can’t be the falls. You didn’t have more than a dozen or so, and it was all lovely, soft, springy turf that must have been almost a pleasure to fall on. And the only one that might have been nasty was broken by that gorse bush. No: it’s the riding itself that comes hard at first. What about breakfast? I’ve had mine.”

      “Oh, bother breakfast. Bother everything,” said Shasta. “I tell you I can’t move.” But the Horse nuzzled at him with his nose and pawed him gently with a hoof till he had to get up. And then he looked about him and saw where they were. Behind them lay a little copse. Before them the turf, dotted with white flowers, sloped down to the brow of a cliff. Far below them, so that the sound of the breaking waves was very faint, lay the sea. Shasta had never seen it from such a height and never seen so much of it before, nor dreamed how many colours it had. On either hand the coast stretched away, headland after headland, and at the points you could see the white foam running up the rocks but making no noise because it was so far off. There were gulls flying overhead and the heat shivered on the ground; it was a blazing day. But what Shasta chiefly noticed was the air. He couldn’t think what was missing, until at last he realized that there was no smell of fish in it. For of course, neither in the cottage nor among the nets, had he ever been away from that smell in his life. And this new air was so delicious, and all his old life seemed so far away, that he forgot for a moment about his bruises and his aching muscles and said:

      “I say, Bree, didn’t you say something about breakfast?”

      “Yes, I did,” answered Bree. “I think you’ll find something in the saddle-bags. They’re over there on that tree where you hung them up last night – or early this morning, rather.”

      They investigated the saddle-bags and the results were cheering – a meat pasty, only slightly stale, a lump of dried figs and another lump of green cheese, a little flask of wine, and some money; about forty crescents in all, which was more than Shasta had ever seen.

      While Shasta sat down – painfully and cautiously – with his back against a tree and started on the pasty, Bree had a few more mouthfuls of grass to keep him company.

      “Won’t it be stealing to use the money?” asked Shasta.

      “Oh,” said the Horse, looking up with his mouth full of grass, “I never thought of that. A free horse and a talking horse mustn’t steal, of course. But I think it’s all right. We’re prisoners and captives in enemy country. That money is booty, spoil. Besides, how are we to get any food for you without it? I suppose, like all humans, you won’t eat natural food like grass and oats.”

      “I can’t.”

      “Ever tried?”

      “Yes, I have. I can’t get it down at all. You couldn’t either if you were me.”

      “You’re rum little creatures, you humans,” remarked Bree.

      When Shasta had finished his breakfast (which was by far the nicest he had ever eaten), Bree said, “I think I’ll have a nice roll before we put on that saddle again.” And he proceeded to do so. “That’s good. That’s very good,” he said, rubbing his back on the turf and waving all four legs in the air. “You ought to have one too, Shasta,” he snorted. “It’s most refreshing.”

      But Shasta burst out laughing and said, “You do look funny when you’re on your back!”

      “I look nothing of the sort,” said Bree. But then suddenly he rolled round on his side, raised his head and looked hard at Shasta, blowing a little.

      “Does it really look funny?” he asked in an anxious voice.

      “Yes, it does,” replied Shasta. “But what does it matter?”

      “You don’t think, do you,” said Bree, “that it might be a thing talking horses never do – a silly, clownish trick I’ve learned from the dumb ones? It would be dreadful to find, when I get back to Narnia, that I’ve picked up a lot of low, bad habits. What do you think, Shasta? Honestly, now. Don’t spare my feelings. Do you think the real, free horses – the talking kind – roll?”

      “How should I know? Anyway, I don’t think I should bother about it if I were you. We’ve got to get there first. Do you know the way?”

      “I know my way to Tashbaan. After that comes the desert. Oh, we’ll manage the desert somehow, never fear. Why, we’ll be in sight of the Northern mountains then. Think of it! To Narnia and the North! Nothing will stop us then. But I’d be glad to be past Tashbaan. You and I are safer away from cities.”

      “Can’t we avoid it?”

      “Not without going a long way inland, and that would take us into cultivated land and main roads; and I wouldn’t know the way. No, we’ll just have to creep along the coast. Up here on the downs we’ll meet nothing but sheep and rabbits and gulls and a few shepherds. And by the way, what about starting?”

      Shasta’s legs ached terribly as he saddled Bree and climbed into the saddle, but the Horse was kindly to him and went at a soft pace all afternoon. When evening twilight came they dropped by steep tracks into a valley and found a village. Before they got into it Shasta dismounted and entered it on foot to buy a loaf and some onions and radishes. The Horse trotted round by the fields in the dusk and met Shasta at the far side. This became their regular plan every second night.

      These were great days for Shasta, and every day better than the last as his muscles hardened and he fell less often. Even at the end of his training Bree still said he sat like a bag of flour in the saddle. “And even if it was safe, young ’un, I’d be ashamed to be seen with you on the main road.” But in spite of his rude words Bree was a patient teacher. No one can teach riding so well as a horse. Shasta learned to trot, to canter, to jump, and to keep his seat even when Bree pulled up suddenly or swung unexpectedly to the left or the right – which, as Bree told him, was a thing you might have to do at any moment in a battle. And then of course Shasta begged to be told of the battles and wars in which Bree had carried the Tarkaan. And Bree would tell of forced marches and the fording of swift rivers, of charges and of fierce fights between cavalry and cavalry when the war horses fought as well as the men, being all fierce stallions, trained to bite and kick, and to rear at the right moment so that the horse’s weight as well as the rider’s would come down on an enemy’s crest in the stroke of a sword or battleaxe. But Bree did not want to talk about the wars as often as Shasta wanted to hear about them. “Don’t speak of them, youngster,” he would say. “They were only the Tisroc’s wars and I fought in them as a slave and a dumb beast. Give me the Narnian wars where I shall fight as a free Horse among my own people! Those will be wars worth talking about. Narnia and the North! Bra-ha-ha! Broo hoo!”

      Shasta soon learned, when he heard Bree talking like that, to prepare for a gallop.

      After they had travelled on for weeks and weeks, past more bays and headlands and rivers and villages than Shasta СКАЧАТЬ