Alan Garner Classic Collection. Alan Garner

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       CHAPTER 6

       A RING OF STONES

      Thursday at Highmost Redmanhey was always busy, for on top of the normal round of work Gowther had to make ready for the following day, when he would drive down to Alderley village to do the weekly shopping, and also to call on certain old friends and acquaintances whom he supplied with vegetables and eggs. So much of Thursday was taken up with selecting and cleaning the produce for Friday’s marketing.

      When all was done, Colin and Susan rode with Gowther to the wheelwright in the nearby township of Mottram St Andrew to have a new spoke fitted to the cart. This occupied them until teatime, and afterwards Gowther asked the children if they would like to go with him down to Nether Alderley to see whether they could find their next meal in Radnor mere.

      They set off across the fields, and shortly came to a wood. Here the undergrowth was denser than on most of the Edge, and contained quite a lot of bramble. High rhododendron bushes grew wild everywhere. The wood seemed full of birds. They sang in the trees, rustled in the thicket, and swam in the many quiet pools.

      “I’ve just realised something,” said Colin: “I felt the Edge was unusual, and now I know why. It’s the …”

      “Birds,” said Gowther. “There is none. Not worth speaking of, onyroad. Flies, yes; but birds no. It’s always been like that, to my knowledge, and I conner think why it should be. You’d think with all them trees and suchlike, you’d have as mony as you find here, but, considering the size of the place, theer’s hardly a throstle to be found from Squirrel’s Jump to Daniel Hill. Time’s been when I’ve wandered round theer half the day and seen nobbut a pair of jays, and that was in Clockhouse Wood. No, it’s very strange, when you come to weigh it up.”

      Their way took them through a jungle of rhododendron. The ground was boggy and choked with dead wood, and they had to duck under low branches and climb over fallen trees: but, somehow, Gowther managed to carry his rod and line through it all without a snag, and he even seemed to know where he was going.

      Susan thought how unpleasant it would be to have to move quickly through such country.

      “Gowther,” she said, “are there any mines near here?”

      “No, none at all, we’re almost on the plain now, and the mines are over the other side of the hill, behind us. Why do you ask?”

      “Oh, I just wondered.”

      The rhododendrons came to an end at the border of a mere, about half a mile long and a quarter wide.

      “This is it,” said Gowther, sitting down on a fallen trunk which stretched out over the water. “It’s a trifle marshy, but we’re not easy to reach here, as theer’s some as might term this poaching. Now if you’ll open yon basket and pass the tin with the bait in it, we can settle down and makes ourselves comfortable.”

      After going out as far as he could along the tree to cast his rod, Gowther sat with his back against the roots and lit his pipe. Colin and Susan lay full length on the wrinkled bark and gazed into the mere.

      Within two hours they had three perch between them, so they gathered in their tackle and headed for home, arriving well before dusk.

      The following morning in Alderley village Susan went with Bess to the shops while Colin stayed to help Gowther with the vegetables. They all met again for a meal at noon, and afterwards climbed into the cart and went with Gowther on his round.

      It was a hot day, and by four o’clock Colin and Susan were very thirsty, so Bess said that they ought to drop off for an ice-cream and a lemonade.

      “We’ve to go down Moss Lane,” she said, “and we shanner be above half an hour; you stay and cool down a bit.”

      The children were soon in the village café, with their drinks before them. Susan was toying with her bracelet, and idly trying to catch the light so that she could see the blue heart of her Tear.

      “It’s always difficult to find,” she said. “I never know when it’s going to come right … ah … wait a minute … yes … got it! You know, it reminds me of the light in Fundin …”

      She looked at Colin. He was staring at her, open mouthed. They both dropped their eyes to Susan’s wrist where the Tear gleamed so innocently.

      “But it couldn’t be!” whispered Colin. “Could it?”

      “I don’t … know. But how?”

      But how?

      “No, of course not!” said Colin. “The wizard would have recognised it as soon as he saw it, wouldn’t he?”

      Susan flopped back in her chair, releasing her pent-up breath in a long sigh. But a second later she was bolt upright, inarticulate with excitement.

      “He СКАЧАТЬ