PAT OF SILVER BUSH & MISTRESS PAT (Complete Series). Люси Мод Монтгомери

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СКАЧАТЬ Was this the right road? There were no homelights anywhere. Had she taken the wrong turn and was this the “line” road that ran along the backs of the farms between the two townships? Would she ever get home? Would she ever see Sid again … hear Winnie’s laugh and Cuddles’ dear little squeals of welcome? Last Sunday in church the choir had sung, “The night is dark and I am far from home.” She knew what that meant now as she broke into a desperate little run. The white birches along the roadside seemed to be trying to catch her with ghostly hands. The wind wailed through the spruces. At Silver Bush you never quite knew how the wind would come at you … from behind the church barn like a cat pouncing … down from the Hill of the Mist like a soft bird flying … through the orchard like a playmate … but it always came as a friend. This wind was no friend. Was that it crying in the spruces? Or was it the Green Harper of Judy’s tale who harped people away to Fairyland whether they would or no? All Judy’s stories, enjoyed and disbelieved at home, became fearfully true here. Those strange little shadows, dark amid the darkness, under the ferns … suppose they were fairies. Judy said if you met a fairy you were never the same again. No threat could have been more terrible to Pat. To be changed … to be not yourself!

      That wild, faraway note … was it the Peter Branaghan of another of Judy’s tales, out on the hills piping to his ghostly sheep? And still no light … she must be on the wrong road.

      All at once she was wild with terror of the chill night and the eerie wind and the huge, dark pathless world around her. She stopped short and uttered a bitter little cry of desolation.

      “Can I help you?” said a voice.

      Some one had just come around the turn of the road. A boy … not much taller than herself … with something queer about his eyes … with a little blot of shadow behind him that looked like a dog. That was all Pat could see. But suddenly she felt safe … protected. He had such a nice voice.

      “I … think I’m lost,” she gasped. “I’m Pat Gardiner … and I took the wrong road.”

      “You’re on the line road,” said the boy. “But it turns and goes down past Silver Bush. Only it’s a little longer. I’ll take you home. I’m Hilary Gordon … but everybody calls me Jingle.”

      Pat knew at once who he was and felt well acquainted. She had heard Judy talk about the Gordons who had bought the little old Adams farm that marched with Silver Bush. They had no family of their own but an orphan nephew was living with them and Judy said it was likely he had poor pickings of it. He did not go to the North Glen school for the old Adams place was in the South Glen school district, but they were really next-door neighbours.

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      They walked on. They did not talk much but Pat felt happy now as she trotted along. The moon rose and in its light she looked at him curiously. He had dark-coloured, horn-rimmed glasses … that was what was the matter with his eyes. And he wore trousers of which one leg came to the knee and the other half way between knee and ankle, which Pat thought rather dreadful.

      “I belong to Silver Bush, you know,” she said.

      “I don’t belong anywhere,” said Jingle forlornly.

      Pat wanted to comfort him for something she did not understand. She slipped her little hand into his … he had a warm pleasant hand. They walked home together so. The wind … the night … were friendly again. The dark boughs of the trees, tossing against the silver moonlit sky, were beautiful … the spicy, woodsy smells along the road delightful.

      “Where does that road go?” asked Pat once as they passed an inviting path barred by moonlight and shadow.

      “I don’t know but we’ll go and see some day,” said Jingle.

      They were just like old, old friends.

      And then the dear light of Silver Bush shining across the fields … the dear house overflowing with welcoming light. Pat could have cried with joy to see it again. Even if nobody would be very glad to see her back the house would.

      “Thank you so much for coming home with me,” she said shyly at the gate of the kitchen yard. “I was so frightened.”

      Then she added boldly … because she had heard Judy say a girl ought always to give a dacent feller a bite whin he had seen her home and Pat, for the credit of Silver Bush, wanted to do the proper thing …

      “I wish you’d come and have dinner with us Monday. We’re going to have chickens because it’s Labour Day. Judy says she labours that day just the same as any day but she always celebrates it with a chicken dinner. Please come.”

      “I’d like to,” said Jingle. “And I’m glad McGinty and I happened along when you were scared.”

      “Is McGinty the name of your dog?” asked Pat, looking at it a little timidly. Snicklefritz and Uncle Tom’s old Bruno were all the dogs she was acquainted with.

      “Yes. He’s the only friend I’ve got in the world,” said Jingle.

      “Except me,” said Pat.

      Jingle suddenly smiled. Even in the moonlight she saw that he had a nice smile.

      “Except you,” he agreed.

      Judy appeared at the open kitchen door, peering out.

      “I must run,” said Pat hastily. “Monday then. Don’t forget. And bring McGinty, too. There’ll be some bones.”

      “Now who was ye colloguing wid out there?” asked Judy curiously. “Sure and ye might av brought yer beau in and let’s give him the once-over. Not but that ye’re beginning a trifle young.”

      “That wasn’t a beau, Judy,” cried Pat, scandalised at the bare idea. “That was just Jingle.”

      “Hear at her. And who may Jingle be, if it’s not asking too much?”

      “Hilary Gordon … and I was coming home alone … and I got lost … I was a little frightened, Judy … and he’s coming to dinner on Monday.”

      “Oh, oh, it’s the fast worker ye are,” chuckled Judy, delighted that she had got something to tease Pat about … Pat who had never thought there was any boy in the world but Sidney.

      But Pat was too happy to mind. She was home, in the bright kitchen of Silver Bush. The horror of that lonely road had ceased to be … had never been. It was really beautiful to come home at night … to step out of darkness into the light and warmth of home.

      “Did ye save a piece of pie for me, Judy?”

      “Oh, oh, that I did. Don’t I know the skimp males of the Bay Shore? Sure and it’s niver cut and come agin there. It’s more than a bit av pie I have for ye. What wud ye say now to a sausage and a baked pittaty?”

      Over the supper Pat told Judy all about the day and her walk home.

      “Think av the pluck av her, starting out alone like that on Shank’s mare,” said Judy, just as Pat had expected. That was the beauty of Judy. “Though I’m not saying it isn’t a good thing that Jingle-lad happened along whin he did. Mind ye ask the cratur over for a liddle bite now and agin. I knew ould Larry Gordon whin he lived on the Taylor farm beyant the store. He’s a skim milk man, СКАЧАТЬ