Edith Nesbit: Children's Books Collection (Illustrated Edition). Эдит Несбит

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СКАЧАТЬ in some better place. You may be sure he caught it, giving them such a turn. Why, he wasn't allowed to taste Megatherium for a month after that. Nothing but oysters and periwinkles, and common things like that."

      All the children were quite crushed by this terrible tale. They looked at the Psammead in horror. Suddenly the Lamb perceived that something brown and furry was near him.

      "Poof, poof, poofy," he said, and made a grab.

      "It's not a pussy," Anthea was beginning, when the Sand-fairy leaped back.

      "Oh, my left whisker!" it said; "don't let him touch me. He's wet."

      Its fur stood on end with horror—and indeed a good deal of the ginger-beer had been spilt on the blue smock of the Lamb.

      The Psammead dug with its hands and feet, and vanished in an instant and a whirl of sand.

      The children marked the spot with a ring of stones.

      "We may as well get along home," said Robert. "I'll say I'm sorry; but anyway if it's no good it's no harm, and we know where the sandy thing is for to-morrow."

      The others were noble. No one reproached Robert at all. Cyril picked up the Lamb, who was now quite himself again, and off they went by the safe cart-road.

      The cart-road from the gravel-pits joins the road almost directly.

      At the gate into the road the party stopped to shift the Lamb from Cyril's back to Robert's. And as they paused a very smart open carriage came in sight, with a coachman and a groom on the box, and inside the carriage a lady—very grand indeed, with a dress all white lace and red ribbons and a parasol all red and white—and a white fluffy dog on her lap with a red ribbon round its neck. She looked at the children, and particularly at the Baby, and she smiled at him. The children were used to this, for the Lamb was, as all the servants said, a "very taking child." So they waved their hands politely to the lady and expected her to drive on. But she did not. Instead she made the coachman stop. And she beckoned to Cyril, and when he went up to the carriage she said—

      "Poof, poof, poofy," he said, and made a grab

      "What a dear darling duck of a baby! Oh, I should so like to adopt it! Do you think its mother would mind?"

      "She'd mind very much indeed," said Anthea shortly.

      "Oh, but I should bring it up in luxury, you know. I am Lady Chittenden. You must have seen my photograph in the illustrated papers. They call me a Beauty, you know, but of course that's all nonsense. Anyway"——

      She opened, the carriage door and jumped out. She had the wonderfullest red high-heeled shoes with silver buckles. "Let me hold him a minute," she said. And she took the Lamb and held him very awkwardly, as if she was not used to babies.

      Then suddenly she jumped into the carriage with the Lamb in her arms and slammed the door, and said, "Drive on!"

      The Lamb roared, the little white dog barked, and the coachman hesitated.

      "Drive on, I tell you!" cried the lady; and the coachman did, for, as he said afterwards, it was as much as his place was worth not to.

      The four children looked at each other, and then with one accord they rushed after the carriage and held on behind. Down the dusty road went the smart carriage, and after it, at double-quick time, ran the twinkling legs of the Lamb's brothers and sisters.

      The Lamb howled louder and louder, but presently his howls changed by slow degrees to hiccupy gurgles, and then all was still, and they knew he had gone to sleep.

      The carriage went on, and the eight feet that twinkled through the dust were growing quite stiff and tired before the carriage stopped at the lodge of a grand park. The children crouched down behind the carriage, and the lady got out. She looked at the Baby as it lay on the carriage seat, and hesitated.

      At double-quick time, ran the twinkling legs of the Lamb's brothers and sisters

      "The darling—I won't disturb it," she said, and went into the lodge to talk to the woman there about a setting of eggs that had not turned out well.

      The coachman and footman sprang from the box and bent over the sleeping Lamb.

      "Fine boy—wish he was mine," said the coachman.

      "He wouldn't favour you much," said the groom sourly; "too 'andsome."

      The coachman pretended not to hear. He said—

      "Wonder at her now—I do really! Hates kids. Got none of her own, and can't abide other folkses'."

      The children, crouched in the white dust under the carriage, exchanged uncomfortable glances.

      "Tell you what," the coachman went on firmly, "blowed if I don't hide the little nipper in the hedge and tell her his brothers took 'im! Then I'll come back for him afterwards."

      "No, you don't," said the footman. "I've took to that kid so as never was. If anyone's to have him, it's me—so there!"

      "Stop your talk!" the coachman rejoined. "You don't want no kids, and, if you did, one kid's the same as another to you. But I'm a married man and a judge of breed. I knows a firstrate yearling when I sees him. I'm a-goin' to 'ave him, an' least said soonest mended."

      "I should 'a' thought," said the footman sneeringly, "you'd a'most enough. Whatwith Alfred, an' Albert, an' Louise, an' Victor Stanley, and Helena Beatrice, and another"—

      The coachman hit the footman in the chin—the footman hit the coachman in the waistcoat—the next minute the two were fighting here and there, in and out, up and down, and all over everywhere, and the little dog jumped on the box of the carriage and began barking like mad.

      The next minute the two were fighting

      Cyril, still crouching in the dust, waddled on bent legs to the side of the carriage farthest from the battlefield. He unfastened the door of the carriage—the two men were far too much occupied with their quarrel to notice anything—took the Lamb in his arms, and, still stooping, carried the sleeping baby a dozen yards along the road to where a stile led into a wood. The others followed, and there among the hazels and young oaks and sweet chestnuts, covered by high strong-scented brake-fern, they all lay hidden till the angry voices of the men were hushed at the angry voice of the red-and-white lady, and, after a long and anxious search, the carriage at last drove away.

      "My only hat!" said Cyril, drawing a deep breath as the sound of wheels at last died away. "Everyone does want him now—and no mistake! That Sammyadd has done us again! Tricky brute! For any sake, let's get the kid safe home."

      So they peeped out, and finding on the right hand only lonely white road, and nothing but lonely white road on the left, they took courage, and the road, Anthea carrying the sleeping Lamb.

      Adventures dogged their footsteps. A boy with a bundle of faggots on his back dropped his bundle by the roadside and asked to СКАЧАТЬ