"Blyton, Enid - Famous Five 12 - Five Go Down to The Sea" - читать интересную книгу автора (Blyton Enid)

‘Timmy! He says “Will you come and play?” ’ said George. ‘Aren’t you going? You aren’t the least help with shelling peas, and you keep breathing down my neck.’
Timmy gave George a flying lick and leapt off the step joyfully. He pounced on the Scottie, rolled him over, and then took on all three collies at once. They were big, strong dogs, but no match for Timmy!
‘Look at him,’ said George, proudly. ‘He can manage the whole lot single-handed.’
‘Single-footed!’ said Dick. ‘He’s faster than even that biggest collie and stronger than the whole lot. Good old Tim. He’s come in jolly useful in some of our adventures!’
‘I’ve no doubt he will again,’ said Julian. ‘I’d rather have one Timmy than two police-dogs.’
‘I should think his ears are burning, the way we’re talking about him!’ said Anne. ‘Oh, sorry, Dick, that pod popped unexpectedly!’
‘That’s the second lot of peas you’ve shot all over me,’ said Dick, scrabbling inside his shirt. ‘I must just find one that went down my neck, or I shall be fidgeting all through church.’
‘You always do,’ said Anne. ‘Look - isn’t that Yan?’
It was! He came sidling up, looking as dirty as ever, and gave them a quick smile that once more entirely changed his sullen little face. He held out his hand, palm upwards, and said something.
‘What’s he saying?’ said Dick. ‘Oh, he’s asking for a sweet.’
‘Don’t give him one,’ said Julian, quickly. ‘Don’t turn him into a little beggar. Make him work for a sweet this time. Yan, if you want a sweet, you can help pod these peas.’
Mrs Penruthlan appeared at once. ‘But see he washes those filthy hands first,’ she commanded, and disappeared again. Yan looked at his hands, then put them under his arm-pits.
‘Go and wash them,’ said Julian. But Yan shook his head, and sat down a little way away from them.
‘All right. Don’t wash your hands. Don’t shell the peas. Don’t have a sweet,’ said George.
Yan scowled at George. He didn’t seem to like her any more than she liked him. He waited till someone split a pod, and a few peas shot out on to the ground instead of into the dish. Then he darted at them, picked them up and ate them. He was as quick as a cat.
‘My Grandad says come see him,’ announced Yan. ‘I take you.’
‘Right,’ said Julian. ‘We’ll come this afternoon. We’ll get Mrs Penruthlan to pack us up a basket, and we’ll have tea in the hills. You can share it if you wash your hands and face.’
‘I shouldn’t think he’s ever washed himself in his life,’ said George. ‘Oh, here’s Timmy come back. I will not have him fawn round that dirty little boy. Here, Timmy!’
But Timmy darted to Yan with the greatest delight and pawed at him to come and have a game. They began to roll over and over like two puppies.
‘If you’re going to church, you’d better get ready,’ said Mrs Penruthlan, appearing again, this time with arms floured up to the elbow. ‘My, what a lot of peas you’ve done for me!’
‘I wish I had time to do the red currants,’ said Anne. ‘We’ve practically finished the peas, anyway, Mrs Penruthlan. We’ve done thousands, I should think!’
‘Ah, Mr Penruthlan is real fond of peas,’ said the farmer’s wife. ‘He can eat a whole tureen at one sitting.’
She disappeared again. The children went to get ready for church, and then off they went. It certainly was a lovely walk over the fields, with honeysuckle trailing everywhere!
The church was small and old and lovely. Yan went with them, trailing behind, right to the church door. When he saw George tying Timmy up to a railing, he sat down beside him and looked pleased. George didn’t look pleased, however. Now Timmy and Yan would play about together all the time she was in church! How annoying!
The church was cool and dark, except for three lovely stained-glass windows through which the sun poured, its brilliance dimmed by the colours of the glass. ‘Parson’ was as nice as Mrs Penruthlan had said, a simple, friendly person whose words were listened to by everyone, from an old, old woman bent almost double in a corner to a solemn-eyed five year old clutching her mother’s hand.
It was dazzling to come out into the sun again from the cool dimness of the church. Timmy barked a welcome. Yan was still there, sitting with his arm round Timmy’s neck. He gave them his sudden smile, and untied Timmy, who promptly went mad and tore out of the churchyard at sixty miles an hour. He always did that when he had been tied up.
‘You come see Grandad,’ said Yan to Dick, and pulled at his arm.
‘This afternoon,’ said Dick. ‘You can show us the way. Come after dinner.’
So, after the children had had a dinner of cold boiled beef and carrots, with a dumpling each, and ‘lashings’ of peas and new potatoes, followed by a truly magnificent fruit salad and cream, Yan appeared at the door to take them to his Grandad.
‘Did you see the amount of peas that Mr Penruthlan got through?’ said Anne, in awe. ‘I should think he really did manage a tureen all to himself. I wish he’d say something beside “Ah” and “Ock” and the other peculiar sounds he makes. Conversation is awfully difficult with him.’
‘Is Yan taking you up to Grandad?’ called Mrs Penruthlan. ‘I’ll put a few cakes in the basket for him, too, then, and for Grandad.’
‘Don’t put us up a big tea,’ begged Dick. ‘We only want a snack, just to keep us going till high-tea.’
But all the same the basket was quite heavy when Mrs Penruthlan had finished packing it!
It was a long walk over the fields to the shepherd’s hut. Yan led the way proudly. They crossed the fields, and climbed stiles, walked up narrow cart-paths, and at last came to a cone-shaped hill on which sheep grazed peacefully. Half-grown lambs, wearing their woolly coats, unlike the shorn sheep, gambolled here and there - then remembered that they were nearly grown up, and walked sedately.
The old shepherd was sitting outside his hut, smoking a clay pipe. He wasn’t very big, and he seemed shrivelled up, like an apple stored too long. But there was still sweetness in him, and the children liked him at once. He had Yan’s sudden smile, that lighted up eyes that were still as blue as the summer sky above them.
His face had a thousand wrinkles that creased and ran into one another when he smiled. His shaggy eye-brows, curly beard and hair were all grey, as grey as the woolly coats of the sheep he had lived with all his life.
‘You be welcome,’ he said, in his slow Cornish voice. ‘Yan here have told me about you.’
‘We’ve brought our tea to share with you,’ said Dick. ‘We’ll have it later on. Is it true that your father was one of the Wreckers in the old days?’
The old fellow nodded his head. Julian got out a bag of boiled sweets, and offered them to the old man. He took one eagerly. Yan edged up at once and was given one too.
Judging by the crunching that went on old Gran-dad still had plenty of teeth! When the sweet had gone, he began to talk. He talked slowly and simply, almost as Yan might have done, and sometimes paused to find a word he wanted.
Living with sheep all his life doesn’t make for easy talking, thought Julian, interested in this old man with the wise, keen eyes. He must be much more at home with sheep than with human beings.
Grandad certainly had some interesting things to tell them, dreadful things, Anne thought.
‘You’ve seen them rocks down on Tremannon coast,’ began Grandad. ‘Wicked rocks they be, hungry for ships and men. There’s many a ship been wrecked on purpose! Ay, you can look disbelieving-like, but it’s true.’
‘How did they get wrecked on purpose?’ asked Dick. ‘Were they lured here by a false light, or something?’
The old man lowered his voice as if he was afraid of being overheard.
‘Way back up the coast, more than a hundred years ago, there was a light set to guide the ships that sail round here,’ said Grandad. ‘They were to sail towards that light, and then hug the coast and avoid the rocks that stood out to sea. They were safe then. But, on wild nights, a light was set two miles farther down the coast, to bemuse lost ships, and drag them to the rocks round Tremannon coves.’
‘How wicked!’ said Anne and George together. ‘How could men do that?’
‘It’s fair amazing what men will do,’ said Grandad, nodding his head. ‘Take my old Dad now - a kind man he was and went to church, so he did, and took me with him. But he was the one that set the false light burning every time, and sent men to watch the ship coming in on the rocks - crashing over them to break into pieces.’
‘Did you - did you ever see a ship crashing to its death?’ asked Dick, imagining the groaning of the sailing ships, and the groaning of the men flung into the raging sea.
‘Ay. I did so,’ said Grandad, his eyes taking on a very far-away look. ‘I were sent to the cove with the men, and had to hold a lantern to bemuse the ship again when she came to the rocks. Poor thing, she groaned like a live thing, she did, when she ran into them wicked rocks, and split into pieces. And next day I went to the cove to help get the goods that were scattered all around the cove. There were lots drownded that night, and...’