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

‘Don’t tell us about that,’ said Dick, feeling sick. ‘Where did they flash the false light from? From these hills, or from the cliff somewhere?’
‘I’ll show you where my Dad flashed it from,’ said Grandad, and he got up slowly. ‘There’s only one place on these hills where you could see the light a-flashing. The wreckers had to find somewhere well hidden, so that their wicked light couldn’t be seen from inland, or the police would stop it, but it could be seen plainly by any ship on the sea near this coast!’
He took them round his hill, and then pointed towards the coast. Set between two hills there the roof of a house could just be seen, and from it rose a tower. It could only be seen from that one spot! Dick took a few steps to each side of it, and at once the house disappeared behind one or other of the hills on each side of it.
‘I were the only one that ever knew the false light could be seen from inland,’ said Grandad, pointing with his pipe-stem towards the far-off square tower. ‘I were watching lambs one night up here, and I saw the light a-flashing. And I heard there was a ship wrecked down in Tremannon cove that night so I reckoned it were the wreckers at work.’
‘Did you often see the light flashing over there, when you watched the sheep ?’ asked George.
‘Oh ay, many a time,’ said the shepherd. ‘And always on wild, stormy nights, when ships were labouring along, and in trouble, looking for some light to guide them into shore. Then a light would flare out over there, and I’d say to meself “Now may the Good God help those sailors tonight, for it’s sure that nobody else will!” ’
‘How horrible!’ said George, quite appalled at such wickedness. ‘You must be glad that you never see that false light shining there on stormy nights now!’
Grandad looked at George, and his eyes were scared and strange. He lowered his voice and spoke to George as if she were a boy.
‘Little master,’ he said, ‘that light still flares on dark and stormy nights. The place is a ruin, and jackdaws build in the tower. But three times this year I’ve seen that light again! Come a stormy night it’ll flare again! I know it in my bones, little master, I know it in my bones!’


Chapter Six

A QUEER TALE

The four children shivered suddenly in the hot sun, as they listened to the shepherd’s strange words. Were they true? Did the wreckers’ light still flash in the old tower on wild and stormy nights? But why should it? Surely no wreckers any longer did their dreadful work on this lonely rocky coast?
Dick voiced the thoughts of the others. ‘But surely there are no wrecks on this coast now? Isn’t there a good lighthouse farther up, to warn ships to keep right out to sea?’
Grandad nodded his grey head. ‘Yes. There’s a lighthouse, and there’s not been a wreck along this coast for more years than I can remember. But I tell you that light flares up just as it used to do. I seen it with my own eyes, and there’s nought wrong with them yet!’
‘I seen it too,’ put in Yan, suddenly.
Grandad looked at Yan, annoyed. ‘You hold your noise, you,’ he commanded. ‘You’ve never seen no light. You sleeps like a babe at nights.’
‘I seen it,’ said Yan, obstinately, and moved out of Grandad’s way quickly as the old man raised his hand to cuff the small boy.
Dick changed the subject. ‘Grandad, do you know anything about the Wreckers’ Way?’ he asked. ‘Is it a secret way to get down to the coves from inland? Was it used by the wreckers?’
Grandad frowned. ‘That be a secret,’ he said, shortly. ‘My Dad, he showed it to me, and I swore as I never would tell. Us all had to swear and promise that.’
‘But Yan here said that you taught the way to him,’ said Dick, puzzled.
Yan promptly removed himself from the company and disappeared round a clump of bushes. His old Great-Grandad glared round at the disappearing boy.
‘Yan! That boy! He doesn’t know anything about the Wreckers’ Way. It’s lost and forgotten by every man living. I’m the last one left as knows of it. Yan! He’s dreaming! Maybe he’s heard tell of an old Wreckers’ Way, but that’s all.’
‘Oh!’ said Dick, disappointed. He had hoped that Grandad would tell them the old way, and then they could go and explore it. Perhaps they could go and search for it, anyhow! It would be fun to do that.
Julian came back to the question of the light flashing from the old tower by the coast. He was puzzled. ‘Who could possibly flash that light?’ he said to Gran-dad. ‘You say the place is a ruin. Are you sure it wasn’t lightning you saw? You said it came on a wild and stormy night.’
‘It weren’t lightning,’ said the old man shortly. ‘I first saw that light near ninety years ago, and I tell you I saw it again three times this year, same place, same light, same weather! And if you telled me it weren’t flashed by mortal hands, I’d believe you.’
There was a silence after this extraordinary statement. Anne looked over towards the far-off tower that showed just between the two distant hills. How queer that this spot where they were standing was the only place from which the tower could be seen from inland. The wreckers had been clever to choose a spot like that to flash a light from. No one but old Grandad up on the hills could possibly have seen the light and guessed what was going on, no one but the callous wreckers themselves.
Grandad delved deep into more memories stored in his mind. He poured them out, tales of the old days, queer, unbelievable stories. One was about an old woman who was said to be a witch. The things she did!
The four stared at the old shepherd, marvelling to think they were, in a way, linked with the witches and brownies, the wreckers and the killers of long-ago days, through this old, old man.
Yan appeared again as soon as Julian opened the tea-basket. They had now gone back to the hut, and sat outside in the sunshine, surrounded by nibbling sheep. One or two of the half-grown lambs came up, looking hot in their unshorn woolly coats. They nosed round the old shepherd, and he rubbed their woolly noses.
‘These be lambs I fed from a bottle,’ he explained. ‘They always remember. Go away now, Woolly. Cake’s wasted on you.’
Yan wolfed quite half the tea. He gave Anne a quick grin of pure pleasure, showing both his dimples at once. She smiled back. She liked this funny little boy now, and felt sorry for him. She was sure that his old Grandad didn’t give him enough to eat!
The church bells began to ring, and the sun was now sliding down the sky. ‘We must go,’ said Julian, reluctantly. ‘It’s quite a long walk back. Thanks for a most interesting afternoon, Grandad. I expect you’ll be glad to be rid of us now, and smoke your pipe in peace with your sheep around you.’
‘Ay, I will,’ said Grandad, truthfully. ‘I do be one for my own company, and I likes to think my own thoughts. Long thoughts they be, too, going back nigh on a hundred years. If I wants to talk, I talks to my sheep. It’s rare and wunnerful how they listen.’
The children laughed, but Grandad was quite solemn, and meant every word he said. They packed up the basket, and said good-bye to the old man.
‘Well, what do you think he meant when he talked about the light still flashing in the old tower?’ said Dick, as they went over the hills back to the farm. ‘What an extraordinary thing to say. Was it true, do you suppose?’
‘There’s only one way to find out!’ said George, her eyes dancing. ‘Wait for a wild and stormy night and go and see!’
‘But what about our agreement?’ said Julian, solemnly. ‘If anything exciting seems about to happen we turn our backs on it. That’s what we decided. Don’t you remember?’
‘Pooh!’ said George.
‘We ought to keep the agreement,’ said Anne, doubtfully. She knew quite well that the others didn’t think so!
‘Look! Who are all these people?’ said Dick, suddenly. They were just climbing over a stile to cross a lane to another field.
They sat on the stile and stared. Some carts were going by, open wagons, their canvas tops folded down. They were the most old-fashioned carts the children had ever seen, not in the least like gipsy caravans.
Ten or eleven people were with the wagons, dressed in the clothes of other days! Some rode in the wagons and some walked. Some were middle-aged, some were young, but they all looked cheerful and gay.
The children stared. After Grandad’s tales of long ago these old-time folk seemed just right! For a few moments Anne felt herself back in Grandad’s time, when he was a boy. He must have seen people dressed like these!
‘Who are they?’ she said, wonderingly. And then the children saw red lettering painted on the biggest cart:

THE BARNIES