"Louis L'amour - sackett02 - To The Far Blue Mountains" - читать интересную книгу автора (L'Amour Louis)

fenland, I had no desire to remain there, nor had he wished me to. He had
trained me well in the use of arms, of which he was a master, and taught me
better than he knew of reading and writing.
"Lad," he would say to me, "I know a weaver who became a great merchant, and the
men who rode with William the Norman had only their strong arms and their
swords, but with them they became the great men of the kingdom. For some men an
acre and a cottage are enough, but not for you, Barnabas. I have tried to fit
you for a new life in the new world that's coming, where a man can be what he's
of a mind to be."
This cottage and the land in the fens was what my father had done. Now was the
time for me. Deep as was my affection for the cottage and the fens, I knew there
was a broader, wilder world. I had my father's contempt for the courtier who
suspends his life from the fingertips of those in power, looking for morsels. I
would be beholden to no man.
The rider I followed was slowing down now as he drew nearer the cottage.
He drew up suddenly, listening, but sensing he was about to halt I had myself
pulled up close under a tall hedge, and he could not see me.
He stared down the road behind him for a long time, then he started on, but I
held my horse for I had a feeling he would stop again. And he did so, turning in
the saddle to look back. After a moment he started again, seemingly reassured.
When he was near the lane that turned down the slope to my cottage, he drew up
and dismounted. Purposely, I let my horse take two steps that he could hear.
Instantly, he froze in position, staring toward me. But I sat silent, knowing he
was worried—frightened a little, or at least uneasy—and this was what I wanted.
He led his horse into the opening of the lane leading to my cottage, and what he
saw or failed to see satisfied him, for he mounted again. But he rode on to
where he could look toward the water side of my cottage, and then it was that I
started to hum a tune and walked my horse toward him. He was around a turn of
the lane but he heard me, as I knew he would, and as I turned the corner I saw
him, halberd in hand.
"Ho, there!" I said, not too loud. "Is this the way to Boston?"
"Ahead there, and you'll see the marker." He leaned toward me, peering. "You
came up the track?"
"Aye, and a start it gave me, too! Something was there ... I know not what. I
spoke to it, but had no answer, and came on quickly enough. Damn it, man, if
that be your way, be careful. I liked not the smell of it."
"Smell?"
"Aye, a fetid smell ... as of something dead. I saw no shape or shadow, but ...
have you ever smelled a wolf?"
"A wolf?" His voice rose a little. "There are no wolves in England!"
"Aye ... so they say. Not wolves as such, I suppose, but I have smelled wolves
... not your ordinary wolves, you understand, but huge, slinking creatures with
ugly fangs. Bloody fangs! And they smelled like that back there. Have you heard
of werewolves, perhaps? I sometimes think—"
"Werewolves? That's just talk ... campfire talk, or talk by peasants. There are
no wolves in England, and I—"
"Well, I've had a smell of them. That was in Tartary where I went for Henry the
Seventh—"
"Henry the Seventh!" His voice was shrill. "Why, that's impossible! It has been
almost a hundred years since—"