"Stewart, Mary - Thorny Hold" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mary Stewart - Thorny Hold)

"Now, hadn't you better warn her?"

Instantly, the need seemed urgent. I sang obediently: j

"Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home, Your house is on fire, your
children all gone, \ All but one, and her name is Jill \ And she's
quite safe on the windowsill."

The ladybird flew. I said, anxiously: "It's only a song, isn't it?"

"Yes. She's a very clever little beetle, and she lives in the meadows,
and gets all her babies out and flying before anyone can burn the
stubble or cut the hay. Do you know who I am, Jilly?"

"You're Mummy's cousin Jilly. She has a photo of you."

"So she has. What were you doing down here?"

I must have looked apprehensive. Quite apart from the forbidden
adventure outside the garden, I was not supposed to waste time
dreaming. But, fixed by Cousin Geillis's straight gaze, I told the
truth.

"Just thinking."

"What about?" Miraculously, she sounded not only unruffled, but
interested.

I looked round me. The illuminated missal of grass and flowers was
dissolving again into a formless, impressionist blur.

"I don't know. Things."

It was the kind of answer that usually brought a sharp rebuke. Cousin
Geillis nodded as if she had just taken in every word of my detailed
explanation.

"Whether there are tadpoles in the pond, for instance?"

"Yes. Oh, yes! Are there?"

"Probably. Why don't we look?"

We looked, and there were. Minnows, too, and a couple of stickle
backs and then Cousin Geillis pointed to where, at the foot of a tall
reed, the surface of the water bulged suddenly, rounded to a bubble,
then broke to let a brown, grub-like creature emerge.

Slowly, laboriously, testing the strange element, the ugly creature