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

"No. Mummy just said you might be coming to stay and Daddy said you
weren't very desirable."

She laughed, rose, and pulled me up after her.

"Spiritually, I hope, rather than physically? No, never mind, child,
we'd better get you home, hadn't we? Come."

But the afternoon was not over yet. We went slowly back through the
meadow, and it seemed natural that we should come across a hedgehog
with her four young ones, rustling busily through the grass, root ling
with long, shining snouts. "Mrs Tiggywinkle," I breathed, and this
time Cousin Geillis laughed, and did not correct me. One of them found
a snail, and ate it with a cheerful crunching. They went close by us,
totally without fear, then moved off. Afterwards, on the way back,
Cousin Geillis picked one flower after another, and told me about them,
so that by the time we reached the vicarage I knew the names and habits
of some twenty plants. And somehow, though I should have been punished
for climbing out of the garden, my mother said nothing, and all was
well.

Cousin Geillis stayed for a few days. Most of them, I believe, she
spent with me. It was halcyon weather, as always in those far-away
summers, and we were out all day. And during our day-long picnic
walks, as I see now^ the foundation of my life was laid. When she
left, the light went out of the fields and woods, but what she had
kindled in me remained.

It was the last of the lovely summers. The following spring my father
was moved by" his bishop to a new parish, a big ugly mining parish,
where the pit-heap and the smoke and the blaze of the coke-ovens and
the noise of
shunting engines filled the days and nights, and we settled into the
cold discomfort of the house among the graveyards.

There were no dragonflies, no wild-flower meadows, and no hedgehogs.

I begged for a pet, an animal of any kind, even a white mouse, but
although, like all vicarages of that date, the place boasted a stable
with stall and loose box and outhouses in plenty, I was allowed
nothing. Occasionally, when the cat caught a bird, or even a mouse, I
tried to nurse the victim back to health, but without success. The cat
herself resisted all overtures, preferring a semi-wild life in the
outhouses. Then one day I was given a rabbit by the curate, who bred
them. It was an unresponsive pet, but I loved it dearly, until within
weeks my mother insisted that it be given back. Next morning, when the
curate called, as he did daily to talk with my father, he brought my
rabbit back, skinned and jointed, 'and ready for the pot.

I ran upstairs and was sick, while my father tried gently to explain to