"Mark Twain. Tom Sawyer Abroad (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

head tilted back and its mouth open, and before I thought I fired, and his
song stopped and he fell straight down from the limb, all limp like a rag,
and I run and picked him up and he was dead, and his body was warm in my
hand, and his head rolled about this way and that, like his neck was
broke, and there was a little white skin over his eyes, and one little
drop of blood on the side of his head; and, laws! I couldn't see nothing
more for the tears; and I hain't never murdered no creature since that
warn't doing me no harm, and I ain't going to.
But I was aggravated about that welkin. I wanted to know. I got the
subject up again, and then Tom explained, the best he could. He said when
a person made a big speech the newspapers said the shouts of the people
made the welkin ring. He said they always said that, but none of them ever
told what it was, so he allowed it just meant outdoors and up high. Well,
that seemed sensible enough, so I was satisfied, and said so. That pleased
Tom and put him in a good humor again, and he says:
"Well, it's all right, then; and we'll let bygones be bygones. I don't
know for certain what a welkin is, but when we land in London we'll make
it ring, anyway, and don't you forget it."
He said an erronort was a person who sailed around in balloons; and
said it was a mighty sight finer to be Tom Sawyer the Erronort than to be
Tom Sawyer the Traveler, and we would be heard of all round the world, if
we pulled through all right, and so he wouldn't give shucks to be a
traveler now.
Toward the middle of the afternoon we got everything ready to land, and
we felt pretty good, too, and proud; and we kept watching with the
glasses, like Columbus discovering America. But we couldn't see nothing
but ocean. The afternoon wasted out and the sun shut down, and still there
warn't no land anywheres. We wondered what was the matter, but reckoned it
would come out all right, so we went on steering east, but went up on a
higher level so we wouldn't hit any steeples or mountains in the dark.
It was my watch till midnight, and then it was Jim's; but Tom stayed
up, because he said ship captains done that when they was making the land,
and didn't stand no regular watch.
Well, when daylight come, Jim give a shout, and we jumped up and looked
over, and there was the land sure enough-land all around, as far as you
could see, and perfectly level and yaller. We didn't know how long we'd
been over it. There warn't no trees, nor hills, nor rocks, nor towns, and
Tom and Jim had took it for the sea. They took it for the sea in a dead
ca'm; but we was so high up, anyway, that if it had been the sea and
rough, it would 'a' looked smooth, all the same, in the night, that way.
We was all in a powerful excitement now, and grabbed the glasses and
hunted everywheres for London, but couldn't find hair nor hide of it, nor
any other settlement-nor any sign of a lake or a river, either. Tom was
clean beat. He said it warn't his notion of England; he thought England
looked like America, and always had that idea. So he said we better have
breakfast, and then drop down and inquire the quickest way to London. We
cut the breakfast pretty short, we was so impatient. As we slanted along
down, the weather began to moderate, and pretty soon we shed our furs. But
it kept ON moderating, and in a precious little while it was 'most too
moderate. We was close down now, and just blistering!