Читать книгу Sir Isumbras at the Ford - D. K. Broster - Страница 6

Anne-Hilarion was quite aware, in a general way, of his father's occupations. In fact, as he lay now in his bed, looking through the curtains at the wardrobe doors, he was meditating on the important meeting which Papa was having with his friends this very evening in the dining-room. He did not know exactly what they were discussing, but from something which Papa had said in his hearing he believed that there was some question of going over to France—in ships, of course, since there was sea (he did not know how much) between England and that country. And because his mind was full of Sir Patrick Spens and his shipwreck, this undertaking seemed to him terribly dangerous, and he much wished that Papa were not thinking of it.

"To Noroway, to Noroway,

To Noroway o'er the faem,"

the words lilted in his head like the rocking of a boat. They would be going over the foam to that land which he did not remember:

"Half owre, half owre, to Aberdour,

'Tis fifty fathoms deep. . . ."

Anne had no idea what fifty fathoms might mean, but it sounded terrifying. Suppose Papa were to be drowned like that—suppose he too were obliged to stuff 'silken cloth' into the hole of the ship to keep out the water which would not be kept out! . . .

Anne-Hilarion sat up suddenly in bed and threw back the clothes. A very strong impulse, and by no means a righteous, was upon him, but he was ridden by an agonising fear, and there was nothing for it save to go down and ascertain the truth. He slipped out of bed and pattered on to the landing.

The stairs were steep, there was little light upon the road, the balusters looked like rows of brown, square-faced soldiers. Not now, however, was there room for thoughts of Barbe Bleue, that French ogre, who was possibly hanging the last but one of his wives at that moment in the linen-press, nor of the terrible Kelpie of the Flow, which might that evening have left its Scottish loch and be looking in, with its horse face, at the staircase window. No, the chief terror was really Elspeth, who would certainly snatch him swiftly back to bed, not comprehending (nor he either, for that matter) how it was she who had started him on the path of this fear. So he went down as quickly as one foot at a time permitted, knowing that Grandpapa would be safe and busy in his study, and that Baptiste, his father's old body-servant, was, if met, more likely to forward him in his journey than to hinder him. He would, in fact, have been rather glad to encounter that elderly slave of his as he made his solitary way down to the dining-room, past the descending row of antlers and dirks and lairds of Glenauchtie in their wigs and tartan.