Читать книгу Adventure of the Strange Ruby - Enid blyton - Страница 6

Table of Contents

The children mounted their bicycles and rode off in the direction of the hill. They came to a steep road that led upwards. It was merely a narrow lane and as the hedges had not been clipped for years, hawthorn and other trees almost touched overhead.

Pat jumped off his bicycle and so did Tessa. It was impossible to ride up such a steep lane. It was a very stony road, too, and they didn’t want to get punctures from the flints that lay about.

The lane grew narrower as it went up, and soon became overgrown with weeds and grass.

‘No car could possibly come up here with the lane in this condition, Tessa,’ said Pat. ‘And see here—there’s a bramble right across the road, from one side of the hedge to the other. It really does look as if nobody’s been this way for years. Let’s go back.’

‘All right—go back then,’ said Tessa, beginning to feel hot and cross, but also obstinate. ‘I’m going on by myself. Just like you to give up.’

‘It is not,’ said Pat, pushing on at once. ‘If you’re going on, then so am I. Though goodness knows what for.’

They went on in silence, except for puffs and pants. Little streams of perspiration ran down their faces, and they began to long for another ice-cream and a drink. No, two ice-creams and two drinks! Perhaps even three.

The lane curved suddenly, and then came to a complete stop outside a great wooden gate that was crossed and recrossed with iron bars in a strange pattern. The two children stood in front of it, staring up. The top was set with wicked-looking iron spikes.

‘Gosh—look at that! It might be the gate of some castle,’ said Pat. He went up to it and pushed at it. It did not budge in the least, of course, but stood there, stolid and immovable.

‘Bolted at the back, I suppose,’ said Pat. ‘Look, there’s a piece of ivy that has grown from the wall half across the gate!’

‘Yes—and that definitely proves that no one has opened this gate for ages,’ said Tessa, at once. ‘Or the ivy would have been wrenched off when the gate opened. No one can possibly live here now, that’s certain.’

‘What a frightfully high wall goes all round it,’ said Pat. ‘And set with those awful spikes too. They certainly meant to keep people out. If there were queer goings-on here, as that old woman said, the owners didn’t mean anyone to see them!’

‘Let’s walk round the wall and see how far it goes,’ said Tessa, putting her bicycle against a tree. ‘We’ll go all the way round and back again to this gate. That’s if we can make our way all right!’

‘You do think of mad ideas,’ groaned Pat, but as he couldn’t bear Tessa to do anything without him, he put his bicycle down too, and followed her.

It was certainly very difficult in places to make their way round the wall. Bushes and trees grew right up to it, and the undergrowth was so thick that the two children had almost to force their way through it.

‘I call this a mad idea,’ said Pat again. ‘I vote we go back.’

‘Well, that’s silly—we must be more than half-way round already!’ said Tessa. ‘It will be quicker to get back to the gate if we go on—not if we go back!’

Pat followed Tessa. When they had gone a few more yards she stopped with a sudden exclamation. They had come out on to a clear piece of hillside. They looked down, not on Brinkin village, which was now on the other side of the hill, of course, but on a curious little lake, set thickly round with trees. The water shone blue as the sky. Not far from the shores of the secret lake was a small island full of trees. In the midst of the trees was a little building with queer pointed towers.

‘Look at that!’ said Tessa, suddenly speaking in a whisper, though she couldn’t think why. ‘A lake! It wasn’t marked on the map, was it?’

‘Too small, perhaps,’ said Pat. ‘And too secret! Why, nobody except the people who lived here would be able to see that lake, I should think. I wonder what that funny little building is on the island—it looks very odd, somehow.’

‘I expect it’s a summer-house or boat-house or something,’ said Tessa. ‘What a wonderful view! I wonder how the people got down to the lake from Brinkin Towers, Pat. The lake must have belonged to the house—how did they reach it?’

‘There must be a way down,’ said Pat. Then he looked at Tessa, suddenly struck by a bright idea. ‘And what’s more there must be a door set in this side of the wall, so that the people who lived here could walk down from the grounds to the lake. They wouldn’t go out of that big front gate and walk all the way round the walls, as we have.’

‘Let’s look for a door in the wall then, shall we?’ said Tessa, excited.

They walked on round the thick, high wall for some way—and then Tessa gave a sudden exclamation.

‘Pat! Here it is—a little door set deep in the wall. Look!’

Sure enough there was a door—and leading up to it was a path. The children stared at it in silence. Then Pat spoke.

‘Someone’s used this path lately. It’s all trampled, look. Someone’s been in through this door—and nobody knows about them. Who are they, Tessa? That’s what I’d like to know!’