Читать книгу The Children of Cherry Tree Farm - Enid blyton - Страница 6

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The next few days were full of farmyard adventures, and for a time the children forgot about the wild man. Rory was chased by Bellow, the bull, and nearly got into serious trouble. Benjy just pulled him over the fence in time!

Rory had sat on the fence to watch the bull, and somehow he had fallen over. Bellow had seen him and had come rushing up in a trice, making a noise like his name! Rory had scrambled up, and Benjy had helped him over the fence just as the bull tore up to it.

‘That was a near squeak!’ said Rory, pretending that he wasn’t at all frightened. ‘I say, won’t the girls tremble to hear about that!’

They did tremble—but unluckily Penny told Uncle Tim, and Uncle Tim was not at all pleased. He sent for Rory and gave him a good talking-to.

‘Don’t play the fool,’ he said. ‘That sort of thing isn’t funny. I’m in charge of you, and if you go and hurt yourself, I’m to blame. You’re thirteen years old and I thought you could be trusted.’

‘I can, Uncle,’ said Rory, very red. ‘I won’t go near the bull field again.’

Then Penny was chased by a goose and tried to squeeze through some barbed wire. She tore her coat and scratched her arms very badly. She rushed in to Auntie Bess, screaming and crying.

‘Well, I don’t know who is the bigger goose,’ said Auntie Bess, putting some ointment on to the scratches. ‘The goose is a silly goose for chasing a harmless little girl, and you are a silly goose for being frightened and running away. If you had said “BO” to the goose, it would have gone off at once. Surely you are not one of those people who can’t say “bo” to a goose?’

‘I could say “bo”,’ said Penny at once, ‘but I just didn’t think of it. I’ll go right away now and practise saying “bo” to that big grey goose over there.’

All the same, she went to find Rory to take her, and how he laughed to hear Penny saying ‘Bo’ as loudly as she could to a most alarmed goose, clinging on to his hand tightly all the time. The goose waddled away, cackling in fright, and Penny was simply delighted.

Sheila found a hen’s nest out in the hedge, full of brown eggs. She was most surprised, and ran to tell her aunt.

Auntie Bess was pleased. ‘That’s my naughty little hen, Brownie,’ she said. ‘I knew she was laying away, but I didn’t know where. Bring in the eggs for me, Sheila. If Brownie wants to sit she shall, and we will have some more chicks then.’

Benjy didn’t get into any trouble. He was a quiet, dreamy boy, and he followed the farm-men about and watched them, fed the animals and birds, went walking across the farm with his uncle, and wished he was old enough to smoke an old brown pipe. Uncle Tim looked so contented and comfortable as he leaned on a gate, looking at his wide fields, with his pipe in his mouth. Benjy leaned too, and pretended that he was puffing away at a pipe, though his pipe was only a bit of twig.

After the excitement of the first few days had worn off the three older children began to think about Tammylan again.

‘I saw a little spire of blue smoke this evening, away on the hill over there,’ said Rory, waving his hand to the distant woods. ‘I think it must have been Tammylan cooking his supper.’

‘Who’s Tammylan?’ asked Penny at once.

‘A wild man,’ said Sheila.

‘Fibber!’ said Penny.

‘No, really, it’s true, Penny,’ said Benjy, and he told her what Uncle Tim had said about Tammylan. ‘And we are going to find him one day and see what he’s like!’ said Benjy.

‘Oh!’ said Penny, in excitement. ‘Can I come too?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Rory. ‘You see, it might be a long way. And Tammylan might be very wild and frighten you.’

‘I don’t care how far away it is, and I know I wouldn’t be frightened!’ said Penny obstinately. ‘I’m coming. You’re not to leave me out.’

‘Well, we’ll see, Penny,’ said Rory. Penny sulked. She knew what ‘We’ll see,’ meant. It meant ‘You won’t come.’ But she was quite determined to go, and she made up her mind that she would not let the others out of her sight at all. Wherever they went, she would go.

‘I may be only seven, but I’ll just show them I’m not a baby!’ thought Penny fiercely. ‘I’m as strong as Rory, and he’s thirteen. I won’t be left out!’

So for the next day or two the little girl followed the others about everywhere till they got quite tired of her.

‘Can’t you go and find something to do on your own?’ said Sheila at last. ‘You just come tagging after us all the time, and you’ll get so tired.’

But Penny wouldn’t go off on her own. So when the others did decide to go and look for Tammylan they had to talk about it when Penny was in bed.

Sheila went to sit on the boys’ big white bed, whilst Penny was lying asleep in the other room. They talked in whispers.

‘We’ll get Auntie Bess to give us sandwiches to take for our lunch,’ whispered Sheila. ‘We’ll go off for a picnic. We’ll make for Brock Woods. Taffy told me to-day that Tammylan is most often seen there.’

‘Good!’ said Rory, hugging his knees. ‘But what about Penny?’

‘We can’t take her,’ said Benjy. ‘She’s too little. I know, Sheila—you can tell her she may feed all the lambs to-morrow morning by herself. She will be so pleased—and whilst she is doing it we’ll slip off.’

‘Well, I hope she won’t mind too much,’ said Sheila. ‘She does so hate being left out of things because she’s younger—but we can’t make her older, however much we want to!’

Well, the next day Rory begged Auntie Bess to give them a picnic lunch, and she nodded her head at once.

‘It’s a fine sunny March day,’ she said, ‘and if you promise not to sit on the damp grass, I’ll let you have a picnic. But what about Penny?’

‘She’d better stay behind with you, Aunt Bess,’ said Sheila. ‘She really isn’t big enough to walk for miles.’

‘Well, I’ll make it up to her somehow,’ said Auntie Bess. ‘Come for your sandwiches in half an hour and they will be ready.’

So in half an hour the three children went to fetch their picnic lunch. Auntie Bess had put it into two bags. One had the eatables, and the other carried two big bottles of creamy milk.

Penny was feeding the three lambs, happy because she was doing it all by herself. Rory, Sheila, and Benjy slipped off with their lunch and made their way down the sunken lane towards the far-off woods. The March sun shone down and warmed them. The celandines in the lane lifted up their polished faces and smiled. It was a lovely day for an adventure.

‘I wonder if we’ll find Tammylan!’ said Sheila, skipping along. ‘I wonder what he’ll be like. I’d love to see a wild man.’

‘Sheila, if you’re going to skip like that you’d better give me the milk,’ said Benjy. ‘You’ll turn it all into butter before we get to the woods!’

So Benjy carried the milk and Sheila skipped like a month-old lamb, whilst Rory plodded along with a crook-stick that Uncle Tim had given him.

‘It’s fun to be in the country like this!’ said Sheila. ‘Fancy—all we’d see in town now would be a few trees and a bit of grass, unless we went to the parks. And out here we’re going to look for a wild man!’

They came to the end of the lane and climbed over a stile. They went across the field and over another stile. Then the path led into Brock Woods. It was dark under the evergreen trees, but when they came to where oak and hazel grew the woods were lighter.

A farm-boy came along whistling. Rory stopped him. ‘I say!’ said Rory. ‘Do you know where Tammylan lives?’

‘No, I don’t, and I don’t want to, either,’ said the farm-lad. ‘You let him be. He’s wild, he is.’

‘Oh, but do tell us whereabouts he lives,’ begged Benjy. ‘We just want to see him, that’s all.’

‘He’s much more likely to see you than you are to see him,’ said the boy. ‘Well, I don’t rightly know all his hiding-places, but folk do say he has a cave or two in the hill yonder.’

‘Oh, thank you!’ said the children and went on their way through the wood. They came to the steep hill at last, covered with heather, birch trees, gorse, and bracken.

‘Now we must be quiet and look for the caves,’ whispered Rory. ‘Come on!’

The children went in single file round the hill, looking for caves. But to their surprise, no matter how carefully they looked, they could find no cave at all. Not one.

‘Well,’ said Rory, after about half an hour, ‘I don’t believe there’s a cave larger than a rabbit’s burrow anywhere in this hill! That farm-lad was telling stories.’

‘Let’s sit down and have our lunch,’ said Sheila. ‘I’m so hungry I could eat the paper round the sandwiches!’

‘All right,’ said Benjy. ‘You eat that, and we’ll have the sandwiches, Sheila!’

Auntie Bess had made them a lovely picnic lunch. There were ham sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs in their shells, each with a screw of salt beside them, slices of sticky gingerbread, last autumn’s yellow apples, and half a bottle of milk each.

‘I wonder why food tastes so much nicer out of doors than indoors,’ said Rory, munching hard. The children had spread out Rory’s mackintosh and were sitting on it, leaning back against a big old oak tree, with the March sun shining warmly down through the bare branches.

‘What shall we do after our lunch?’ asked Sheila. ‘Shall we look for Tammylan again?’

‘Yes,’ said Benjy. ‘And we’ll pick some primroses and violets for Aunt Bess. And if I can find some frog spawn I’d like to take it home and put it into a jar. I’ve never seen tadpoles turn into frogs.’

‘How are you going to take the frog spawn home?’ asked Rory.

‘In my hands,’ said Benjy.

‘You are silly!’ cried Sheila. ‘It’s like a lump of jelly. You’ll never be able to carry slippery jelly all the way home.’

‘Well, I’ll have a jolly good try,’ said Benjy. ‘Come on, you others. Haven’t you finished yet?’

‘Yes, but I wish I hadn’t,’ said Sheila, with a sigh. ‘That was a gorgeous meal.’

They all got up and brushed the crumbs from themselves. The empty milk-bottles went back into the bag. The paper of the sandwiches and cake blew away through the trees. Not one of the children thought of picking it up and taking it home again, so that the woods might be clean and tidy.

They set off to look for a pond, keeping a sharp look out for the wild man all the time. But they didn’t see a sign of him—though, if they had looked very carefully indeed, they would have seen a pair of sharp brown eyes peering at them every now and again through the bushes.

After a long time they came to a pond. There was a little moor-hen on it, swimming fast, her head bobbing to and fro like clockwork. The children laughed to see her.

‘Any frog spawn here?’ said Benjy. He stooped down to look. He could see the blunt noses of the frogs poking up here and there—and then, in a far corner, he saw a floating mass of jelly—the frog spawn.

Benjy ran round to the other side of the pond. He balanced carefully on an old log and crept out to where he saw the frog spawn. He bent down to pick it up in his hands.

He lifted a big patch of it. It slipped from his hands and went flop into the water! He tried again—but no sooner did he get hold of it than it seemed to wriggle out of his hands like a live thing. Rory and Sheila shouted with laughter at him.

‘Try again, Benjy!’ they laughed. ‘Try again!’

Benjy tried and tried, but it wasn’t a bit of good. At last he grabbed a piece in both hands and held it tightly against his coat to keep it from slipping—and just at that very moment a startling thing happened.

There came a scream, loud and frightened, not very far off—and the scream was Penny’s! All the children knew it at once, and they looked at one another, alarmed and surprised.

Benjy tried to jump back from his log—his foot slipped, and into the pond he went, flat on his face! He floundered there for a moment and then came up, gasping and spluttering. Rory rushed round to help him out.

Rory rushed to help Benjy out of the pond.

‘You idiot, Benjy!’ he said. ‘Just look at your coat! You will get into a row!’

‘Quick! Help me up! Was that Penny we heard?’ gasped Benjy, spitting out bits of frog spawn from his mouth. ‘Don’t bother about me. What’s the matter with Penny?’

All three children rushed in the direction of the scream. And then, far away, they saw somebody carrying Penny, and on the breeze they could hear the sound of crying.

‘It’s Penny all right! She came to look for us, I expect—and oh, do you think Tammylan has got her?’

‘Quick! Quick! We must rescue her!’ shouted Rory. And off they ran at top speed to find poor Penny.