Читать книгу The Children of Cherry Tree Farm - Enid blyton - Страница 7

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When Penny had been left alone at the farm feeding the three lambs, she had felt very happy. It was the first time she had fed them all by herself and she was pleased.

But when she had finished, and had washed the milk-bottles well, she began to look for the others. Then she was not so pleased.

‘Rory!’ she shouted. ‘Where are you? Sheila! Benjy! Oh, do come and play with me!’

Auntie Bess came out of the farmhouse and called to Penny.

‘They’re gone for a very long walk, darling. It was too far for you to go. I want you to come and help me make some tarts this morning. Would you like that?’

‘No, thank you,’ said Penny, almost in tears. ‘I do think it’s mean of the others to go off without me. My legs are quite as strong as theirs.’

Nothing that her aunt could say would make Penny any happier, so in the end Aunt Bess gave it up. ‘Well, just play round the farmyard and have some fun,’ she said, and went indoors to her baking.

Angry and hurt, Penny wandered round the farmyard for a while. But she didn’t feel like playing with anything. Shadow, the collie, came up and licked her hand but she pushed him away. Snowy, the big white cat, came and rubbed against her legs, but that didn’t please cross little Penny either.

And then she made up her mind to go and find the others! Yes—she would go all by herself and just show them that she could walk as far as they could!

‘I guess I know where they’ve gone!’ said Penny. ‘They’ve gone to find Tammylan, the wild man! They think he lives over in Brock Woods there, away by the hill. That’s where they’ve gone. Well, I’ll go too! I’ll just show them how I can walk.’

The little girl said nothing to her aunt. She slipped away through the gate, out into the lane and ran down it as fast as she could. She began to puff and pant after a while, and she slowed down. She sat for a moment on the stile, then jumped down and began to run again.

‘I hope I don’t meet the wild man,’ she thought to herself. ‘I don’t think I’d like that. Now, is this the path to the woods?’

It was. Penny ran down it, and after a long while she came to the hill which the children had searched for caves some time back. They had had their lunch and had gone to find frog spawn. But Penny knew they had been there.

‘There’s the paper wrapping from their sandwiches!’ said the little girl to herself. ‘Oh dear—it does make me feel hungry to think of sandwiches. I wish I’d got something to eat. I wonder if they’ve got any left.’

Penny didn’t know what to do next. She had no idea where the others had gone. She was hungry and tired—and lost! She didn’t know the path home. She only knew she was very tired and miserable. She wished she hadn’t gone to look for the others now.

‘I know what I’ll do,’ said Penny, trying to be brave. ‘I’ll climb up a tree! Then maybe I shall see where the others are—or perhaps I shall see Cherry-Tree Farm, and then I can make my way home.’

Penny was not used to climbing trees. There were very few to climb in London. But she ran to a tree that looked easy to climb and did her best to get as high as she could.

But Penny did not know the right way to climb trees. She didn’t know how to test each branch before she set her weight on it, to make sure that it would bear her. And suddenly, when she was half-way up the tree, the branch she was standing on broke beneath her!

Penny clutched the branch above her in fright. She was standing on nothing! She screamed long and loudly—and that was the scream that the others heard.

‘Oh help, help!’ wept poor Penny. ‘I shall fall. My arms won’t keep me up any longer!’

“Let yourself fall little girl. I will catch you.”

And then a voice below her spoke clearly. ‘Let yourself fall, little girl. I will catch you. You will be quite safe.’

Penny tried to look down, but she couldn’t. She didn’t dare to let herself fall—but she had to, because her arms gave way, and down she went.

Yes, down she went—but not to fall on the hard ground and perhaps break her leg. No—she fell straight into two strong arms that were ready for her! Somebody caught her, somebody held her, and somebody comforted her.

Penny looked up through her tears. She saw a dark-brown face out of which looked two brown eyes with queer yellow flecks in them. A curly brown and grey beard grew from the chin, and the man’s hair was rather long, and curly too.

‘You’re quite safe!’ said her rescuer. ‘I caught you beautifully, didn’t I! Don’t cry any more.’

‘My arm hurts,’ said Penny, sobbing. She had scraped her arm on a sharp twig as she fell, and it had made a deep cut. Her arm was bleeding under her torn coat.

The man who had caught her set her on the ground and looked at her arm. ‘A nasty cut,’ he said. ‘We’ll soon put that right, though. Come along with me.’

But Penny was so tired and hungry and had had such a shock that her legs wouldn’t walk. So her friend had to carry her in his arms, down the hill through the bracken and heather. Penny sobbed as they went, and felt very sorry for herself indeed.

‘Why did you come out all alone, so far from home?’ asked the man. ‘You shouldn’t do that.’

‘The others went off by themselves to look for Tammylan, the wild man,’ said Penny, rubbing the tears from her cheeks.

‘Why did they want to look for him?’ asked her friend.

‘Oh, they thought it would be fun to see a real wild man,’ said Penny. ‘But I would be afraid if I met him.’

‘No, you wouldn’t,’ said her friend.

‘Yes, I would,’ said Penny. ‘I would run and run and run!’

‘And instead of running and running, do you know what you did? You jumped right into my arms!’ said the man, with a laugh.

Penny looked up at his face in surprise. ‘What do you mean?’ she said. ‘You’re not Tammylan, are you?’

‘Yes, I am,’ said Tammylan. ‘I don’t know why people call me the wild man. All I do is to live by myself in the woods and hills, and learn the ways of my little furred and feathered friends. Well, little girl—are you afraid of the wild man?’

‘No!’ said Penny, beginning to feel really excited. ‘Oh, Tammylan—I’ve found you, and the others haven’t! Aren’t I lucky?’

‘I don’t know about that,’ said Tammylan. ‘Now—can you stand down for a minute. Here we are, at one of my little hidey-holes!’

Penny stood and looked. Tammylan was moving a curtain of bracken away from a hole in the hillside. Behind it a cave showed its dark mouth—a cave with heather dropping down from the top edge, and close-growing plants trimming the sides. It looked exciting.

‘I want to see inside,’ said Penny. ‘And oh, Tammylan, have you got anything I could eat? It does seem such a long time since my breakfast!’

‘I have some soup made from all kinds of queer roots,’ said Tammylan in his clear, low voice. ‘I will make it warm for you.’

Penny bent down and went inside the cave. It opened out widely inside, and the ceiling became high. A rocky ledge ran along one side and on it was a rough bed of dried bracken and heather. On a rocky shelf were a few tin plates and other things.

At first Penny could see nothing inside, but as soon as her eyes grew used to the half-darkness she could see everything clearly. She liked it. It was really exciting. She was in the cave of the wild man!

‘Wouldn’t my brothers and my sister be jealous if they could see me here!’ said Penny. ‘Oh dear—my arm does hurt me, Tammylan!’

‘I’m just getting some water to bathe it with and some of my special ointment to put on the cut,’ said Tammylan from the back of the cave. ‘I believe I saw your brothers and sister this morning.’

‘Oh, I wonder where they are now,’ said Penny. ‘I’d really like them to share this adventure with me, although they did leave me out of their walk!’

Rory, Sheila, and Benjy were not very far away! They had tracked the wild man and Penny almost up to the cave. Now they were whispering together behind a bush to decide how to rescue their little sister.

‘We’ll all make a rush, and we’ll shout and yell like Red Indians!’ said Rory. ‘Then, in the excitement, we’ll grab Penny and run off with her. Now, are you ready?’

‘Yes,’ said Sheila and Benjy. They ran to the mouth of the cave, shouting and yelling, and forced their way inside, looking for Penny.

But it was so dark that at first they could see nothing. They stood there, blinking—and then they heard Penny’s voice.

‘Oh Rory! Oh Sheila—and Benjy! You did make me jump. How did you find me? Oh Rory—what do you think? I’ve found Tammylan, the wild man!’

‘Where is he?’ asked Rory, his eyes getting used to the dark cave. ‘We thought he had caught you, Penny. We heard you scream, and we came to rescue you.’

‘I screamed because I was climbing a tree and the branch broke,’ said Penny. ‘Tammylan held out his arms and I fell into them. Then he carried me here to see to my cut arm. I caught it on a twig.’

The three children began to feel rather silly. A deep voice came from the other end of the cave. ‘Please sit down for a moment. I am glad you wanted to rescue your sister—but she really isn’t in any danger at present!’

The three children sat down on the heather bed. So Penny had found the wild man, and they hadn’t! They were simply longing to ask dozens of questions, but there was something in Tammylan’s voice that stopped them. They suddenly felt that they must be on their best behaviour. It was queer.

So there they all sat, waiting for the wild man they had wanted so much to find.