Читать книгу The Magic Walking-Stick - John Buchan - Страница 4

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BILL came back to his wet stand grievously disappointed. He did not dare to leave it in case a flight did appear, but he had lost all hope. Gone now was the expectation of flourishing triumphantly a mallard, or a brace of mallard, before the sceptical eyes of his father and the admiring face of Peter. He tried to warm his feet by moving them up and down on the squelching turf, but his toes were icy and his boots were leaden. His gun was now under his arm, and he was fiddling idly with the handle of the stick, the point of which was embedded in the soil.

He made it revolve, and as it turned he said aloud—Bill had a trick of talking to himself—"I wish I was in the middle of the big flood."

Then a wonderful thing happened. Bill was not conscious of any movement, but suddenly his surroundings were completely changed. He had still his gun under his left arm and the stick in his right hand, but instead of standing on wet turf he was up to the waist in water.... And all around him were duck—shoveller, pintail, mallard, teal, widgeon, pochard, tufted—and bigger things that might be geese—swimming or diving or just alighting from the air.

Bill in his confusion understood one thing only, that his wish had been granted. He was in the very middle of the flood-water, and his one thought was how to take advantage of it.

He fired right and left at mallard, missing with his first barrel. Then the birds rose in alarm and he shoved in fresh cartridges and blazed wildly into the brown. His next two shots were at longer range, but he was certain that he had hit something. And then the duck vanished in the gloom, and he was left alone with the grey waters running out to the shadows.

He lifted up his voice and shouted wildly for Thomas and the dogs. He had got two anyhow—a mallard drake and a young teal, and he collected them. Then he saw something black about six yards off, and wading towards it he picked up a second mallard.

He stopped to listen, but the world had suddenly gone deathly quiet. Not a sound could be heard of Thomas whistling or the splashing of Gyp, the spaniel. He shouted again and again, but no answer came. The night seemed to make a thick curtain which blanketed his voice. Bill's moment of triumph began to change into acute fear.

Presently he discovered something which scared him worse. The flood waters were rising. The sluggish river Ale, which fed the mere, would be bringing down the rains from the hills. Bill knew what Alemoor could be when the floods were really out—a lake a mile or two in circumference, with twenty feet of water on what in summer were dry pastures. He realised very plainly that, unless he could get out before the floods deepened, he stood a very good chance of being drowned.

He had often been frightened in his life before, but he had never felt such panic as this. The trouble was that he did not know where the deeper mere lay—he had not a notion which was the quickest road to the dry land. But even in his fright he remembered his trophies. He had some string in his pocket, and he tied the three duck together so that he could hang them round his neck. Then he started plunging wildly in the direction from which he thought he had come.

The water was up to his armpits, and the draggled duck nearly choked him. Every now and then he would sink to his chin. Then suddenly he found himself soused over the head, and all but the last foot of his gun-barrel under water.

Bill, being a wet-bob at school, could swim, but swimming was impossible unless he dropped stick and gun, and even in his panic he would not relinquish his possessions. He trod water, and managed to struggle a yard or two till he found footing again and could get his breath. He was on some kind of mound or tussock of grass, and very warily he tried to feel his way forward. The ground rose beneath him and he found himself clear above the waist.

He halted for a moment to take a grip upon his fluttering nerves. In front of him lay floods, the colour of lead in the near distance and of ink beyond. The night had fallen and it would soon be black darkness.

Worse, the waters were still rising. Where he stood he felt them sucking every second a little higher up on his shivering body.... He lost hope and cried in a wild panic for Thomas. Then the tears came, unwilling tears, for Bill was not given to weeping. He felt horribly feeble, and would have fallen had he not leant on the stick, which was now deep beneath him in the quaking mire.

The stick! The stick had brought him there—could not the stick take him back? What had he done with it before? ... He had twirled it and wished. He could not think clearly, but surely that was what had happened.... Bill's numb fingers with difficulty made the point turn in the mud. "Oh, I wish I were with Thomas," he sobbed....

He was with Thomas. He found himself sitting in about a foot of water, with Shawn, the Irish setter, licking his face. Thomas himself was as shapeless as a bush in the darkness, but he had taken hold of Bill's arm and was helping him to rise.

"Where in goodness ha' ye been, Maaster Bill?" the astounded keeper ejaculated. "Them ducks was tigglin' out to the deep water, and I was feared ye wouldn't get a shot. Three on 'em, no less! My word, ye 'ave poonished 'em."

"I was in the deep water," said Bill, but he could say no more, for all strength seemed suddenly to go from him. He felt himself being lifted in Thomas's arms and carried up the bank. After that he was not very clear what happened. Thomas had taken his gun from him and relieved him of the ducks, but nothing would relax his clutch on the stick.

The evening's plan of entertainment was not carried out. There were no Hallowe'en festivities in the nursery, and Bill did not sit up for dinner. How he got home he never knew, but Thomas must have carried or dragged him up to the nearest farm, for he had a dim sense of being driven in a farmer's gig. He had no chance of exhibiting his bag to the family, even if he had had the strength, for he was promptly seized by an agitated mother and plunged into a hot bath with mustard in it. Then he was given something hot to drink. After that he knew nothing till he awoke late next morning, perfectly well, very hungry, but in every limb stiff as a poker.

He was not allowed to get up until just before luncheon, and, since Peter had been haled to church, he was left to his own thoughts. He was glad of that, for he wanted to be alone to think things out.

It was plain that a miracle had happened, a miracle connected with the stick. He had wished himself in the middle of the floodwater—he remembered that clearly—and at the time he had been doing something to the stick. What was it? It had been stuck in the ground and he had been playing with the handle. Yes, he had it! He had been turning it round when he uttered the wish.

Then the awful moments in the middle of the flood came back to him, but now he regarded them without horror. He had done the same thing there. He had turned the stick round and spoken his wish, and in a second had found himself with Thomas.... There was no doubt about it. Here was magic, and he was its master. Bill's mind was better stored with fairy-tales than with Latin and Greek, and he remembered many precedents.

He had a spasm of anxiety about the stick. The family were still at church, and he must make sure that it was safe, so he slipped on his dressing-gown and tiptoed downstairs to the hall, where he found it in the rack. He carried it up with him and hid it in the bottom of his playbox; so precious a thing could not be left to the dangerous inquisition of Peter.

He was very quiet at luncheon, but he ate so heartily and looked so well that his mother's fears were dissipated. He was very quiet, too, at tea, and to his family's astonishment he volunteered to go to evening church, which would give him a chance for reflection. His conduct there was exemplary, for while Peter at his side had his usual Sunday attack of St. Vitus's dance, Bill sat motionless as a mummy. On the way home his mother commented on it, and observed that Lower Chapel seemed to have taught him how to behave. But his thoughts during the service had not been devotional.

The stick lay beside him on the floor, and for a moment he had had a wild notion of twisting it during the Litany and disappearing for a few minutes to Kamschatka. Then prudence supervened. He must go very cautiously in this business, and court no questions. He would take the stick back to school and hide it in his room. He had a qualm when he thought what a "floater" it would be if a lower boy appeared with it in public. For him no more hours of boredom. School would no longer be a place of exile, but a rapturous holiday. He might slip home now and then and see what was happening—he would go often to Glenmore—he would visit any spot on the globe which took his fancy. His imagination reeled at the prospect, and he cloaked his chortles of delight in a fervent Amen.