Читать книгу Pat of Silver Bush - L. M. Montgomery - Страница 22
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The wedding day came at last. Pat had been counting dismally towards it for a week. Only four more days to have Aunt Hazel at Silver Bush ... only three ... only two—only one. Pat had the good fortune to sleep with Judy the night before, because her bedroom was needed for the guests who came from afar. So she wakened with Judy before sunrise and slipped down anxiously to see what kind of a day it was going to be.
“Quane’s weather!” said Judy in a tone of satisfaction. “I was a bit afraid last night we’d have rain, bekase there was a ring around the moon and it’s ill-luck for the bride the rain falls on, niver to mintion all the mud and dirt tracked in. Now I’ll just slip out and tell the sun to come up and thin I’ll polish off the heft av the milking afore yer dad gets down. The poor man’s worn to the bone wid all the ruckus.”
“Wouldn’t the sun come up if you didn’t tell it, Judy?”
“I’m taking no chances on a widding day, me jewel.”
While Judy was out milking Pat prowled about Silver Bush. How queer a house was in the early morning before people were up! Just as if it were watching for something. Of course all the rooms had an unfamiliar look on account of the wedding. The Big Parlour had been filled with a flame of autumn leaves and chrysanthemums. The new curtains were so lovely that Pat felt a fierce regret the Binnies were not to be among the guests at the house. Just fancy May’s face if she saw them! The Little Parlour was half full of wedding presents. The table had been laid in the dining-room the night before. How pretty it looked, with its sparkling glass and its silver candlesticks and tall slender candles like moonbeams and the beautiful colours of the jellies.
Pat ran outside. The sun, obedient to Judy’s mandate, was just coming up. The air was the amber honey of autumn. Every birch and poplar in the silver bush had become a golden maiden. The garden was tired of growing and had sat down to rest but the gorgeous hollyhocks were flaunting over the old stone dyke. A faint, lovely morning haze hung over the Hill of the Mist and trembled away before the sun. What a lovely world to be alive in!
Then Pat turned and saw a lank, marauding, half-eared cat ... an alien to Silver Bush ... lapping up the milk in the saucer that had been left for the fairies. So that was how it went! She had always suspected it but to know it was bitter. Was there no real magic left in the world?
“Judy,” ... Pat was almost tearful when Judy came to the well with her pails of milk ... “the fairies don’t drink the milk. It’s a cat ... just as Sidney always said.”
“Oh, oh, and if the fairies didn’t nade it last night why shudn’t a poor cat have it, I’m asking. Hasn’t he got to live? I niver said they come ivery night. They’ve other pickings no doubt.”
“Judy, did you ever really see a fairy drinking the milk? Cross your heart?”
“Oh, oh, what if I didn’t? Sure the grandmother of me did. Minny’s the time I’ve heard her tell it. A leprachaun wid the liddle ears av him wriggling as he lapped it up. And she had her leg bruk nixt day, that she had. Ye may be thankful if ye niver see any av the Grane Folk. They don’t be liking it and that I’m tellin ye.”
