Читать книгу The Doomington Wanderer - Louis Golding - Страница 14

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Two black men lay in the lee of a caravan in a thick Somerset meadow. One was snoring.

“Get up, brother!” cried Bill Richmond, prodding the other with his toe. “They’ll be coming soon! There’s some coming along now!”

Tom Molyneux went on snoring. “Get up, you black lump! I want you to run three times round the meadow. It’s always good to give them something for nothing!”

Tom Molyneux lay prone as a tree-trunk.

“Now, Tom, now!” insisted Bill Richmond seriously. “It’s been easy going lately; you mustn’t judge by that. It’ll be a different proposition to-night. They were telling me at the Anchor that this butcher fellow—I can’t remember his name——”

Tom Molyneux gave a sign of life. He let a noise as unpleasant as it was contemptuous escape his thick lips.

“The Winfold Butcher, they call him!” continued Bill Richmond.

“What?”

Tom raised his trunk from the grass as if something had bit it.

“What name did you say, boss?” asked Tom Molyneux.

“I don’t know his name. The Winfold Butcher, they call him.”

“Did you say Winfold?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Say it again!”

“Are you going crazy? Winfold!”

“Say, Bill Richmond, what state is dis heah?”

“I told you before. You don’t say ‘state,’ you say ‘county.’ ”

“What state is dis heah?”

“Somerset!”

“Somerset, ha? Somerset?”

“Yes, Somerset! What the——”

“Somerset, ha? Winfold, ha?” Tom Molyneux sprang excitedly to his feet. “It is! It is!” he roared.

“Say, Tom! You just sit back on the grass a bit!” Bill Richmond was looking quite anxious. “There’s a drop of rum in the jar——”

“Which way’s dis heah Winfold?”

“Why, across the meadows there, Tom, where the spire shows up above the trees!”

“Ah’m goin’!” cried Tom Molyneux.

“Going where? What’s come over you? Tom! I say, Tom! Come back! Where in hell are you going? Look! There’s a dozen folk coming down the road there! Come back, Tom!”

“Ah’m goin’ to Winfold!” Tom called back over his shoulder. He stopped a moment. “Dere ain’t no help for it! I ain’t champion yet, but I must go and see a party dere, over in Winfold! I shan’t be long, Bill Richmond!”

“But the people—you can’t——”

“Aw, shucks, de people! Dey can wait, cairn’t dey?”