"Aldiss, Brian - Saliva Tree, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Aldiss Brian W)

house forming something of a little island amid marshy ground
and irregular stretches of water that gave back to the sky its
own dun tone. The gate over the little bridge was, as always,
open wide; Daisy picked her way through the mud to the
stables, where Gregory left her to champ oats contentedly. Cuff
and her pup, Lardie, barked loudly about Gregory's heels as
usual, and he patted their heads on his way over to the house.
Nancy came hurrying out to meet him before he got to the
front door.
"We had some excitement last night, Gregory," she said. He
noted with pleasure she had at last brought herself to use .his
first name.
"Something bright and glaring!" she said. "I was retiring,
when this noise come and then this light, and I rush to look out
through the curtains, and there's this here great thing like an
egg sinking into our pond." In her speech, and particularly
when she was excited, she carried the lilting accent of Norfolk.
"The meteor!" Gregory exclaimed. "Bruce Fox and I were
out last night, as we were the night before, watching for the
lovely Aurigids that arrive every February, when we saw an
extra big one. I said then it was coming over very near here."
"Why, it almost landed on our house," Nancy said. She
looked very pleasing this morning, with her lips red, her cheeks
shining, and her chestnut curls all astray. As she spoke, her
mother appeared in apron and cap, with a wrap hurriedly
thrown over her shoulders.
"Nancy, you come in, standing freezing like that! You ent
daft, girl are you? Hello, Gregory, how be going on? I didn't
reckon as we'd see you today. Come in and warm yourself."
"Good-day to you, Mrs. Grendon. I'm hearing about your
wonderful meteor of last night."
"It was a falling star, according to Bert Neckland. I ent sure
what it was, but it certainly stirred up the animals, that I do
know."
"Can you see anything of it in the pond?" Gregory asked.
"Let me show you," Nancy said.
Mrs. Grendon returned indoors. She went slowly and
grandly, her back straight and an unaccustomed load before
her. Nancy was her only daughter; there was a younger son,
Archie, a stubborn lad who had fallen at odds .with his father
and now was apprenticed to a blacksmith in Norwich; and no
other children living. Three infants had not survived the
mixture of fogs alternating with bitter east winds that
comprised the typical Cottersall winter. But now the farmer's
wife was unexpectedly gravid again, and would bear her
husband another baby when the spring came in.
As Nancy led Gregory over to the pond, he saw Grendon
with his two laborers working in the West Field, but they did
not wave.
"Was your father not excited by the arrival last night?"