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

a couple of years older than Gregory, a stocky young man with
a spotty complexion and a snub nose that gave him at once an
air of comedy and menace. "Is that so, Master Gregory? Well,
you looks pretty funky standing there now."
"I am scared. I don't mind admitting it. But only because we
have something here a lot nastier than any specter."
Neckland came a little closer.
"Then if you are so tilooming windy, perhaps you'll be
staying away from the farm in the future." '
"Certainly not." He tried to edge back into the light, but the
laborer got in his way.
"If I was you, I, should stay away." He emphasized his point
by digging an elbow into Gregory's coat. "And just remember
that Nancy was interested in me long afore you come'along,
bor."
"Oh, that's it, is iti I think Nancy can decide for herself in
whom she is interested, don't you?"
"I'm telling you who she's interested in, see? And mind you
don't forget, see?" He emphasized the words with another
nudge. Gregory pushed his arm away angrily. Neckland
shrugged his shoulders and walked off. As he went, he said,
"You're going to get worse than ghosts if you keep hanging
round here."
Gregory was shaken. The suppressed violence in the man's
voice suggested that he had been harboring malice for some
time. Unsuspectingly, Gregory had always gone out of his way
to be cordial, had regarded the sullenness as mere slow-
wittedness and done his socialist best to overcome the barrier
between them. He thought of following Neckland and trying to
make it up with him; but that would look too feeble. Instead, he
followed the way the farmer had gone with his dead bitch, and
made for the house.
Gregory Rolles was too late back to Cottersall that night to
meet his friend Fox. The next night, the weather became
exceedingly chill and Gabriel Woodcock, the oldest inhabitant,
was prophesying snow before the winter was out (a not very
venturesome prophecy to be fulfilled within forty-eight hours,
thus impressing most of the inhabitants of the village, for they
took pleasure in being impressed and exclaiming and saying
"Well I never!" to each other). The two friends met in "The
Wayfarer," where the fires were bigger, though the ale was
weaker, than in "The Three Poachers" at the other end of the
village.
Seeing to it that nothing dramatic was missed from his
account, Gregory related the affairs of the previous day,
omitting any reference to Neckland's pugnacity. Fox listened
fascinated, neglecting both his pipe and his ale.
"So you see how it is, Bruce," Gregory concluded. "In that
deep pond by the mill lurks a vehicle of some sort, the very one
we saw in the sky, and in it lives an invisible being of evil intent.