"Cooper, Susan - Dark is Rising 04 - The Grey King" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cooper Susan)

The gnome caught sight of Will. \i'Beth sy'n bod\i?' he said.

'Er - excuse me,' Will said. 'My uncle said he'd meet me off the train, in the station yard, but there's no one outside. Could you tell me if there's anywhere else he might have meant?'

The gnome shook his head.

'Who's your uncle, then?' inquired the soft-faced man.

'Mr Evans, from Bryn-Crug. Clwyd Farm,' Will said. The gnome chuckled gently. 'David Evans will be a bit late, boy \ibach\i. You have a nice dreamer for an uncle. David Evans will be late when the Last Trump sounds. You just wait a while. On holiday, is it?' Bright dark eyes peered inquisitively into his face.

'Sort of. I've had hepatitis. The doctor said I had to come away to convalesce.'

'Ah!' The man nodded his head sagely. 'You look a bit peaky, yes. Come to the right place, though. The air on this coast is very relaxing, they say, very relaxing. Even at this time of year.'

.A clattering roar came suddenly from beyond the ticket office, and through the barrier Will saw a mud-streaked Land-Rover drive into the yard. But the figure that came bounding out of it was not that of the small neat farmer he vaguely remembered; it was a wiry, gangling young man, jerkily thrusting out his hand.

'Will, is it? Hallo. Da sent me to meet you. I'm Rhys.'

'How do you do.' Will knew he had two grown-up Welsh cousins, old as his oldest brothers, but he had never set eyes on either of them.

Rhys scooped up his suitcase as if it had been a matchbox. "This all you have? Let's be off, then.' He nodded to the railwaymen. \i'Sut 'dach chi?\i'

\i'lawn diolch\i,' said the gnome. 'Caradog Prichard was asking for you or your father, round about, this morning. Something about dogs.'

'A pity you haven't seen me at all, today,' Rhys said.

The gnome grinned. He took Will's ticket. 'Get yourself healthy now, young man.'

'Thank you, 'Will said.

Perched up in the front of the Land-Rover, he peered out at the little grey town as the windscreen wipers tried in vain, twitch-creak, twitch-creak, to banish the fine misty rain from the glass. Deserted shops lined the little street, and a few bent figures in raincoats scurried by; he saw a church, a small hotel, more neat houses. Then the road was widening and they were out between trim hedges, with open fields beyond, and green hills rising against the sky: a grey sky, featureless with mist. Rhys seemed shy; he drove with no attempt at talking - though the engine made so much noise that conversation would have been hard in any case. Past gaggles of silent cottages they drove, the boards that announced VACANCY or BED AND BREAKFAST swinging forlornly now that most of the holiday visitors were gone.

Rhys turned the car inland, towards the mountains, and almost at once Will had a strange new feelings of enclosure, almost of menace. The little road was narrow here, like a tunnel, with its high grass banks and looming hedges like green walls on either side. Whenever they passed the gap where a hedge opened to a field through a gate, he could see the green-brown bulk of hillsides rearing up at the grey sky. And ahead, as bends in the road showed open sky briefly through the trees, a higher fold of grey hills loomed in the distance, disappearing into ragged cloud. Will felt that he was in a part of Britain like none he had ever known before: a secret, enclosed place, with powers hidden in its shrouded centuries at which he could not begin to guess. He shivered.

In the same moment, as Rhys swung round a tight comer towards a narrow bridge, the Land-Rover gave a strange jerking leap and lurched down to one side, towards the hedge. Braking hard, Rhys hauled at the wheel and managed to stop at an angle that seemed to indicate one wheel was in the ditch.

'Damn!' he said with force, opening the door.

Will scrambled after him. 'What happened?'

'There is what happened.' Rhys pointed a long finger at the nearside front wheel, its tyre pressed hopelessly flat against a rock jutting from the hedge. 'Just look at that. Ripped it right open, and so thick those tyres are, you would never think -' His light, rather husky voice was high with astonishment.

'Was the rock lying in the road?'

Rhys shook his curly head. 'Goes under the hedge. Huge, it is, that's just one end ... I used to sit on that rock when I was half your size...' Wonder had banished his shyness. 'What made the car jump, then? That's the funny thing, seemed to jump, she did, right on to it, sideways. It wasn't the tyre blowing, that feels quite different...' He straightened, brushing away the rain that spangled his eyebrows. 'Well, well. A wheel change, now.'

Will said hopefully, 'Can I help?'

Rhys looked down at him: at the shadowed eyes and the pale face beneath the thick, straight brown hair. He grinned suddenly, directly at Will for the first time since they had met; it made his face look quite different, untroubled and young. 'Here you come down after being so ill, to be put together again, and I am to have you out in the rain changing an old wheel? Mam would have fifty fits. Back in the warm with you, go on.' He moved round to the rear door of the square little car, and began pulling out tools.