"Books - David Eddings - Belgarath the Sorcerer" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eddings David)

pointedly told me to stay out of town except at night. I largely
ignored those petty restrictions and actually began to enjoy the
business of creeping about in search of food or whatever else might
fall to hand. I began to think of myself as a very clever fellow.

I guess I was about thirteen or so when I began to notice girls. That
really made my neighbors nervous. I had a certain rakish celebrity in
the village, and young people of an impressionable age find that sort
of thing irresistibly attractive. As I said, I began to notice girls,
and the girls noticed me right back. One thing led to another, and on
a cloudy spring morning one of the village elders caught me in his hay
barn with his youngest daughter. Let me hasten to assure you that
nothing was really going on. Oh, a few harmless kisses, perhaps, but
nothing any more serious. The girl's father, however, immediately
thought the worst of me and gave me the thrashing of my life.

I finally managed to escape from him and ran out of the village. I
waded across the river and climbed the hill on the far side to sulk.
The air was cool and dry, and the clouds raced overhead in the fresh
young wind.

I sat there for a very long time considering my situation. I concluded
that I'd just about exhausted the possibilities of Gara. My neighbors,
with some justification, I'll admit, looked at me with hard-eyed
suspicion most of the time, and the incident in the hay barn was likely
to be blown all out of proportion. A certain cold logic advised me
that it wouldn't be too long before I'd be asked pointedly to leave.

Well, I certainly wasn't going to give them that satisfaction. I
looked down at the tiny cluster of dun-colored huts beside a small
river that didn't sparkle beneath the scudding clouds of spring. And
then I turned and looked to the west at a vast grassland and
white-topped mountains beyond and clouds roiling in the grey sky, and I
felt a sudden overwhelming compulsion to go. There was more to the
world than the village of Gara, and I suddenly wanted very much to go
look at it. There was nothing really keeping me, and the father of my
little playmate would probably be laying in wait for me--with
cudgel--every time I turned around. I made up my mind at that point.

I visited the village one last time, shortly after midnight. I
certainly didn't intend to leave empty-handed. A storage shed provided
me with as much food as I could carry conveniently, and, since it's not
prudent to travel unarmed, I also took a fairly large knife. I'd
fashioned a sling a year or so previously, and the tedious hours spent
watching over other people's cows had given me plenty of time for
practice. I wonder whatever happened to that sling.

I looked around the shed and decided that I had everything I really
needed, and so I crept quietly down that dusty street, waded across the
river again, and went from that place forever.