"Gilman, Carolyn Ives - The Wild Ships Of Fairny" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gilman Carolyn Ives)

"They're out in the hills," Jumber said.

"What?" the foreigner said, looking startled.

Jumber gestured toward the windy grassland behind the village. "Out grazing. In
the pastures. That's where the sheep are."

"You think I am numbskull?" the man said angrily.

Why does he want sheep? Larkin asked, resting her arms on Kittiwake's gunwale
rail.

The foreigner's attention was diverted. He gave her a deep bow. "Pardons,
precious lady. I am distract. I am dupe of salty schemer. I came on search for
Fairny, where great sheep are build."

Larkin saw the problem. "Oh, you mean sheeps!" she said.

"Yes, yes," the foreigner said excitedly. "Big ones, that walk on water.
Boom-boom."

"What?" Jumber said.

"Kind lady, can you tell where is Fairny of the sheep?"

"This is it," Larkin said.

The man looked incredulous. "Am I dream? There are no tree, no boatyard."

"You're fifty years too late," Larkin said, hearing in her own voice the trace
of leaden bitterness that infected everyone in Fairny when they spoke of the
time of ships. "We don't have ships anymore. Not to sell, not to sail. They're
gone."

The man first looked puzzled, then crafty. "I think you pull my foot," he said.
"You think I have not riches enough."

"No, there just aren't any ships. No more."

She turned back to her work, not wanting to face more questions. She ran her
fingers down the smooth wood of Kittiwake's deck, weathered to the silver of a
dragonfly's wing. Kittiwake was a handy little craft, agile on a close reach,
well suited to shellfishing; but she was a far cry from the legendary vessels
that had once made Fairny famous.

They had been ships that no one who saw could forget. Mist, in which Gennaday of
Rusk had sailed into the other circles; great Havenmaker, which Ison Gavro
himself had led against the Torna usurpers. Their names were thick in the winter
tales the uncles told at fireside. All through the thousand isles of Haven they
had been famous. In those days mankind had ruled the land, but Fairny's ships