"Brian Jacques - Redwall 08 - The Outcast Of Redwall" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jacques Brian)

mole kin of Bruff Dubbo, who had shared the same dwelling cave for untold
generations. Tirry and his wife, Dearie, had four small hogs, scarce a season
and a half old. Not counting his old uncle Blunn and aunt Ummer, Bruff had his
wife, Lully, and two little mole maid daughters, Nilly and Podd, to provide
for.

However, the dwelling cave of both families was not a happy place. It was a
hungry and dangerous time for them, for outside in the gray drizzling
afternoon another family waited, a family of five foxes. The old vixen with a
hulking son covered the back exit, while the father, an equally old

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dogfox, sat outside the front entrance with a fully grown son and daughter who
towered over him. They had been there nearly half a season, laying siege to
the dwelling. It was quite easy to relieve one another for the purposes of
eating and sleeping, and still keep up a presence, taunting and reasoning by
turns, knowing they had the hedgehogs and moles prisoners in their own home
until hunger forced them out.

"Don't be foolish, come out, there's food here, friends," the vixen wheedled.

Tirry Lingl shouted back at them, * 'Garn, shift yoreselves, vermin, you ain't
welcome 'ere!"

The hulking fox son sniggered as he called into the back exit, "Heehee,
there'll be something tasty here when you come out. Heeheehee. You!"

The vixen nipped him sharply on his ear. "Shuttup, acorn brain, do you want to
scare 'em to death?''

The old father fox cajoled at the front entrance. "Come on, be reasonable, we
just want to talk. You don't think we'd hurt yer liddle ones, do yer?"

Inside the dwelling, Bruff Dubbo helped Tirry to shore up die barricade they
had made from furniture and the bit of earth they could scrabble from the
cave's rocky interior.

Bruff shook his dark furry head sadly as he spoke in quaint mole dialect to
his companion. "Hurr oi wish't oi 'ad moi ole bow'n'arrers, they vurmints'd
soon shift they'mselves, hurr aye!"

Tiny Lingl peered through a gap between an armchair and a table at the foxes
sitting outside. "They've got time on their rotten ole side, Bruff, we ain't.
Liddle 'uns drank the last o' die water this mornin' an' there's nought but a
stale" rye crust stannin' atwixt us an' starvation."

Uncle Blunn's quavery voice piped up behind them. "You'm rarscalls! Oi'm a
cummen owt thurr to beat ee with moi gurt stick, ho urr, so oi am!"