"Brian Jacques - Redwall 10 - The Long Patrol" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jacques Brian)

The old hare's great head quivered with furious disbelief, and the monocle
fell from his eye to dangle upon its string. He lifted the pace stick, and for
a moment it looked as though he were about to strike his son. When the colonel
could find it, his voice rose several octaves to shrill indignation.

"Playin1? You've got the brass nerve t'stand there an' tell me you've been
usin' my battle-ax as a toy\ Outrage, sir,

6 Brian Jacques

outrage! Y're a pollywoggle and a ripscutt! Hah, that's it, a scruff-furred,
lollop-eared, blather-pawed, doodle-tailed, jumped-up-never-t'come-down
bogwhumper! What are yen?"

Tammo's mother, Mem Divinia, had been hovering in the background, tending a
batch of barleyscones on the griddle. Wiping floury paws upon an apron corner,
she bustled forward, placing herself firmly between husband and son.

"That's quite enough o' that, Corney Fformelo, I'll not have language like
that under my roof. Where d'you think y'are, in the middle of a battlefield? I
won't have you roaring at my Tammo in such a manner."

Instead of calming the Colonel's wrath, his wife's remarks had the opposite
effect. Suffused with blood, his ears went bright pink and stood up like
spearpoints. He flung down the pace stick and stamped so hard upon it that he
hurt his foot-paw.

"Eulalia'n'blood'n'fur'n'vinegar, marm!"

Mem countered by drawing herself up regally as she grabbed Tammo's head and
buried it in the floury folds of her apron. "Keep y'voice down, sir, no sense
in settin' a bad example to your son an' makin' yourself ill over some
battle-ax!"

The Colonel knew better than to ignore his wife. Rubbing ruefully at his
footpaw, he retrieved the pace stick. Then, fixing his monocle straight, he
sat upright, struggling to moderate his tone.

"Some battle-ax indeed, m'dear! I'm discussin' one particular weapon. My
battle-ax! This battle-ax! D'y'know, that young rip took a chip out o' the
blade, prob'ly hackin' away at some boulder. A chip off my blade, marm! The
same battle-ax that was the pride of the old Fifty-first Paw'n'fur Platoon of
the Long Patrol. 'Twas a blade that separated Searats from their gizzards'n'
garters, flayed ferrets out o' their fur, whacked weasels, an' shortened
stoats into stumps! An' who was it chipped the blade? That layabout of a
leveret, that's who. Hmph!"

Tammo struggled free of Mem's apron, his face thickened with white flour dust.
He sneezed twice before speaking. "I ain't a leveret any longer, sir. If y'let