"Mary Stewart - The Moonspinners" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stewart Mary)

them better than for me to abandon my foolish project of visiting this village in the middle of nowhere, and
go with them for the rest of their trip.

"I don't like it." Mr. Studebaker was anxiously regarding the stony little track which wound gently
downhill from the road between rocky slopes studded with scrub and dwarf juniper. "I don't like leaving
you here alone. Why тАФ" he turned earnest, kindly blue eyes on me тАФ "I read a book about Crete, just
before Mother and I came over, and believe me, Miss Ferris, they have some customs here, still, that you
just wouldn't credit. In some ways, according to this book, Greece is still a very, very primitive country."
I laughed. "Maybe. But one of the primitive customs is that the stranger's sacred. Even in Crete, nobody's
going to murder a visitor! Don't worry about me, really. It's sweet of you, but I'll be quite all right. I told
you, I've lived in Greece for more than a year now, and I get along quite well in Greek тАФ and I've been
to Crete before. So you can leave me quite safely. This is certainly the right place, and I'll be down in the
village in twenty minutes. The hotel's not expecting me till tomorrow, but I know they've nobody else
there, so I'll get a bed."

"And this cousin of yours that should have come with you? You're sure she'll show up?"

"Of course." He was looking so anxious that I explained again. "She was delayed, and missed the flight,
but she told me not to wait for her, and I left a message. Even if she misses tomorrow's bus, she'll get a
car or something. She's very capable." I smiled. "She was anxious for me not to waste any of my holiday
hanging around waiting for her, so she'll be grateful to you as I am, for giving me an extra day."

"Well, if you're sure . . ."

"I'm quite sure. Now, don't let me keep you any more. It was wonderful to get a lift this far. If I'd waited
for the bus tomorrow, it would have taken the whole day to get here." I smiled, and held out my hand.
"And still I'd have been dumped right here! So you see, you have given me a whole extra day's holiday,
besides the run, which was marvelous. Thank you again."

Eventually, reassured, they drove off. The car gathered way slowly up the cement-hard mud of the hill
road, bumping and swaying over the ruts which marked the course of winter's over-spills of mountain
rain. It churned its way up round a steep bend, and bore away inland. The dust of its wake hung thickly,
till the breeze slowly dispersed it.

I stood there beside my suitcase, and looked about me.

The White Mountains are a range of great peaks, the backbone of the westerly end of the mountainous
island of Crete. To the south-west of the island, the foothills of the range run right down to the shore,
which, here, is wild and craggy. Here and there along the coast, where some mountain stream, running
down to the sea, has cut a fresh-water inlet in the ramparts of the cliff, are villages, little handfuls of
houses each clinging to its crescent of shingle and its runnel of fresh water, backed by the wild mountains
where the sheep and goats scratch a precarious living. Some of these villages are approached only by
steep tracks through the maze of the foothills, or by caique from the sea. It was in one of them, Agios
Georgios, the village of St. George, that I had elected to spend the week of my Easter holiday.

As I had told the Studebakers, I had been in Athens since January the previous year, working in a very
junior capacity as a secretary at the British Embassy. I had counted myself lucky, at twenty-one, to land
even a fairly humble job in a country which, as far back as I could remember, I had longed to visit. I had
settled happily in Athens, worked hard at the language (being rewarded with a fair fluency), and I had
used my holidays and weekends in exploration of all the famous places within reach.