they knew, these sheep, that the Heron children carried no shears, and that they never tried to drive a sheep except in play, and for play they themselves were quite ready. So many a game went on in the deep, little, green valleys among the Wild Rocks, where the buttercups hide like fairy gold, and the ferns curl and uncurl year by year, unbroken and uncrushed. Jacob might ride on the back of the old black ram, the leader of the wild flock, and Isla could pull his horns, and lead him about, and dress him up with flowers, as if he were a cosset lamb, instead of a fierce old fellow who would knock down a tame sheep as soon as look at him, and whom no other human being save these two had ever dared approach.
There were other friends, too. Sometimes, as the children were sitting at their play on the rocks, there would rise, from the ragged crest of an old fir-tree hard by, a great black bird; would hover an instant, uttering a hoarse croak, which yet had a friendly sound, as of greeting; then, beating his broad wings, would sail out over the water. A second followed him, and the two circled and swung together above the playing children, above the waking, laughing sea. Two ancient ravens, living apart from the noisy crows and the song-sparrows. They knew Isla Heron well, in their age-long wisdom, and loved her in their way. She was not of the same mould as the boys who now and then strayed to the south end of the island, half timid, half defiant; who called them crows, and dared one another to throw stones at them. No stone was ever thrown, however. There was a story on the island of a boy who had once stoned the ravens, – these very birds, or their forbears, and had been set upon by them, and driven backward, shrieking, over the verge of Black Head, to be dashed to pieces on the rocks below. The ravens had taken note of this child since her babyhood, and found her ways much like their own. Sometimes they would sit on a rock near by and watch her, with bright eyes cocked aside, as she strung berries or shells, or plaited garlands of seaweed. Once or twice they had brushed her hair, floating past on outspread wing; and she rightly interpreted this as a token of friendship.
“You might tame them,” her father said when she told him. “Ravens are easy tamed; I read a book once about one.”
“They would not like me any more if I did,” said Isla. “I should hate any one who tried to tame me.” And Giles laughed, and thought it would be no easy task.
Other moods and hours took the children down to the shore; this was especially their delight in the morning, when the simple housework was done, and the mother sat at the spinning by the door (for wherever she came from, she brought her wheel with her, and was a thrifty, hard-working housewife), and the father out in his boat.
Their bathing-place was such as no king ever had. Among the rocks by the water’s edge was one of enormous size and strange form. One might think that some mammoth of forgotten ages had been overtaken by the tide as he lay asleep; had slept into death, and so turned to stone. Seen from a distance, he looked all smooth and gray; but, when one came to climb his vast flanks they were rent and seamed and scarred, and by his shoulder there was tough climbing enough. Near by, a huge, formless mass of rock had fallen off into the sea, and between this and the side of the sleeping monster was a pool of clear shining water. Brown tresses of rockweed, long ribbons of kelp, swung gently to and fro; sprays of emerald green floated through the water; the rocks could be seen at the bottom, and they were green and crimson, with here and there fringes of delicate rose-colour. In and out among the rockweed darted brown shrimps and tiny fish; on the rocks the barnacles opened, waved a plume of fairy feathers, and closed again.
Here the children came to bathe, swimming about as free and gracefully as the fishes that hardly feared them, or lying at length in the shallows that stretched gold and crystal in the sun, caressed by soft fingers, swept by long, brown tresses; only weeds, were they? who could tell?
Isla loved to lie so, in the summer heat, when the water seemed warm to her hardy limbs, though a landsman might still think it cold. She would tether little Jacob to a rock with a long kelp-ribbon, and he would play contentedly at being a horse, that creature he had never seen save in a picture. There are no horses on the Island of the Wild Rocks.
There the girl would float and dream, her body at rest, her mind out and away with the clouds, or the sea-gulls that hovered and wheeled above the blue sparkling water, till there came a low murmur on the outer reef, a white break against the seaward side of the rock, and she knew that the tide was rising. Then, taking the child by the hand, she would leave the water, and climb up to a great boulder, where the barnacles lay dry in the sun. Only the great spring tides came here; and she would lie on the warm rock, one hand supporting her chin, the other holding Jacob’s hand, and watch the ancient miracle that was always new.
With a swing and a swirl the waters rushed into their pool of peace; the foam sprang high, then fell, and crept up the rock, up, up. Now back, strongly, with a wrench that tugged at the streaming locks, scattering them loose, unrolling the kelp-ribbons to their utmost length. It was gone, and for an instant there was stillness again; then once more came the roar, the inward rush, the snowy column tossed aloft, the white seeking hands creeping up along the rock, till now all the water was a white churn of foam, all the air was filled with driving spray, and the reef thundered with wild artillery. The seas hove bodily over it, and broke only in the cove itself; the place where the children had paused and lingered in their upward climb now boiled like a pot, and even on the top of the great boulder the spray beat in their faces, stinging, burning. A black wing struck athwart the white smoke, and a raven floated past on the wind, one eye cast aside on the children. Isla cried out with glee, and shook her wet hair, and broke into a chant, such as she loved to croon to the wind; but Jacob was timid, and did not like the spray in his face, and, though he heard no sound, shivered at every vibration of the rock as the seas dashed themselves at it; he pulled his sister’s hand, and begged to be gone; so home they went over the mammoth’s back, and left the raven to his own.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
