Читать книгу The Complete Works of Algernon Blackwood. Novels, Short Stories, Horror Classics, Occult & Supernatural Tales, Plays онлайн

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Jimbo began to hum the song of the village he had learned in school—

P'tit Bourcelles sur sa colline

De partout a gentille mine;

On y pratique avec success

L'exploitation du francais,

and the moment it was over, his sister burst out with the question that had been buzzing inside her head the whole time—

'How long are you going to stay?' she said, as they climbed higher along the dusty road.

'Oh, about a week,' he told her, giving the answer already used a dozen times. 'I've just come out for a holiday—first holiday I've had for twenty years. Fancy that! Pretty long time, eh?'

They simply didn't believe that; they let it pass—politely.

'London's stuffy, you know, just now,' he added, aware that he was convicted of exaggeration. 'Besides, it's spring.'

'There are millions of flowers here,' Jimbo covered his mistake kindly, 'millions and millions. Aren't there, Monkey?'

'Oh, billions.'

'Of course,' he agreed.

'And more than anywhere else in the whole world.'

'It looks like that,' said Cousin Henry, as proudly as they said it themselves. And they told him how they picked clothes-baskets full of the wild lily of the valley that grew upon the Boudry slopes, hepaticas, periwinkles, jonquils, blue and white violets, as well as countless anemones, and later, the big yellow marguerites.