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

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'Are they just the trees of our woods, then?' asked Joan in a whisper that held delight and awe, 'or?'

The child laughed under her breath. 'Oh, no,' was the reply, 'all the South of England below a certain line meets here. This is one of the great starting-places. It's just like swallows collecting on the wires. Some big tree, higher than the rest, gives a sign one night—and then all the other woods flock in by thousands. Uncle Paul knew that! 'There was a touch in her voice of something between scorn and surprise.

'Did you, Uncle Paul?' Joan asked. He fidgeted in his precarious perch. 'I write the Record of it all, so I ought to,' he answered evasively.

And high up in the autumn sky, now darkening, ran on that curious sweet sound. Across the heavens, silvery in the coming moonlight, they saw long feathery clouds drawn thinly from north to south, known commonly as mares' tails.

'Those are the tracks they follow,' whispered Nixie. 'Look! Now you can see them—some of them!'

Her voice was so thrilled that it startled them. But for the fact that they were in the Crack where nothing can be ever 'lost,' both Paul and Joan might have lost their hold and their seats—to say nothing of their lives—and crashed downwards through the branches of that astonished ilex tree. Instead, they turned their eyes upwards and stared.