Читать книгу The Boy in the Bush онлайн

53 страница из 75

The coachman flicked the horses. Jack looked at him in amazement. He was a man with a whitish-looking beard, in the dim light.

"And did she have any children?"

"She's got five."

"And does she regret it?"

"At times, I suppose. But as I say to her, if anybody was took in, it was me. I always thought her a perfect lady. So when she lets fly at me: 'Call yourself a man?' I just say to her: 'Call yourself a lady?' And she comes round all right."

Jack's consciousness began to go dim. He was aware of a strange dim booming almost like guns in the distance, and the driver's voice saying, "Frogs, sir. Way back in the days before ever a British ship came here, they say the Dutchmen came, and was frightened off by the croaking of the bull frogs: Couldn't make it out a-nohow!"—The horses' hoofs were echoing on the boarded Causeway, and from the little islands alongside came the amazing croaking, barking, booing and booming of the frogs.

II

When Jack looked round again it was day. And the driver's beard was black. He was a man with a thin red face and black beard and queer grey eyes that had a mocking sort of secret in them.