Читать книгу Come Hither: A Collection of Rhymes and Poems for the Young of All Ages онлайн

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Scrawled in ungainly capitals on the strip of vellum pasted to the back of this book was its title: Theotherworlde. Would you believe it?—at first I was stupid enough to suppose this title was one word, a word in a strange tongue, which I pronounced to myself as best I could, Theeothaworldie—saying the TH as in thimble. And that is what, merely for old sake's sake, I have continued to call the book in my mind to this day!

I glanced out of the window. The upper boughs of the yew-wood and the stones this side of it among the bright green grasses were impurpled by the reflected sunlight. Nothing there but motionless shadows. I stood looking vacantly out for a moment or two; then stooped and lugged out the ponderous fusty old volume on to the floor and raised its clumsy cover.

To my surprise and pleasure, I found, that attached within was the drawing of a boy of about my own age, but dressed like a traveller, whose face faintly resembled a portrait I had noticed on the walls downstairs, though this child had wings painted to his shoulders and there was a half circle of stars around his head. Beneath this portrait in the book, in small letters, was scrawled in a faded handwriting, Nahum Tarune. This, then, was Mr. Nahum when he was a boy. It pleased me to find that he was no better a speller than myself. He had not even got his own name right! I liked his face. He looked out from under his stars at me, full in the eyes.