The eye-brows were drawn forbiddingly together on the craggy, secret face, and there was the old fierceness in the dark hollows and lines. He said gently, 'No, Barnabas, I didn't find it this time. The thunder rolled quietly, far out over the sea, but the rain fell with grey insistence, blurring the windows as it washed down outside.
The children wandered aimlessly about the house. Before lunch they tried going for a walk in the rain, but came back damp and depressed. Half-way through the afternoon Mother put her head round the door. Now look, you three - you can go where you like in the house but you must promise not to touch anything that's obviously been put away. Everything valuable is all locked up, but I don't want you poking at anyone's private papers or belongings.
All right? In a little while Father muffled himself in a big black oilskin and went of through the rain to see the harbour-master. Jane wandered round the bookshelves, but all the books within reach seemed to have titles like Round the Horn, or Log-Book of the Virtue, , and she thought them very dull.
Simon, who had been sitting making darts out of the morning paper, suddenly crumpled them all up irritably. What shall we do? It's raining like anything. The water in the harbour's all flat. And on our first proper day. Oh I hate the rain, I hate it, I hate it, I hate the rain Simon prowled restlessly around the room, looking at the pictures on the dark wallpaper. He doesn't seem to think about anything but the sea, does he, the captain?
Oh well, I don't know. Anyway, I should go on a destroyer, not a potty little sailing-ship like that one.
What is it? When he sailed to America and discovered potatoes. It's what all the explorers call them. We haven't yet, not properly.
It's like a strange land. We can work from the bottom all the way up to the top. Come on. So Mrs Palk good-humouredly added a big bottle of home-made lemonade 'to finish 'n off. This is smashing. You won't get that in London. Professor took'n for a walk. Now stop pickin' at that cake, midear, or you'll spoil that picnic o' yours. They filled it, and went out into the little dark passage away from the kitchen, Mrs Palk waving them farewell as solemnly as if they were of to the North Pole.
Mr Penhallow did as well. They talk as if they've known him for years. Jane waved her hand at a big wooden chest half hidden in one corner. Actually it's full of native gold and ornaments, we'll collect it on the way back and stow it in the hold. All walking behind in a row and calling me Boss. Aye, aye, Sir! There was a dark door in the shadows at the far end of the landing. The little corridor, like all the house, had a smell of furniture polish and age and the sea; and yet nothing like these things really but just the smell of strangeness.
There might be cannibals. It was an odd little room, very small and bare, with one round leaded window looking out inland across the grey slate roofs and fields. There was a bed, with a red-and-white gingham coverlet, and a wooden chair, a wardrobe, and a wash-stand with an outsize willow-pattern bowl and ewer. And that was all. She looked about, feeling something was missing. That window looks just like a porthole. I think it must be the captain's bedroom. Holding it made him feel pleasantly important.
They emerged from the little dark corridor, its door, as they closed it behind them, vanishing once more into the shadows so that they could hardly see where it had been. That one's Great-Uncle Merry's bedroom, there's the bathroom this side of it and Mother's studio room the other. As if each bit were meant to be kept secret from the next. There ought to be secret panels and things, secret entrances into native treasure-caves.
I suppose it's the low clouds. Only we couldn't because there are hostile natives all round, and they'd see. Somehow imagination worked easily in the friendly silence of the Grey House. We'll be able to hear their feet rustling soon.
He was half beginning to believe it. The obvious caves wouldn't do,' Simon said, remembering he was in command. Jane's - just the same. Bathroom, our room, no escape route anywhere. We shall all be turned into sacrifices and eaten. Like the one downstairs. But the passage came to a dead end, the wall running unbroken round all three sides.
After all the house goes straight up, doesn't it, and there's a door directly underneath there' - she pointed at the blank wall - 'and a room behind it. So there ought to be a room the same size behind this wall.
You're quite right. But there isn't any door. Have you ever seen a real secret panel in a real house? Anyway there isn't any panelling on this wall, just wallpaper. Barney opened the door into their bedroom and went in, kicking his slippers under the bed as he went past. Then he stopped suddenly. What's on the other side? There's too much wall in here. You stand in the doorway and look on both sides - the landing stops before it gets that far. She went outside, pulling the door shut, and they heard a faint tapping on the wall just over the head of Barney's bed.
So there must be a room on the other side. And I think that means,' Simon said slowly, 'that there must be a door behind the wardrobe. That wardrobe's enormous, we shall never be able to move it. If we all pull at one end perhaps it'll swing round. Nothing happened.
Come on, once more. One two three - heave! Simon and Jane tugged and puffed and blew, their plimsolls slithering on the linoleum; and gradually the wardrobe moved out at an angle from the wall.
Barney, peering into the gloom behind, suddenly shrieked. There is a door! Ouf - He staggered backwards, gasped, and sneezed. They heard the door creak protestingly open. Then he reappeared, with a large dark smudge down one cheek. There isn't a room. It's a staircase. More like a ladder really. It goes up to a sort of hatchway and there's light up there. You can go first, Boss.
Inside, it was at first very dark, and Simon, blinking, saw before him a wide-stepped ladder, steeply slanting, rising towards a dimly-lit square beyond which he could see nothing. The steps were thick with dust, and for a moment he felt nervous of disturbing the stillness.
Then very faintly, he heard above his head the low familiar murmur of the sea outside. At once the comfortable noise made him more cheerful, and he even remembered what they were supposed to be. Chapter 3 As Simon's head emerged through the hatch at the top he caught his breath just as Barney had : 'Aah aah -' and sneezed enormously. Clouds of dust rose, and the ladder shook. Simon opened his watering eyes and blinked. Before him and all round was one vast attic, the length and breadth of the whole house, with two grubby windows in its sloping roof.
It was piled higgledy-piggledy with the most fantastic collection of objects he had ever seen. Boxes, chests and trunks lay everywhere, with mounds of dirty grey canvas and rough-coiled ropes between them; stacks of newspapers and magazines, yellow-brown with age; a brass bedstead and a grandfather clock without a face. As he stared, he saw smaller things: a broken fishing-rod, a straw hat perched on the corner of an oil-painting darkened by age into one great black blur; an empty mousetrap, a ship in a bottle, a glass-fronted case full of chunks of rock, a pair of old thigh-boots flopped over sideways as if they were tired, a cluster of battered pewter mugs.
Muffled noises of protest came from below, and he hauled himself out through the opening and rolled sideways out of their way on the floor. Barney and Jane came through after him. All this round you, and you only see a bit of dust.
It'll brush off. I wonder if the captain ever had a horse? This is something like exploring. We might find anything up here. This is what the natives were after. Hear them howling with frustrated rage down there.
I'm hungry. It's only four o'clock. Anyway, while you're on the run you eat little and often, because you daren't ever stop for long. If we were Eskimos we'd be chewing an old shoe-lace. My book says - ' 'Never mind your book,' Simon said. He fished inside the ruck-sack. I want to look at everything properly, before we have our picnic, and if I can wait so can you.
For half an hour they poked about in a happy dusty dream, through the junk and broken furniture and ornaments. It was like reading the story of somebody's life, Jane thought, as she gazed at the tiny matchstick masts of the ship sailing motionless for ever in the green glass bottle. All these things had been used once, had been part of every day in the house below.
Someone had slept on the bed, anxiously watched the minutes on the clock, pounced joyfully on each magazine as it arrived. But all those people were long dead, or gone away, and now the oddments of their lives were piled up here, forgotten. She found herself feeling rather sad. I'm ravenous,' Barney said plaintively. It's all that dust. Come on, let's unload Mrs Palk's tea.
Look at that one, for instance. You'll have to swig from the bottle, we forgot to bring any cups. Don't worry, we won't pinch anything. Though I shouldn't think anyone's been up here for years. The scones are in that bag there. Help yourself. Four each.
I've counted. You'll eat all sorts of germs and get typhoid or - or rabies or something. Here, have my handkerchief. Oh all right, Jane, stop waving that silly thing at me, I've got a proper handkerchief of my own.
I don't know how girls ever blow their noses. All cold and horrible. It bounced, slithered, and rolled into the shadows. Simon grinned. All attics have rats. We shall hear greedy little squeakings and see twin green points of fire and there'll be rats all over the floor.
First they'll eat the apple core, and then they'll come after us. There wouldn't be rats up here, would there? All old houses have rats. We've got them at school, you can hear them scuttling about in the roof sometimes. Come to think of it their eyes are red, not green. He was beginning to feel slightly unhappy about the rats himself now. Over there somewhere. I wonder why they didn't put anything in this corner. He peered through, and saw daylight gleaming dimly through the tiles.
Just inside the gap the floorboards ended and he could feel wide-spaced beams. I'm going to look. There's light comes through the tiles and I can see, more or less. Can't see any core, though. I wonder if it fell between the floorboards and the underneath part. Oh do come out! But it can't be a rat, it didn't move. Where's it gone Feels like cardboard. Blah - here's that disgusting core next to it as well. I still don't believe there are any.
I bet you've eaten all the scones, you pigs. He sat down, pulled out his handkerchief, waved it ostentatiously at Jane, wiped his hands and began to munch another scone. As they ate, he reached over and idly unrolled the scroll he had found, holding one end down on the floor with his toe and pushing the other back with a piece of wood until it lay stretched open before them.
And then, as they saw what it was, they all suddenly forgot their eating and stared. The paper Barney had unrolled was not paper at all, but a kind of thick brownish parchment, springy as steel, with long raised cracks crossing it where it had been rolled. Inside it, another sheet was stuck down: darker, looking much older, ragged at the edges, and covered with small writing in strange squashed-looking dark brown letters.
Below the writing it dwindled, as if it had been singed by some great heat long ago, into half-detached pieces carefully laid back together and stuck to the outer sheet. But there was enough of it left for them to see at the bottom a rough drawing that looked like the uncertain outline of a map. For a moment they were all very quiet.
Barney said nothing but he could feel a strange excitement bubbling up inside him. He leant forward in silence and carefully stretched the manuscript flat, pushing the piece of wood aside. It's terribly old,' Jane said. How did it get up here? I mean look at it, it must be, some of the writing's nearly faded away. Do you realise, we've got a real live treasure map? It could lead us to anything, anywhere, secret passages, real hidden caves - the treasure of Trewissick' - he rolled the words lovingly round his tongue.
Look in ye little room on ye second floor, I expect it says, ye second floorboard on the, I mean ye, left -' 'When this was written there weren't such things as floor- boards. In his mind he was already half-way through a sliding panel, throwing back the lid of a chest to reveal hoards of untold wealth. He could almost hear the chink of doubloons. There was a long pause. Barney said nothing, but looked at him very expressively indeed. There's no need to look so cocky. It isn't in English.
But that doesn't mean we shan't be able to find out what it says. She had been looking quietly at the manuscript over Simon's shoulder. All old manuscripts are written in Latin. The monks used to write them down with a goose-feather for a pen, and put flowers and birds and things all squiggling round the capital letters. It looks as if it's been written in rather a hurry. I can't even see any capital letters at all. I suppose it's a religious-sounding kind of language. At school she had not yet begun Latin, but he had been learning it for two years, and was rather superior about the fact.
He peered at the manuscript again. Like a lot of little straight lines all in a row. The light in here isn't very good either. It's jolly difficult. The second bit I can't make out at all, but the first paragraph does look as if it might be Latin.
But the writing's all so small and squashy I can't - wait a minute, there's some names in the last line. What a- Barney! Whatever's the matter? They patted him on the back and gave him a drink of lemonade. It's about King Arthur and his knights.
Mark was one of them, and he was King of Cornwall. It must be about them. I bet old King Mark left some treasure behind somewhere and that's why there's a map. The two boys stopped thumping each other ecstatically and looked at her. Finding's keepings. It belongs to the captain. You know what Mother said about not touching anything. This wasn't put away, it was just chucked down in a corner.
I bet you anything the captain hadn't a clue it was there. You can't find a treasure map and just say Oh, how nice, and put it back again. And that's what they'd make us do.
We can always put it back afterwards. What's it made of? I thought it was parchment like the outside bit, but when you look properly it isn't, and it's not paper either. It's some funny thick stuff, and it's hard, like wood. She meant well, after all. They'll be looking for us soon, Mother will have stopped painting. The big echoing room was growing dark, and there was a dismal sound now to the rain faintly tapping on the glass.
Back in their bedrooms, the boy's wardrobe pushed in again to hide the small secret door, they washed and changed hurriedly as the curt clang of the ship's bell calling them to supper echoed up the stairs. Simon changed his dusty shirt, rolling the clean one into a crumpled ball before he put it on, and hoping no one would notice it was fresh.
There was not very much they could do about Barney's hair, now khaki. Anyway, I'm hungry. You'll just have to sit away from the light. The evening began as one of those times when everything seemed determined to go wrong. Mother looked tired and depressed, and did not say very much; signs, they knew, that her day's painting had not been a success.
Father, gloomy after the grey day, erupted into wrath when Rufus bounced in dripping from his walk, and banished him to the kitchen with Mrs Palk.
And Great-Uncle Merry had come in silent and thoughtful, mysteriously brooding. He sat at one end of the table, alone, staring into the middle distance like a great carved totem-pole. The children eyed him warily, and took care to pass him the salt before he had to ask. But Great-Uncle Merry scarcely seemed to see them. He ate automatically, picking up his food and guiding it to his mouth without taking the slightest notice of it.
Barney wondered for a wistful moment what would happen if he were to slip a cork table-mat on to his great-uncle's plate. Mrs Palk came in with an enormous apple tart and a dish of mounded yellow cream and clattered the dirty plates into a pile. She went out down the hall, and they heard the rich rolling contralto of 'O God, our help in ages past' echoing into the distance. Father sighed. He passed Simon the cream. Simon helped himself to a large spoonful, and a yellow blob dropped from the spoon to the table-cloth.
It just fell. But I don't try to transport a quart in a pint pot. Today I did not. Is that comprehensible? After a moment he said, hopefully: 'Might by an idea if we all went for a walk after supper. It seems to be clearing up. Over the sea the clouds had broken, leaving a deepening blue sky, and the opposite headland glowed suddenly a brighter green as the sinking sun shone for the first time that day. Then they heard the doorbell ring. She put her head in. In a few moments he was back, talking to someone over his shoulder as he came through the door.
They're an independent lot, you know. Well, here we are. From that yacht you admire so much, Simon. We met in the harbour this morning. Both were dark-haired, with beaming smiles bright in sun-tanned faces.
They looked like beings suddenly materialised from another very tidy planet. The man stepped forward, holding out his hand: 'How do you do, Mrs Drew? Then they jumped hastily as Mother stood to shake hands, and Simon knocked over his chair. Into the confusion Mrs Palk appeared with a large teapot and a tray of cups and saucers. Her black curls bobbed forward over her forehead. She was a very pretty girl, Jane thought, watching her.
Much older than any of them, of course. She wore a bright green shirt and black trousers, and her eyes seemed to twinkle with a kind of hidden private laughter. Jane suddenly felt extremely young. Mr Withers, showing a lot of very white teeth, was talking to Mother. We simply came to issue an invitation. My sister and I are in Trewissick for some days, with the yacht to ourselves - on our way round the coast, you know - and we wondered whether you and the children would care to spend a day out at sea.
We have -' 'Gosh! You mean go out in that fabulous boat? Simon spluttered without words, his face glowing with delight. Mother said hesitantly: 'Well And when we met your husband in the harbour-master's office this morning, and discovered we are neighbours in London -' 'Are you?
But I'm not sure whether Mr Withers puckered his nose boyishly at her. We sincerely hope you and your husband will join our little crew as well. Just a trip out and back, you understand - round the bay, as the commercial gentlemen have it. With perhaps a little fishing. I shall enjoy showing off the boat. Tomorrow perhaps? They say it should be a fine day. She looked at Simon and Barney, both all eagerness at the idea of a day on the strange yacht, gazing anxiously at their parents; and then back at Mr Withers's immaculate white flannels and folded scarf.
I don't like him, she thought. I wonder why? I don't think I shall come, if you'll forgive me - if the sun comes out I shall go and work up above the harbour. But I know Dick and the children would love to go. The rest of the family will come, though, -I hope? It sounds smashing,' Barney said. He added, as an afterthought: 'Thank you very much. We're all very grateful to you. As a matter of fact' - he looked vaguely round the room - 'there should have been one other member of the family here, but he seems to have disappeared.
My wife's uncle. He rented the house for us. They had forgotten Great-Uncle Merry. Now they realised that there had been no sign of him since the two sudden visitors appeared. The door that led into the breakfast room at the back of the house stood slightly open - but when Barney ran across to look in, there was no one there. I didn't think I'd mentioned him this morning.
D'you know him, then? I believe we have met, once or twice. In another sphere than this. In the course of our work, you know. A charming old gentleman, as I remember, but a little unpredictable. He hasn't even finished his supper this time. But do let me give you some tea, or coffee. You're quite right, Polly, we mustn't be late. And an excellent chef too. You must sample his cooking tomorrow.
Well now, shall we see you all down in the harbour, if the weather is fine? Nine thirty, perhaps? We will have the dinghy waiting at the quay. On the way Polly Withers paused, and looked up over Simon's head at the old Cornish maps hanging among the oil-paintings on the dark wall.
Aren't they marvellous? Did your uncle rent it from a friend? We've never met him - he's abroad. Quite an old man - a retired sailor of some kind.
I believe his family have owned the Grey House for years. You know what it is with a furnished house - one's always nervous of damaging things. But his sister was smiling down at Simon. I know I should have done, in an old house. Do let us know if you find one. D'you think they'll let us help sail her?
You can let Rufus out now if you want to, Barney but he's not going on the boat tomorrow, so don't ask. There won't be any smelly old engine running.
Oh come on, Jane. I really don't want to go. They won't mind, will they, Father? No, they'll understand, Jane. No one would want you to be worried about getting ill. A real work of craftsmanship' Hilary Mantel I do know how to behave - believe me, because I know. I have always known. Behind the gates of Temple Alice, the aristocratic Anglo-Irish St Charles family sinks into a state of decaying grace.
To Aroon St Charles, large and unlovely daughter of the house, the fierce forces of sex, money, jealousy and love seem locked out by the ritual patterns of good behaviour. But crumbling codes of conduct cannot hope to save the members of the St Charles family from their own unruly and inadmissible desires. This elegant and allusive novel established Molly Keane as the natural successor to Jean Rhys. Nobody else can touch her as a satirist, tragedian and dissector of human behaviour.
Here we meet a teenage boy, Kafka Tamura, who is on the run, and Nakata, an aging simpleton who is drawn to Kafka for reasons that he cannot fathom. As their paths converge, acclaimed author Haruki Murakami enfolds readers in a world where cats talk, fish fall from the sky, and spirits slip out of their bodies to make love or commit murder, in what is a truly remarkable journey.
There was no way the Volniks could keep the castle, so it was sold to an Edinburgh lawyer, Mr. Two years later, Emily Volnik and her younger brohter Jessup return to the castle for a visit. To their delight, the Boggart, a mischievous shape-shifting spirit who has lived in the castle for centures, playing tricks on the owners, is still there, making Mr. Mac coubt his won sanity as strange things happen. At Jessup's urging, Mr. Mac takes them and Tommy Cameron, a local friend, on a comping trip to Loch Ness, Where a new expedition with advanced underwater equipment is planning another search for the Loch Ness Monster.
The boggart comes along, and, on thier first night there, he is entranced to rediscover Nessie, a boggart cousin who has long forgotten how to change shape and remains in the prehistoric-monster form he long ago adopted.
Beautifully imagined and beautifully written, this is an unforgettable adventure, filled with humor, suspense, and wonderful characters. It is a stunning companion to Susan Cooper's earlier book, The Boggart. Set in a world five hundred years in the future, Welly and the wizard Merlin are forced to take on a new type of powerful magic in a highly complex and technical world after Welly's friend, Heather, is kidnapped by the sorceress Morgan LeFay.
A family in mourning When fifteen-year-old Jen Morgan flies to Wales to spend Christmas with her family, she's not expecting much from the holiday. A year after her mother's sudden death, her father seems preoccupied by the teaching job that has brought him and Jen's younger siblings to Wales for the year. Her brother, Peter, is alternately hostile and sullen,and her sister, Becky, misses Jen terribly. Then Peter tells Jen he's found a strange artifact, a harp key that shows him pictures from the life of Taliesin, the great bard whose life in sixth-century Wales has been immortalized in legend.
At first Jen doesn't believe him, but when the key's existence -- and its strange properties -- become known to the wider world, the Morgans must act together against a threat to the key The perfect book for the Christmas season. It is Midwinter's Eve, the night before Will's eleventh birthday. But there is an atmosphere of fear in the familiar countryside around him. Will is about to make a shocking discovery - that he is the last person to be born with the power of the Old Ones, and as a guardian of the Light he must begin a dangerous journey to vanquish the terrifyingly evil magic of the Dark.
Rather like Korea itself. Kristof, New York Times Book Review Korea has endured a "fractured, shattered twentieth century," and this updated edition brings Bruce Cumings's leading history of the modern era into the present.
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