英语小说网

Cunningham had spent an agreeable week in the country with his friend Van Cheele. Now Van Cheele was driving his guest back to the station. Cunningham was unusually quiet on the journey, but Van Cheele talked all the time, so he did not notice his friend's silence.

"What did you mean about a wild animal?" asked Van Cheele later, at the station.

"A wild animal? A few rabbits, perhaps. Nothing very terrible, surely," said Van Cheele. Cunningham said nothing.

During his walk Van Cheele came to a deep pool under some tall trees. He knew it well: after all, it was his pool. But today, he saw a boy of about sixteen lying on a large rock beside the pool. The boy was drying his wet, naked brown body in the sun. His hair was wet too, and he had long, golden, wolfish eyes. He turned those eyes towards Van Cheele with a look of lazy watchfulness.

"Nothing. It was my imagination. Here is the train," said Cunningham.

Suddenly Cunningham spoke. "There is a wild animal in your woods," he said.

That afternoon Van Cheele went for a walk through his woods. He knew a little about plants and animals, and he enjoyed walking through the woods around his house and looking at the birds and flowers there. He also enjoyed telling everyone about them afterwards. Of course, he never saw anything very surprising -- until that afternoon.

"Meat," said the boy. He opened his mouth, showing very white teeth.

"What are you doing here?" asked Van Cheele.

"But where do you sleep at night?"

"Here, in these woods."

"You can't live in these woods." said Van Cheele.

"Well, if you must know, I eat rabbits, wild birds, chickens from the farm and young sheep from the hills. I like children when I can find them. But they're usually too well locked in at night. It's two months since I tasted child meat."

"They are very nice woods," said the boy politely.

"Where do you live?"

"I don't sleep at night. That's my busiest time."

Van Cheele began to feel cross. What did the boy mean?

"Meat? What kind of meat?"

"What do you eat?" he asked.

"Enjoying the sunshine, of course," said the boy.

Van Cheele was surprised to see the boy. Where does this wild-looking boy come from? he thought. Can he be the miller's son? He disappeared two months ago. People say he fell into the river. It's a fast-running river, and nobody ever found his body. I wonder? But the miller's boy was only a young child…

The boy is joking about the children, thought Van Cheele. But perhaps he really is stealing animals from the woods and farms. I must find out more about this.

"At night I hunt on four feet," was the boy's surprising reply.

"You mean that you hunt with a dog?" guessed Van Cheele.

Van Cheele thought about his quiet, tidy house. No, he did not want this strange, wild boy at all. Of course, the boy was joking…but Van Cheele was not amused.

"I don't think any dog would like to hunt with me," the boy said. "Not at night…"

"Very well then -- shall I come and live in your house?" replied the boy.

There is something horrible about this boy, thought Van Cheele. I don't like the way he looks and I don't like the way he talks.

The boy sat up suddenly and laughed a strange, low laugh. To Van Cheele that laugh sounded horribly like a growl.

Aloud he said, "You catch rabbits? You must be joking. Our rabbits are much too fast for you."

"I can't let you stay in my woods," he said aloud.

"If you don't go away," he said, "I shall have to call the police."

"What an extraordinarily wild animal!" said Van Cheele as he picked himself up. And then he remembered Cunning ham's words about a wild animal in his woods.

As he walked slowly home, Van Cheele thought about several things which had happened in and around the village recently. Perhaps this boy knows something about them, he thought…Something has been killing rabbits and birds in the woods lately. Something has been stealing the farmer's chickens and carrying off the young sheep from the hills. Is it possible that this wild boy is hunting at night with a fast, intelligent dog? The boy talked of hunting on four feet at night…But he also said that dogs did not like to hunt with him at night…Very strange indeed.

At once the boy turned and jumped head-first into the pool. A moment later, his shining, wet body landed half-way up the grassy bank where Van Cheele was standing. Van Cheele stepped backwards. His foot slipped on the wet grass and he fell. He found himself lying on the grass with those wolfish yellow eyes uncomfortably near to his. He felt a moment of horrible fear. The boy laughed again, a laugh that was like the growl of a wild animal, then disappeared among the bushes.

As Van Cheele walked along, he turned the questions over and over in his head. Suddenly he stopped. The miller's son! he said to himself. The child disappeared two months ago. Everyone thought that he had fallen into the river and been carried away. But the child's mother did not believe this. She said she had heard a scream -- and the scream came from the hill, a long way away from the water.

It's impossible, of course, said Van Cheele to himself. But the child disappeared two months ago, and the boy talked about child meat. He was joking, of course…but what a horrible joke!

Van Cheele usually talked to his aunt about the birds, plants and animals he saw on his walks. But today he said nothing. He was an important man in his village. If there was a thief living in his woods, he did not want anyone to know. If people hear about the boy, he thought, perhaps they will want me to pay for their lost chickens and their disappearing sheep.

He was unusually quiet at dinner. "What's the matter with you?" joked his aunt. "Did you see a wolf on your walk?"

As Van Cheele entered the sitting-room, the song died on his lips and his dog ran away with his tail between his legs. There on the day-bed, with his hands comfortably behind his head, lay the boy from the woods. He was drier than yesterday, but he was still naked.

After he had decided this, Van Cheele felt better. He sang a happy little song as he walked to the sitting-room for his morning cigarette. His fat old dog walked beside him.

At breakfast the next morning Van Cheele realized that he still felt uncomfortable about yesterday's adventure. I know what I'll do, he said to himself. I'll take the train to London and I'll go and see Cunningham. I'll ask him If he was joking when he said there was a wild animal in my woods.

"You told me I couldn't stay in the woods," said the boy calmly.

"What are you doing here? asked Van Cheele angrily.

"But I didn't tell you to come here. What if my aunt sees you? What will she think?"

Van Cheele hurriedly covered his unwanted guest's nakedness with a newspaper. At that moment his aunt entered the room.

Soon the boy was clean and tidy, and dressed in shirt, trousers and shoes. Van Cheele thought he looked just as strange and wolfish as before. But Miss Van Chee1e thought he was sweet.

Miss Van Cheele was very interested. "Perhaps his name is on his underclothes," she said.

"This is a poor boy," explained Van Cheele quickly. "He has lost his way -- and lost his memory too. He doesn't know who he is, or where he comes from."

"He has lost his underclothes too," said Van Cheele. The newspaper was slipping off the boy's naked body. Van Cheele hurried to replace it.

"We must help him," she said. She sent the housekeeper to a neighbour's house to borrow some clothes.

Miss Van Cheele was a kind old lady. She felt sorry for this naked, helpless child.

"We must give him a name until we know who he really is," she said. "Gabriel Ernest, I think. Those are nice, suitable names."

Van Cheele agreed. But he was not sure that the boy was a nice, suitable boy. Van Cheele's old dog, when he saw the boy, had run away in fear and would not come back into the house. Van Cheele decided to go and see Cunningham at once.

"Gabriel Ernest will help me with the little ones," she said happily.

When Van Cheele got to London, Cunningham did not want to talk at first. You'll think I'm crazy," he said.

"I saw something -- something unbelievable. On the last evening of my visit to you I was standing half-hidden in the bushes, watching the sun go down. Suddenly I noticed a naked boy. He has been swimming in a pool somewhere, I said to myself. He was standing on the hillside and he too was watching the sun go down. Then the sun disappeared behind the hill and its light was gone. At the same moment a very surprising thing happened -- the boy disappeared too."

"What? He disappeared just like that?" said Van Cheele excitedly.

As he got ready to go to the station, his aunt was busily arranging a children's tea party in the church hall.

"No. It was much more horrible than that. On the open hillside where the boy had been, I saw a large, blackish-grey wolf with long white teeth and yellow eyes. You'll think I'm crazy --"

"But what did you see?" asked Van Cheele.

His aunt was putting away some uneaten cakes and sandwiches when he arrived.

But Van Cheele did not wait. He was running towards the station as fast as he could. He did not know what he could do. I can't send my aunt a message, he thought. What can I say? Gabriel Ernest is a werewolf"? My aunt will think I'm joking. I MUST get home before sundown.

"Where is Gabriel Ernest?" screamed Van Cheele.

"He's taking little Jack Toop home," said his aunt calmly. "It was getting so late. I didn't want to send the dear little boy home alone. Isn't the sky beautiful this evening?"

He caught his train. With painful slowness it carried him to the station a few miles from his home. He took a taxi to his village.

"Take me to the church hall -- and hurry!" he ordered. The taxi drove along the quiet country roads, and the sky turned pink and purple as the sun got lower and lower in the west.

But Van Cheele had no time to talk about the beautiful sky. He ran like the wind down the narrow road that went to the Toops' house. On one side was the fast-running river, on the other was the dark hillside. In a minute I'll catch up with them, Van Cheele thought.

Then the sun went down behind the hill and the whole world became grey and cold. Van Cheele heard a short scream of fear, and he knew he was too late.

Nobody ever saw little Jack Toop or Gabrid Ernest again. Gabriel Ernest's clothes were found lying in the road.

Mrs Toop had eleven other children and did not cry too long for her lost son. But Miss Van Cheele was terribly sad about Gabriel Ernest.

"He must have a memorial in the church," she said. She chose the words herself:

Van Cheele usually did what his aunt wanted. But he refused to give any money at all for Gabriel Ernest's memorial.

GABRIEL ERNEST, AN UNKNOWN BOY

WHO BRAVELY GAVE HIS LIFE FOR ANOTHER.

"Poor littler Jack fell into the river," said Miss Van Cheele. "And dear Gabriel Ernest took off his clothes and jumped into the river to try to save him."