Grim4i: переводы

→He suddenly began to sprint towards the house, and at that moment the fisherman looked up from his mending and came to his feet. His hair was white and he looked quite old. I saw then that my master wasn't running towards the woman; his target was the fisherman. But the dogs were. The woman looked up, dropped her washing, pulled her skirts above her knees and began to run towards the distant sea.

→'Well, let's see what's what,' Arkwright growled, giving a low whistle. Immediately both dogs bounded forward. 'Don't worry, Master Ward,' he continued. 'They're well-trained. If she's human, they won't so much as lick her!'

→Once clear of the hamlet, I saw a solitary cottage in the distance, and on a small hillock behind it, saw a man mending his nets. In front, on the edge of the sands, a washing line stretched from a metal hook in the wall by the front door to a wooden post. Clothes flapped on only half of the line. A woman came out of the cottage carrying an armful of wet clothes and a handful of pegs and started to hang out her washing.

→Soon we passed through a small hamlet of seven or so houses where the faint stink of rotten fish tainted the air. There were fishing nets and a couple of small boats in view but no sign of any people. Not even a twitch of lace curtains. They must have seen Arkwright coming and knew to stay indoors.

→'Not directly,' he answered. 'They're like humans in that respect — they can go either way.'

→'Does a selkie belong to the dark?' I asked.

→He shook his head without looking at me. 'Their only real power is to shift their shape,' he replied morosely. 'Once in human shape, they can revert back in minutes if threatened.'

→'Do selkies have any powers?' I asked. 'Do they use dark magic?'

→We left the canal, heading west towards the coast, and soon a level expanse of flat, light-brown sand came into view. The day was chilly — there was no warmth in the sun, although it was sparkling on the distant sea. Giving the wolfhounds a wide berth, I moved up to walk at Arkwright's side. I was curious and had questions to ask.

→I didn't like the sound of this job at all and, hard though he seemed, Arkwright clearly wasn't happy about it either. In one respect, a selkie reminded me of a lamia — they could also shape-shift slowly into human form. I thought of Meg, the lamia witch my master once loved. How would he have felt if someone had gone after her with dogs? No better than the fisherman would feel when we went after his wife. My mam was probably a lamia too, just like her sisters, and I knew how my dad would feel if she were hunted down like this. The whole situation made me feel bad. If the fisherman's wife did no harm, why did she have to be hunted?