Читать книгу LORD TONY'S WIFE: Scarlet Pimpernel Saga - Emma Orczy - Страница 15

Table of Contents

The travellers, after some difference of opinion with their respective horses, contrived to pull up and to dismount without any untoward accident. The stranger looked about him, peering into the darkness. The place indeed appeared dismal and inhospitable enough: its solitary aspect suggested footpads and the abode of cut-throats. The silence of the moor, the pall of mist and gloom that hung over upland and valley sent a shiver through his spine.

"You are sure this is the place?" he queried.

"Can't ye zee the zign?" retorted the other gruffly.

"Can you hold the horses while I go in?"

"I doan't know as 'ow I can, Mounzeer. I've never 'eld two 'orzes all at once. Suppose they was to start kickin' or thought o' runnin' away?"

"Running away, you fool!" muttered the stranger, whose temper had evidently suffered grievously during the weary, cold journey from Chelwood. "I'll break your satané head if anything happens to the beasts. How can I get back to Bath save the way I came? Do you think I want to spend the night in this God-forsaken hole?"

Without waiting to hear any further protests from the lout, he turned into the porch and with his riding whip gave three consecutive raps against the door of the inn, followed by two more. The next moment there was the sound of a rattling of bolts and chains, the door was cautiously opened and a timid voice queried:

"Is it Mounzeer?"

"Pardieu! Who else?" growled the stranger. "Open the door, woman. I am perished with cold."

With an unceremonious kick he pushed the door further open and strode in. A woman was standing in the dimly lighted passage. As the stranger walked in she bobbed him a respectful curtsey.

"It is all right, Mounzeer," she said; "the Captain's in the coffee-room. He came over from Bristol early this afternoon."

"No one else here, I hope," he queried curtly.

"No one, zir. It ain't their hour not yet. You'll 'ave the 'ouse to yourself till after midnight. After that there'll be a bustle, I reckon. Two shiploads come into Watchet last night — brandy and cloth, Mounzeer, so the Captain says, and worth a mint o' money. The pack 'orzes will be through yere in the small hours."

"That's all right, then. Send me in a bite and a mug of hot ale."

"I'll see to it, Mounzeer."

"And stay — have you some sort of stabling where the man can put the two horses up for an hour's rest?"

"Aye, aye, zir."

"Very well then, see to that too: and see that the horses get a feed and a drink and give the man something to eat."

"Very good, Mounzeer. This way, zir. I'll see the man presently. Straight down the passage, zir. The coffee-room is on the right. The Captain's there, waiting for ye."

She closed the front door carefully, then followed the stranger to the door of the coffee-room. Outside an anxious voice was heard muttering a string of inconsequent and wholly superfluous "Whoa's!" Of a truth the two wearied nags were only too anxious for a little rest.