Page:Quiller-Couch--Old fires and profitable ghosts.djvu/267

Rh But, I must own, this avenue daunted me, as a frame altogether too lordly for a mere limping pedestrian. And therefore I was relieved, as I drew near, to catch the sound of voices behind the shrubberies on my right hand. This determined me to take the house in flank, and I diverged and pushed my way between the laurels in search of the speakers.

"A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse! Lobelia, how many horses has your father in stable? Red, white, or grey?"

"One, Miss Wilhelmina; an' that's old Sentry-go, and father says he'll have to go to the knacker's before another winter."

"Then he shall carry me there on his back: with rings on my fingers and bells on my toes—

—especially, Lobelia, when she alighted and sat upon the ground and began to tell them sad stories of the death of kings. But they cut off Sentry-go's head and nailed it over the gate. So he died, and she very imprudently married the master knacker, who had heard she was an heiress in her own right, and wanted to decorate his coat-of-arms with an escutcheon of pretence; and besides, his doctor had recommended a complete change"—

"Law, miss, how you do run on!"