Page:Tales of my landlord (Volume 4).djvu/241

 the kitchen that's at Milnwood now—and I'll come down t'ye, and whate'er ye wad say to Mistress Wilson ye may very safely tell it to me."

A stranger might have had some difficulty, notwithstanding the minuteness of the directions supplied by Ailie, to pilot himself in safety through the dark labyrinth of passages that led from the backdoor to the little kitchen, but Henry was too well acquainted with the navigation of these streights to experience danger, either from the Seylla which lurked on one side in shape of a bucking-tub, or the Charybdis which yawned on the other in the profundity of a winding cellar-stair. His only impediment arose from the snarling and vehement barking of a small cocking spaniel, once his own property, but which, unlike to the faithful Argus, saw his master return from his wanderings without any symptom of recognition.

"The little dogs and all!" said Morten to himself, on being disowned by his form-