United States or Botswana ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
They knew that he was warmly attached to the count, and that he could be relied upon in an emergency. As they had full permission to take the horses or carriage whenever they pleased, they now went to the stable and told the coachman that they should like to go for a drive in the sledge, as the weather showed signs of breaking, and the snow would probably shortly disappear.
All of which accounts for the infamous order roared five minutes later by the distinguished nobleman to his coachman, who, having known her ladyship from a child and loved her accordingly, had not set her down on the main road, but had taken her to a cottage on an adjoining estate her second change of roofs from whence Dalton carried her off next day to Ostend, a refuge she had herself selected, the season there being then at its height.
He suspected that Woods, the coachman, was not looking after the horses and harnesses as well as he should, that the newspaper carrier was getting negligent in his delivery of the papers, that the furnace man was wasting coal, or was not giving them enough heat. A score of little petty worries, which were nevertheless real enough to him. He knew how a house should be kept.
Here may be found his grace's coachman, and here his lordship's groom, who keeps a book and bleeds periodically too speculative footmen, by betting odds on his master's horses. But, above all, it is in this district that the cooks have ever sought a favourite and elegant abode.
But for Luck, in the shape of a well-to-do cab proprietor, as great an idiot as myself I might have done it. The third was a chorus girl: on the whole, the best of the bunch. Her father was a coachman, and she had ten brothers and sisters, most of them doing well in service.
When we got outside, I held the body up, so as to deceive the coachman, and said: 'Come, my friend; it is nothing; you feel better already, I expect. Pluck up your courage, and make an attempt. It will soon be over. But as I felt that he was slipping out of my hands, I gave him a slap on the shoulder, which sent him forward and made him fall into the carriage, and then I got in after him.
Then, the negro pointing the way to the closed carriage, the group separated to left and right, the stranger passed through to the carriage, and the picture, and with it my odd mental impression, dissolved. The negro lifted two or three heavy bags to the coachman, gave the transfer man some baggage-checks, and the equipage moved away toward the hotel.
What with the uniform, the cannon, and the coachman, I began to feel like an ambassador to a potentate with a standing army. Here the General reappeared, bearing in his august hands a decanter and a pitcher.
Next morning, rousing in the indolence of a bed hung with curtains of Indian pattern, Mike said to the footman who brought in his hot water "Tell the coachman that I shall go out riding after breakfast." "What horse will you ride, sir?" "I don't know what horses you have in the stable."
"Go on home, Jordan," he said to the coachman; "I'll walk." And he strode out into the darkening lanes, caution and the desire of possession playing see-saw within him. 'Bon soir, monsieur! How softly she had said it. To know what was in her mind! The French they were like cats one could tell nothing! But how pretty! What a perfect young thing to hold in one's arms! What a mother for his heir!
Word Of The Day