United States or Wallis and Futuna ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"I am not the visitor whom you expect," continued Wogan, "nor do I bring the news which you would wish to hear;" and at that she raised a trembling hand. "I beg you a moment's silence. Then I will hear you, Mr. Warner." She made a sort of stumbling run and reached a couch. Wogan shut the door and waited. He was glad that she had used the name of Warner.
"Why, it has a sign-board already," said Wogan, "and a name, too, I suppose." "It has a sign-board, but without a device," said the landlord, and while Wogan drew a chair to the table he explained his predicament. "There is another inn five miles along the road, and travellers prefer to make their halt there. They will not stop here. My father, sir, set it all down to paint.
The old man, with a word to his hound, opened the window. "Who is it?" he asked, and with a thrill not of fear but of expectation in his voice. "A man wounded and in sore straits for his life, who would gladly sit for a few minutes by your fire before he goes upon his way." The old man stood aside, and Wogan entered the room.
The story of the Chevalier and Maria Vittoria had a strong parallel in Clementina's own history. Circumstance and duty held them apart, as it held apart Clementina and Wogan himself.
"Courage, madam," said he, as he crossed the room; "she goes to wed a king." "Sir, I am her mother," replied the Princess, gaining at this moment a suitable dignity from her tears. "I was wondering not of the King, but of the man the King conceals." "You need not, madam," said Wogan, who had no time for eulogies upon his master. "Take his servant's loyalty as the measure of his merits."
He had not locked the door of his room; that widening strip of black ran vertically down from the lintel to the ground and between the white door and the white door frame. The door was being cautiously pushed open; the strip of black was the darkness of the passage coming through. Wogan slid his hand beneath his pillow, and drew the knife from its sheath as silently as the door opened.
No noise came to their ears but the brawling of the torrent. That, however, filled the room, drowning all the natural murmurs of the night. "Indeed, one would not hear a company of soldiers," said Clementina. She crossed to the window. "Yet you heard my step, and it waked you," said Wogan, as he followed her. "I listened for it in my sleep," said she.
"Oh, I knew," answered Wogan, suddenly. "Look at me! Did you ever see eyes so heavy with want of sleep, a face so worn by it, a body so jerked upon strings like a showman's puppet? Write, I tell you! We who serve the King are trained to wakefulness. Write! I am in haste!" "Yet your King does not reign!" said the man, wonderingly, and he wrote.
"Madam," said the landlord, unabashed, "in this district he is nicknamed the water drinker." "You know him, then? He is Italian?" "He is more. He is of Tuscany." The landlord had never seen Wogan in his life before, but the lady seemed to wish some assurance on the point, so he gave it. He shut the carriage door, and Wogan cracked his whip.
'Yet when I consider this envelope in the handwriting of one of those misguided gentlemen who are now in arms against their country, and the verses which it enclosed, I cannot but find some analogy between the enterprise I have mentioned and the exploit of Wogan, which the writer seems to expect you should imitate.
Word Of The Day