Читать книгу The House of Spies онлайн

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"Four horses, Parson; four blazing, burning, heaven-forsaken beasts pinched by eternally accursed, skunk-livered, black-mouthed thieves! My lad shot in the arm, too, and abed, with old Blister of Battle running up a bill! Tell me to be an addle-brained, pond-waterweed of a Christian! Grrrh!"

The great thing about Parson Goffin was his gout. He was a knobbly man, the colour of leather, and he always sat with his knees drawn up and his bumpy feet tucked away under his chair as though he dreaded having them trodden on. Goffin might have been in the habit of using Cayenne pepper in place of snuff, for his nose looked so angry. Gout had made him explosive, yet this explosiveness suited the neighbourhood. It threw him into sympathy with his surroundings, and made him popular with the hot-tongued squires and farmers. Goffin was the very man for a grievance. He took it as a dog takes a rat, crunched it, shook it to and fro, not indeed to kill, but out of sympathy for the aggrieved friend.

"They will catch the rogues, sir; catch them and hang them."