Читать книгу The House of Spies онлайн

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"Don't stand and stare, you fool! Do you think I'm going to let these gentry go without a gallop! I may follow them up if I can't bring them to action."

In ten minutes Devil Dick was prancing sideways through the gateway, carrying a bare-headed, bare-legged man with a pistol in each pocket. A good square jaw, blue eyes, and a firm mouth are the points of a youngster who does not fawn upon fate. Jasper Benham had been an impudent young cub, a little laughing, keen-eyed imp who had been whacked and cuffed into a sturdy, determined, brown-faced man.

Jasper drew Devil Dick on to the grass and listened. The night was still, with a gibbous moon sailing away up yonder, and a vague, inconstant breeze murmuring occasionally in the trees and hedgerows. Rush Heath House stood black and huge at Jasper's back. He listened to a faint galloping rhythm coming like the noise of a stream running in the distance. The moonlight shone on the deep-set eyes under the square brows.

"Tsst—Dick—on—lad."

They started away through the paddock, and over the furze-covered slopes of Rush Heath, the big black horse swinging smoothly between Jasper's knees. Stones clinked in the road. The stunted thorns rushed by, stretching out warning hands. In the damp places the rush tufts splintered the moonlight like silver wires. The further woods were very black upon the hillsides, and the fresh smell of the spring night was tinged with the scent of the sea.