Читать книгу The Mate of the Good Ship York; Or, The Ship's Adventure онлайн

31 страница из 44

Hardy stared at his father's house as they drove past, always in darkness on this side, but he knew there would be lights in the windows which overlooked the grounds that sank toward the river.

The house Captain Armstrong lived in was two miles further on round the corner, and made one of about a dozen little villas and cottages, including a church and a public-house. It was a very small cottage, thatched; but its sun-bright windows, its handsome door and brass knocker—the taste, in short of the man who had built it in years gone by—made it very fit for the occupation of a gentleman. It was sunk deep in a broad piece of garden land, and the apple-trees, whose boughs were laden, scented the still night air refreshingly.

"Here we be," said Bax, drawing up, and the sailor sprang off the cart, and walked down the path to the door with the brass knocker.

He hammered briskly, and tugged at a metal knob which shivered a little bell into ecstasies of alarm. A small dog barked shrilly with terror and hate, and in a minute the door was opened by a servant, past whom the small dog fled, and tried to marry his teeth in Hardy's right boot. A kick rushed the little beast back into the passage, and Hardy said to the servant, "I have called for Miss Armstrong's trunk."