Читать книгу The Secret Dispatch; or, The Adventures of Captain Balgonie онлайн

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His silver hair was simply tied behind with a black ribbon; in his hand he carried a little cap of black wolf's fur, adorned by rudely set jewels; he wore a queerly cut coat of dark red cloth trimmed with fur, and wore breeches of the same stuff, and lacked but a dagger and pistols with brass Turkish butts at his girdle, to seem what he really was, in disposition and character, a type of the boyar of the old school, who preferred quass to champagne, ate his pancakes with caviare, and was proud of being a specimen of the old Russian noble, as he existed in the time of Peter the Great, when his class first united some of the vices and luxuries of Western Europe to their native lawlessness and hardy ferocity.

Such was Count Mierowitz.

"When did you last see my son?" he asked, in tone more of authority than of anxious inquiry.

"Some three months since, Excellency: he has been detached on the Livonian frontier."

"And you, Captain—"

"I am proceeding on urgent imperial service from Novgorod where my regiment is stationed in the old palace of the Czars."