the supervisor gave the word
I thanked him heartily for the offer, and we walked back to the hamlet where the horses were. By the time I had told mother of my purpose they were all in the saddle.
`Dogger,’ said Mr Dance, `you have a good horse; take up this lad behind you.’
As soon as I was mounted, holding on to Dogger’s belt, the supervisor gave the word, and the party struck out at a bouncing trot on the road to Dr Livesey’s house.
WE rode hard all the way, till we drew up before Dr Livesey’s door. The house was all dark to the front. Mr Dance told me to jump down and knock, and Dogger gave me a stirrup to descend by. The door was opened almost at once by the maid.
`Is Dr Livesey in?’ I asked.
No, she said; he had come home in the afternoon, but had gone up to the Hall to dine and pass the evening with the squire.
`So there we go, boys,’ said Mr Dance.
This time, as the distance was short, I did not mount, but ran with Dogger’s stirrup-leather to the lodge gates, and the long, leafless, moonlit avenue to where the white line of the Hall buildings looked on either hand on great old gardens Here Mr Dance dismounted, and, taking me along with him was admitted at a word into the house.
The servant led us down a matted passage, and showed us at the end into a great library, all lined with bookcases a busts upon the top of them, where the squire and Dr Livesey sat, pipe in hand, on either side of a bright fire.
I had never seen the squire so near at hand. He was a t; man, over six feet high, and broad in proportion, and he had a bluff, rough-and-ready face, all roughened and redden’ and lined in his long travels. His eyebrows were very black and moved readily, and this gave him a look of some tempt not bad, you would say, but quick and high.
`Come in, Mr Dance,’ says he, very stately and condescending.
`Good-evening, Dance,’ says the doctor, with a nod. `And good-evening to you, friend Jim. What good wind brings you here?’
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