The Gentleman Author:Alfred Ollivant Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ears, a flapping mane, and before him a tumble of old roofs; while beyond in the harbour, the spars of a sloop of war pricked the evening. Clear of the little... more » town huddling on the hillside, he drove along the bank of the slow green river, flogging still. One thing was clear: the grey was dead-beat. He was roaring like a furnace, and straight as a rail from tail to muzzle. Black and white with sweat, he jerked along at a terrible toppling stagger. Only those vice-like legs and hands plucking, plucking, kept body and soul together. Where the river widened, and the sea gleamed misty across the harbour-mouth, as though he knew his mission was fulfilled, up went his head, and he fell in thundering ruin. Where he fell he lay, lank-necked. The tail twitched once; the body trembled; the great heart broke. CHAPTER II THE GALLOPING GENT A Boat had just put off from the bank, a tall lad steering. The great red horseman, strangely active for so huge a man, flung himself clear of his horse, snatched a pistol from a holster, and came floundering down the cobbled river-bank, his coat-tails floating. "Put back, sir!" he bellowed in husky fury. "Put back, my God! or I'll fire." He was standing, the water to his tops, with heaving shoulders. "Don't shout; don't shoot; and don't swear," replied a voice, pure as a lady's. "And perhaps I'll oblige." The boy edged the boat into the bank. The huge fellow, in too great a hurry to wait, floundered out, clutched her by the stern, and scrambled in. "My God, sir!" he panted, thrusting a dripping face into the boy's. "D'you know who you're a-talking to? — I'm a ridin-ofiker on Government business." "And d'you know who you're a-talkin to?" replied the boy, cold as the other was hot. "I'm a King's officer on King's b...« less