H. C. Bailey

“ O'Connor went out in a hurry and Harry followed him. "I'll join you, if you please, Mr. O'Connor."
O'Connor laughed. "Oh, your servant, your servant. No offence, Mr. Boyce. I profess I have an admiration for you. But, faith, you are not a man of war. Do you go round to the stable-yard, now, and watch there to see they prepare nothing against us from the back." He bustled off, calling up his fellows.
So Harry, with a long face, I suppose, drifted away to the back of the house. The coach was already moving out of the yard, and he saw no sign of his father's legion. ”

“ He bore his father a grudge for being publicly a knave: a man who had received nothing from his parents but the gift of birth might fairly demand that they should not bother him with their rogueries. He did not extenuate his father's share in the catastrophe of the marriage. Perhaps it was in itself fated to miscarry, but if Colonel Boyce had not mixed up his affairs with it, the end need not have been ignominious. Harry vigorously condemned the old gentleman's meddling. ”

“ A little farther on he abandoned his wagon and, buying bread and cheese at a farm, made his dinner under the hedge. It was a long while before he saw anything more of the gentlemen of the inn, and lying among primroses and cowslips he nearly forgot all about them and his excitement and his wonderful tactics. He was, in fact, becoming sentimental, and had made three neat hendecasyllabics to the cowslips when the gentlemen came out again. They split into pairs and marched on briskly. Harry went through the hedge, and from behind it he watched them pass. ”

“ He had hardly knocked before he was being inspected through a peep-hole. The door was opened and instantly shut behind him. He was in darkness dimly lit by one candle. The windows had their shutters closed and barred.
"What's your will, sir?" says the man who let him in. ”