Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read this ebook for free! No credit card needed, absolutely nothing to pay.
Words: 64915 in 42 pages
This is an ebook sharing website. You can read the uploaded ebooks for free here. No credit cards needed, nothing to pay. If you want to own a digital copy of the ebook, or want to read offline with your favorite ebook-reader, then you can choose to buy and download the ebook.
XL. BY THE HAMMER POND 262
L. MOVE ON 327
THE BROOM-SQUIRE
AT THE SIGN OF THE SHIP.
On a September evening, before the setting of the sun, a man entered the tavern of the Ship in Thursley, with a baby under his arm.
The tavern sign, rudely painted, bore, besides a presentment of a vessel, the inscription on one side of the board:--
"Now before the hill you climb, Come and drink good ale and wine."
On the other side of the board the legend was different. It ran thus:--
"Now the hill you're safely over, Drink, your spirits to recover."
The tavern stood on the high-road side between Godalming and Portsmouth; that is to say the main artery of communication between London and Portsmouth.
After rising out of the rich overshadowed weald land, the road had crossed long sandy wastes, where population was sparse, where were no enclosures, no farms, only scattered Scottish firs; and in front rose the stately ridge of sandstone that culminates in Hind Head and Leith Hill. It was to prepare the wayfarer for a scramble to the elevation of a little over nine hundred feet that he was invited to "drink good ale and wine," or, if he were coming from the opposite direction was called upon to congratulate himself in a similar manner on having over-passed this ridge. The wayfarer with the baby under his arm came from the Godalming side. He looked up at the sign, which appealed at once to his heart, for he was obviously a sailor, no less than did the invitation commend itself to his condition.
He entered, tumbled the baby on to the tavern table that was marked with wet rings from beer cans, and upset a saucer containing fly poison, and said, with a sigh of relief--
Free books android app tbrJar TBR JAR Read Free books online gutenberg
(0)More posts by @FreeBooks
