Fiction > Book editions > London, 1886 - Prince Otto

A ROMANCE 11
ends of Europe, there skirting the sea-surge,
here gleaming in the lights of cities ; and the
innumerable army of tramps and travellers
moved upon it in all lands as by a common
impulse, and were now in all places drawing
near to the inn door and the night's rest. The
pictures swarmed and vanished in his brain ;
a surge of temptation, a beat of all his blood,
went over him, to set spur to the mare and to
go on into the unknown for ever. And then
it passed away ; hunger and fatigue, and that
habit of middling actions which we call common
sense, resumed their empire ; and in that changed
mood, his eye lighted upon two bright windows
on his left hand, between the road and river.
He turned off by a by-road, and in a few
minutes he was knocking with his whip on the
door of a large farmhouse, and a chorus of dogs
from the farmyard were making angry answer.
Avery tall, old, white-headed man came, shading
a candle, at the summons. He had been of great
strength in his time, and of a handsome counten-
ance ; but now he was fallen away, his teeth
were quite gone, and his voice when he spoke
was broken and falsetto.
4 You will pardon me,' said Otto. ' I am a
traveller and have entirely lost my way.'
4 Sir,' said the old man, in a very stately,
shaky manner, ' you are at the Eiver Farm,