Explore "The Crooked Stick" by Rolf Boldrewood on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Before the young man made his way into the stable-yard, Pollie meanwhile retreating to her mother's room, the strange horseman had hung up his steed to a post and followed Mr. Gateward to the barracks, in the sitting-room of which unpretending but useful adjunct to the mansion proper Mr. Devereux found them in earnest conclave. They stopped speaking when he entered. The stranger looked searchingly at the young Englishman, who decided, after encountering the keen grey eye and marking the resolute face and wiry, athletic frame, that no ordinary man was before him.
Gateward, after looking round carefully, began in a tone of solemnity and mysterious import. 'Mr. Devereux, this is Sergeant Herne, stationed at Warban, but now on duty out of uniform, for reasons as you'll understand. He's on the track of the men we've heard on. ' The stranger saluted in military style, and Bertram instinctively returned the courtesy in like form. 'And bad news he've heard, I'm afraid,' continued Mr. Gateward.