Pommers

Nigel waited with Pommers under the shadow of the nunnery wall, horse and man chafing with impatience, whilst above them six round-eyed innocent nun-faces looked down on this strange and disturbing vision from the outer world.

Sir Nigel Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir, 1859-1930 1906

Pommers broke through the sapling grove and was out on the broad stretch of Hankley Down.

Sir Nigel Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir, 1859-1930 1906

Nigel, still at his place near Chandos 'elbow, was hotly attacked by a short broad-shouldered warrior upon a stout white cob, but Pommers reared with pawing fore feet and dashed the smaller horse to the ground.

Sir Nigel Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir, 1859-1930 1906

He staggered to his feet, seized Pommers by the mane, and swung himself into the saddle.

Sir Nigel Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir, 1859-1930 1906

The two comrades had just emerged from the Chantry woods and were beginning the ascent of that curving path which leads upward to the old Chapel of the Martyr when with a hiss like an angry snake a long white arrow streaked under Pommers and struck quivering in the grassy turf.

Sir Nigel Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir, 1859-1930 1906

Nigel tethered Pommers to a thorn-bush and then turned his attention to the injured man.

Sir Nigel Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir, 1859-1930 1906

In passing he had struck Pommers from beneath, and the great horse, enraged and insulted, was rearing high, with two men hanging to his bridle.

Sir Nigel Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir, 1859-1930 1906

A full month has passed from the day when Nigel received his letter before he stood upon the quay-side of the Garonne amid the stacked barrels of Gascon wine and helped to lead Pommers down the gang-planks.

Sir Nigel Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir, 1859-1930 1906

Nigel looked at it with a wary eye and spurred Pommers onward as he passed it, for still it was said that wild fires danced round it on the moonless nights, and they who had ears for such things could hear the scream and sob of those whose lives had been ripped from them that the fiend might be honored.

Sir Nigel Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir, 1859-1930 1906

Through the deep heather, down the gullies, over the watercourses, up the broken slopes, Pommers flew, his great heart bursting with rage, and every fiber quivering at the indignities which he had endured.

Sir Nigel Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir, 1859-1930 1906