True Tilda by Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
page 44 of 375 (11%)
page 44 of 375 (11%)
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Yes, it was 'Dolph, dirty, begrimed with coal; 'Dolph fawning towards her, cringing almost on his belly, but wagging his stump of a tail ecstatically. Tilda dashed upon him. "Oh, 'Dolph!--_how?_" The dog strangled down a bark, and ran back to the glass-house, but paused in the doorway a moment to make sure that she was following. It was all right. Tilda had caught the boy's hand, and was dragging him along. 'Dolph led them through the glass-house and down a flight of four steps to the broken door of a furnace-room. They pushed after him. Behind the furnace a second doorway opened upon a small coal-cellar, through the ceiling of which, in the right-hand corner, poured a circular ray of light. The ray travelled down a moraine of broken coal, so broad at the base that it covered the whole cellar floor, but narrowing upwards and towards the manhole through which the daylight shone. Down through the manhole, too--O bliss!--came the sound of a man's whistle. "_Ph'ut! Phee-ee--uht!_ Darn that fool of a dog! _Ph'w_--" "For the Lord's sake!" called Tilda, pushing the boy up the coal-shute ahead of her and panting painfully as her feet sank and slid in the black pile. "Eh? . . . Hullo!" A man's face peered down, shutting off the daylight. "Well, in all my born days--" |
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