The Riddle of the Sands

Excerpt: ... send you a warp.' It was impossible to refuse, but a sense of being personally conducted again oppressed me; and the last hope of a bed in the inn vanished. Davies was none too effusive either. A tug meant a pilot, and he had had enough of them. 'He objects to towage on principle, ' I said. 'Just like him!' laughed the other. 'That's settled, then!' A dogcart was standing before the inn door in readiness for von Bruning. I was curious about Esens and his business there. Esens, he said, was the principal town of the district, four miles inland. 'I have to go there, ' he volunteered, 'about a poaching case