A Set of Rogues: Namely Christopher Sutton, John Dawson, the Señor Don Sanchez Del Castillo De Castelaña and Moll Dawson; Their Wicked Conspiracy, and a True Account of Their Travels and AdventuresBarrett, Frank
History
A Set of Rogues: Namely Christopher Sutton, John Dawson, the Señor Don Sanchez Del Castillo De Castelaña and Moll Dawson; Their Wicked Conspiracy, and a True Account of Their Travels and Adventures
Barrett, Frank
Adventure and adventurers -- Fiction; English fiction; Great Britain -- History -- Charles II, 1660-1685 -- Fiction; Impostors and imposture -- Fiction; Pirates -- Fiction; Rogues and vagabonds -- Fiction
One thing I remember of him on this journey. Having gone about five
miles, we sat us down on a bridge to rest a while, and there the Don
left us to go a little way up the course of the stream that flowed
beneath, and he came back with a posey of sweet jonquils set off with a
delicate kind of fern very pretty, and this he presents to Moll with a
gracious little speech, which act, it seemed to me, was to let her know
that he respected her still as a young gentlewoman in spite of her short
petticoat, and Moll was not dull to the compliment neither; for, after
the first cry of delight in seeing these natural dainty flowers (she
loving such things beyond all else in the world), she bethought her to
make him a curtsey and reply to his speech with another as good and well
turned, as she set them in her waist scarf. Also I remember on this road
we saw oranges and lemons growing for the first time, but full a mile
after Moll had first caught their wondrous perfume in the air. And these
trees, which are about the size of a crab tree, grew in close groves on
either side of the road, with no manner of fence to protect them, so
that any one is lief to pluck what he may without let, so plentiful are
they, and curious to see how fruit and blossom grow together on the same
bush, the lemons, as I hear, giving four crops in the year, and more
delicious, full, and juicy than any to be bought in England at six to
the groat.
We got a dinner of bread and cheese (very high) at a roadside house, and
glad to have that, only no meat of any kind, but excellent good wine
with dried figs and walnuts, which is the natural food of this country,
where one may go a week without touching flesh and yet feel as strong
and hearty at the end. And here very merry, Jack in his pertinacious,
stubborn spirit declaring he would drink his wine in the custom of the
country or none at all, and so lifting up the spouted mug at arm's
length he squirts the liquor all over his face, down his new clothes and
everywhere but into his mouth, before he could arrive to do it like Don
Sanchez; but getting into the trick of it, he so mighty proud of his
achievement that he must drink pot after pot until he got as drunk as
any lord. So after that, finding a retired place,--it being midday and
prodigious hot (though only now in mid-April),--we lay down under the
orange trees and slept a long hour, to our great refreshment. Dawson on
waking remembered nothing of his being drunk, and felt not one penny the
worse for it. And so on another long stretch through sweet country, with
here and there a glimpse of the Mediterranean, in the distance, of a
surprising blueness, before we reached another town, and that on the top
of a high hill. But it seems that all the towns in these parts (save
those armed with fortresses) are thus built for security against the
pirates, who ravage the seaboard of this continent incessantly from end
to end. And for this reason the roads leading up to the town are made
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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