Arrah Neil; or, Times of OldJames, G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford)
History
Arrah Neil; or, Times of Old
James, G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford)
Great Britain -- History -- Civil War, 1642-1649 -- Fiction; Historical fiction
"Come, sir, you must get up!" said an officer of the garrison, standing
beside the Earl of Beverley, to whom we must now return, as he lay on
the floor of the little cabin, affecting to be still suffering from
sickness: "you must get up and come with me, for we've got a lodging
prepared for you hard by here."
The earl pretended scarcely to understand him, and made some answer in
broken English, which, though it was not quite so well assumed as the
jargon of Captain Barecolt, was sufficiently like the language of a
foreigner to keep up the character he had taken upon himself.
"Come, come; you must get up!" reiterated the officer, taking him by
the arm; and slowly, and apparently feebly, the earl arose and
suffered the other to lead him upon deck.
It was by this time dark, but several persons with lanterns in their
hands were waiting at the top of the hatchway; and, guarded and
lighted by them, the earl was led from the vessel into the town, and
thence to a small building near the city wall, pierced for musketry,
and having a little platform at the top, on which was mounted a single
cannon. On the side next to the town appeared a door and three
windows, and before the block-house, as it was termed, a sentinel was
already marching up and down in expectation of the arrival of the
prisoner; but it was with some difficulty that the door was opened to
give entrance to the party which now approached.
The aspect of the place to which the earl was to be consigned was
certainly not very inviting, especially seen by the light of lanterns
in a dark night; and the inner room to which the guard led him
afforded but little means of rendering himself comfortable within
those damp and narrow walls. A bed was there, a table, and a chair,
but nothing else; and Lord Beverley, still maintaining his character,
made various exclamations in French upon the treatment to which the
people of Hull thought fit to subject an officer and a gentleman.
"You shall have some meat and beer presently," replied the officer,
who understood a few words only of the language the prisoner spoke;
"but as to a fire, mounseer, that you can't have, because there is no
fireplace, you see."
The earl shrugged his shoulders with a look of discontent, but
prepared to make the best of his situation; and as soon as the meat
and beer which they had promised was brought, the key turned in the
lock, and he was left alone, he sat down by the light of the lantern,
which they had provided him, to meditate over his present condition
and his future plans, with the peculiar turn of mind which we have
attempted to depict in some of the preceding pages.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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