The turkey-poult had by this time been torn from my pocket by the
perseverance of my tormentors. It was pulled from one to the other on
the ground; while the hungry citizens endeavoured to save its mangled
remains, and a running fight was kept up between them and the dogs,
which under other circumstances would have been highly amusing. My
heart was heavy, and I was incapable of enjoying the most palpable
joke. I walked slowly to the quay side, threw myself into the first
boat that offered, went on board my ship, gave up my sword to the
senior officer; was placed under a formal arrest, and told to prepare
myself for a court of inquiry. I must say that I felt more for poor
Carolina than I did for myself; and I could not help expressing
my anxiety on her account to one of the brother officers who came
to condole with me on my situation. The false friend, I was told
afterwards, profited by the hint; and, instead of committing himself as
I did, he hired a little cottage at the Miguelite side of the river,
under cover of the guns of the fleet, where he placed Carolina and her
aunt, and soon taught them to forget me. The worst of the affair was,
that General Santa Martha sent in a formal complaint to the consul
and the commodore of the squadron, and threatened to stop the usual
supply of provisions for the ships' use. A long correspondence took
place on the subject, which may be found now in the records of the
Foreign Office. I am glad to say, for the credit of the service, that
the affair was hushed up in the end, and the Miguelites consented to
give the required number of rations. I was made the victim of that
arrangement, and was glad to retire from the service on half-pay, to
escape being ignominiously dismissed by a court-martial. I now live a
miserable example of the doctrine of expediency. I entertain a horror
of young turkeys and of dogs, and would be gladly informed of some land
where neither of those odious creatures are to be met with.
FAMILY STORIES.--No. VI.--MRS. BOTHERBY'S STORY.
THE LEECH OF FOLKESTONE.
Reader, were you ever bewitched? I do not mean by a "white wench's
black eye," or by love-potions imbibed from a ruby lip; but, were you
ever really and _bonâ fide_ bewitched, in the true Matthew Hopkins
sense of the word? Did you ever, for instance, find yourself from head
to heel one vast complication of cramps? or burst out into sudorific
exudation like a cold thaw, with the thermometer at zero? Were your
eyes ever turned upside down, exhibiting nothing but their whites? Did
you ever vomit a paper of crooked pins? or expectorate Whitechapel
needles? These are genuine and undoubted marks of possession; and if
you never experienced any of them,--why, "happy man be his dole!"
Yet such things have been; yea, we are assured, on no mean authority,
still are.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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