D'Ri and I: A Tale of Daring Deeds in the Second War with the British.: Being the Memoirs of Colonel Ramon Bell, U.S.A.Bacheller, Irving
History
D'Ri and I: A Tale of Daring Deeds in the Second War with the British.: Being the Memoirs of Colonel Ramon Bell, U.S.A.
Bacheller, Irving
United States -- History -- War of 1812 -- Fiction
But there are reasons why the story of what came after should be
none of my telling. I leave it to other and better eyes that were
not looking between flashes of steel, as mine were. And then one
has never a fair view of his own fights.
[1] The intrepid Fitzgibbon, the most daring leader on the Canadian
frontier those days, told me long afterward that he knew the
building--a tall frame structure on the high shore of a tributary
of the St. Lawrence. It was built on a side of the bluff and used
originally as a depot for corn, oats, rye, and potatoes, that came
down the river in bateaux. The slide was a slanting box through
which the sacks of grain were conveyed to sloops and schooners
below. It did not pay and was soon abandoned, whereupon it was
rented by the secret order referred to above. The slide bottom was
coated with lard and used for the hazing of candidates. A prize
fight on the platform was generally a feature of the entertainment.
A man was severely injured in a leap on the bayonets, after which
that feature of the initiation was said to have been abandoned.
XIV
This is the story of Corporal Darius Olin, touching his adventure
in the Temple of the Avengers, at some unknown place in Upper
Canada, on the night of August 12, 1813, and particularly the
ordeals of the sword, the slide, and the bayonet to which Captain
Ramon Bell was subjected that night, as told to Adjutant Asarius
Church, at Sackett's Harbor, New York:--
"Soon es I see whut wus up, I gin a powerful lift on thet air
shackle-chain. I felt 'er give 'n' bust. A couple o' men clim'
int' the seat front uv us, 'n' the hosses started hell bent. I sot
up with my hands 'hind uv me 'n the wagin. I kep' 'em there tight
'n' stiff, es ef the iron wus holdin' uv 'em. Could n't git no
chance t' say nuthin' t' Ray. Hustled us upstairs, 'n' when we
come in t' thet air big room they tuk him one way an' me 'nother.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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