The Adventures of Harry Rochester: A Tale of the Days of Marlborough and EugeneStrang, Herbert
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The Adventures of Harry Rochester: A Tale of the Days of Marlborough and Eugene
Strang, Herbert
Blenheim, Battle of, Blindheim, Bavaria, Germany, 1704 -- Juvenile fiction
"Faith, I don’t know, but he have a fine long purse, and ’tis a fine
swashing gentleman. Howsomever, I’ll go to the Star and Garter as you
say, and see your man—what be his name? Minshull; good; I’ll go soon,
and—Coming, sir, coming," he added in answer to a hail from below.
"I’ll go afore ’tis dark, ’struth, I will."
He left the room, and Harry felt a momentary glow of hope. It was
dulled immediately. The three sailors re-entered. Without ado they
again bound his arms, which had been loosed to allow of his lifting his
food, and carried him downstairs. Daylight was fading. At the door
Harry looked eagerly around for some person whom a cry might bring to
his rescue. Alas! the house was in a blind alley, and no one but his
captors was in sight. He did raise his voice and give one resounding
call. A gag was instantly slipped into his mouth, and he was hurried to
the open end of the alley, where a hackney coach stood waiting. Into
this he was thrown; two of the sailors got in with him, the third
mounted to a place beside the driver, and the vehicle rumbled and jolted
over the rough cobbles.
Some twenty minutes later it pulled up at the Tower Wharf, where Harry
had vainly sought for Jan Grootz a few days before. It was now night,
and as he was lifted out and borne towards the wharf side, Harry saw by
the light of naphtha torches a busy scene. Sailors, lightermen,
stevedores were moving hither and thither; the ground was strewn with
bales and packages; the last portions of a cargo were being transferred
to the hold of a barque that lay alongside. No one paid attention to
the not unusual spectacle of a young fellow going unwillingly to a
vessel bound for the Plantations. Harry’s captors, joking, chewing,
spitting, shoved him with no tender hands on to the gangway. At the
other end of it stood a dark-featured, beetle-browed old seaman, the
captain of the vessel, bawling orders to this and that member of his
crew.
"Ha!" he cried, as he saw the new-comer hauled along in the sailors’
arms; "this be the springald? Zooks! ye are none too soon: tide turns
in half an hour."
"Here we be, sir, true; and this be Christopher Butler, mark you, for
the Plantations."
"Papers?" roared the captain, spitting into the river.
"All taut, sir," replied the man, producing the document that Harry had
refused to sign; it bore a signature now.
"Obstropolous, eh?"
"Changed his mind, sir, it seems, since signing on; ha’ give us some
trouble."
"Oons! We’ll cure that. All aboard! Stow the cockerel in the foc’sle;
strap un to a plank; we’ll have no ’tarnal tricks."
As Harry was lugged forward he noticed two figures standing beneath a
lamp swinging to one of the yards. He started, and involuntarily
increased his weight upon his bearers. One of the two came forward a
step towards the captain and, tapping a snuff-box, said:
"Whom have we here, captain?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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