The Duke of Stockbridge: A Romance of Shays' RebellionBellamy, Edward
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The Duke of Stockbridge: A Romance of Shays' Rebellion
Bellamy, Edward
Shays' Rebellion, 1786-1787 -- Fiction
“Here's my weight, ye see, ten stone and a fraction,” and then observing
Perez' pitiful glance at his emaciated form, he added, “I mean when I
come to jail. Dividin nineteen pound, seven and six, by that, it
makes me come to thrippence happenny a pound, 'cording to the laws o'
Massachusetts, countin bones and waste. Mutton ain't wuth but tuppence,
and there's lots o' fellers here for sech small debts, that they don't
come to mor'n a farthin a pound, and ye see I'm gittin dearer, Perez.
There's the interest one way, and I'm a gittin thinner the other way,”
he added with a piteous smile.
“Perez,” interrupted Fennell, in a feeble, whimpering voice, as he
weakly endeavored to raise himself from the floor, “I wish you'd jess
give me a boost on your shoulders, so I kin see out the winder. Reub
uster to do it, but he ain't stout enough now. It's two months since
I've seen out. Say, Perez, won't ye?”
“It'll do him a sight o' good, Perez, if ye will. I never see a feller
set sech store by trees and mountings as George does. They're jess like
medicine to him, an he's fell off faster'n ever since I hain't been able
to boost him up.”
Perez knelt, too much moved for speech, and Reub helped to adjust upon
his shoulders the feeble frame of the sick man, into whose face had
come an expression of eager, excited expectation. As the soldier rose he
fairly tottered from the unexpected lightness of his burden. He stepped
beneath the high, grated window, and Fennell, resting his hands on the
lintel, while Reub steadied him from behind, peered out. He made no
sound, and finally Perez let him down to the floor.
“Could you see much?” asked Reub, but the other did not answer. His gaze
was afar off as if the prison walls were no barrier to his eyes, and a
smile of rapturous contemplation rested on his face. Then with a deep
breath he seemed to return to a perception of his surroundings, and in
tones of irrepressible exultation he murmured:
“I saw the mountains. They are so,” and with a waving, undulating
gesture of the hand that was wonderfully eloquent, he indicated the bold
sweep of the forest clad Taghcanic peaks. The door swung open, and the
jailer stood there.
“Time's up,” he said sharply.
“What, you're not going now? You're not going to leave us yet?” cried
Reuben, piteously.
Perez choked down the wrath and bitterness that was turning his heart to
iron and said, humbly.
“Mr. Bement, I should like to stay a few minutes longer. This is my
brother. I did not know he was here.”
“Sorry for't,” said Bement, carelessly. “Don' see as I kin help it,
though. S'posed like nuff he was somebuddy's brother. Mout's well be
your'n ez anybuddy's. I dunno who ye be. All I knows is that ye've been
here fifteen minutes and now ye must leave. Don' keep me waitin, nuther.
Thay ain' nobuddy tendin bar.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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