The History and Remarkable Life of the Truly Honourable Colonel Jacque, Commonly Called Colonel JackDefoe, Daniel
General
The History and Remarkable Life of the Truly Honourable Colonel Jacque, Commonly Called Colonel Jack
Defoe, Daniel
Adventure stories, English; England -- Social life and customs -- 18th century -- Fiction; Picaresque fiction
But what to do with the villain that had thus abused both her and me,
that was the question that remained. To fight him upon equal terms, I
thought, was a little hard; that after a man had treated me as he had
done, he deserved no fair play for his life. So I resolved to wait for
him in Stepney fields, and which way he often came home pretty late,
and pistol him in the dark, and, if possible, to let him know what I
killed him for before I did it. But when I came to consider of this, it
shocked my temper too as well as principle, and I could not be a
murderer, whatever else I could be, or whatever I was provoked to be.
However, I resolved, on the other hand, that I would severely correct
him for what he had done, and it was not long before I had an
opportunity; for, hearing one morning that he was walking across the
fields from Stepney to Shadwell, which way I knew he often went, I
waited for his coming home again, and fairly met him.
I had not many words with him, but told him I had long looked for him;
that he knew the villainy he had been guilty of in my family, and he
could not believe, since he knew also that I was fully informed of it,
but that I must be a great coward, as well as a cuckold, or that I
would resent it, and that it was now a very proper time to call him to
an account for it; and therefore bade him, if he durst show his face to
what he had done, and defend the name of a captain of a man-of-war, as
they said he had been, to draw.
He seemed surprised at the thing, and began to parley, and would lessen
the crime of it; but I told him it was not a time to talk that way,
since he could not deny the fact; and to lessen the crime was to lay it
the more upon the woman, who, I was sure, if he had not first debauched
with wine, he could never have brought to the rest; and, seeing he
refused to draw, I knocked him down with my cane at one blow, and I
would not strike him again while he lay on the ground, but waited to
see him recover a little; for I saw plainly he was not killed. In a few
minutes he came to himself again, and then I took him fast by one
wrist, and caned him as severely as I was able, and as long as I could
hold it for want of breath, but forbore his head, because I was
resolved he should feel it. In this condition at last he begged for
mercy, but I was deaf to all pity a great while, till he roared out
like a boy soundly whipped. Then I took his sword from him and broke it
before his face, and left him on the ground, giving him two or three
kicks on the backside, and bade him go and take the law of me if he
thought fit.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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