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 as it was impossible for them to see the horse, so was it as
impossible for them to see us at that distance, who sat down on the
ground to look at them the more securely.
The road winding about, we saw them a great way, and they rode as fast
as they could make their horses go. When we found they were gone quite
out of sight, we mounted and made the best of our way also; and indeed,
though we were two upon one horse, yet we abated no speed where the way
would admit of it, not inquiring of anybody the way to anywhere till,
after about two hours’ riding, we came to a town, which, upon inquiry,
they called Chesterford. And here we stopped, and asked not our way to
any place, but whither that road went, and were told it was the
coach-road to Cambridge; also that it was the way to Newmarket, to St.
Edmund’s Bury, to Norwich and Yarmouth, to Lynn, and to Ely, and the
like.
We stayed here a good while, believing ourselves secure; and
afterwards, towards evening, went forward to a place called
Bournbridge, where the road to Cambridge turns away out of the road to
Newmarket, and where there are but two houses only, both of them being
inns. Here the captain says to me, “Hark ye, you see we are pursued
towards Cambridge, and shall be stopped if we go thither. Now Newmarket
is but ten miles off, and there we may be safe, and perhaps get an
opportunity to do some business.”
“Look ye, Jacque,” said I, “talk no more of doing business, for I will
not join with you in anything of that kind. I would fain get you to
Scotland before you get a halter about your neck. I will not have you
hanged in England, if I can help it; and therefore I won’t go to
Newmarket, unless you will promise me to take no false steps there.”
“Well,” says he, “if I must not, then I won’t; but I hope you will let
us get another horse, won’t you, that we may travel faster?” “No,” says
I, “I won’t agree to that; but if you will let me send this horse back
fairly, I will tell you how we shall hire horses afterwards, for one
stage, or two, and then take them as far as we please: it is only
sending a letter to the owner to send for him, and then, if we are
stopped, it can do us but little hurt.”
“You are a wary, politic gentleman,” says the captain, “but I say we
are better as we are; for we are out of all danger of being stopped on
the way after we are gone from this place.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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