The Road to Paris: A Story of AdventureStephens, Robert Neilson
History
The Road to Paris: A Story of Adventure
Stephens, Robert Neilson
Adventure stories; Historical fiction; United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Fiction
"Go and see the sights, lad, and ye'll meet me at the Crooked Billet
some time before the hour of setting out, the morning. I've other fish
to fry, for a private purpose of my own. And should ye see me in company
with yon roisterers, mind to call me captain or not at all, for I'm bent
on introducing myself to their acquaintance, and that'll require me
belonging to the quality."
Dick looked at the group indicated, which consisted of a handsome,
insolent-looking young man of about twenty-five and three gay dogs of
the same age, whose loud conversation had dealt exclusively with cards
and other implements of fortune. With no hope or wish of fathoming
MacAlister's designs, Dick paid the bill (for his friend was almost
without money), and left the eating-house. He first inspected parts of
Water and Front Streets, where many rich merchants lived over their
shops; then viewed the handsomer residences in South Second Street; saw
the City Tavern and some of the well-dressed people resorting there;
looked at Carpenter's Hall, where the Congress had met the preceding
year; walked out to the State House, crossed Chestnut Street therefrom,
to drink at the sign of the Coach and Horses, the old rough-dashed
tavern nestling amidst great walnut-trees; loitered on the bridge to
look down at Dock Creek each time he crossed that stream. When, at dusk,
the street lamps were lighted (for, thanks to Franklin, Philadelphia had
long possessed the best street lamps in the world), the town assumed
what to Dick was a fairylike appearance. Of the people he saw in the
streets, perhaps a third wore the broadbrims of the Quakers. A few of
the faces were of the German type, but most were of the unmistakable
English character, and from such of these as were not Quaker a trained
observer might easily have picked out a Church of England person or a
Dissenter at sight. On first entering the city Dick had been struck with
the prettiness of the young women, but now that night had fallen and he
had returned to the vicinity of the river, the few of the fair that he
saw abroad were of rather bedraggled appearance.
As he walked along the wharves, listening to the lap of the tide against
the piles and vessels, he heard a sharp scream of mingled pain and
anger, in a feminine voice. Looking quickly towards the wharf whence it
came, he saw, in the light from the corner of a small warehouse, a young
woman recoiling from the blow of a sailor who was about to strike her
again. She dodged the second blow, and the sailor made ready to deliver
a third, but before he could do so Dick's fist landed on the side of his
head and he dropped to the wharf, dazed and limp. Dick then took off his
hat to the woman, who was a slender creature of about twenty, dressed
with a cheap attempt at gaiety. With quite attractive large eyes, she
quickly viewed Dick from head to foot.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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