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- 2026-01-30T20:48:05.590Z
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- start_line
- 846
- text
- one good rap at him with his crutch, but thought it would hardly look
in character for a poor old cripple to be vindictive.
A few miles further, and he came to a second village. While hobbling
through its main street, as through the former one, he was suddenly
stopped by a genuine cripple, all in tatters, too, who, with a
sympathetic air, inquired after the cause of his lameness.
“White swelling,” says Israel.
“That’s just my ailing,” wheezed the other; “but you’re lamer than me,”
he added with a forlorn sort of self-satisfaction, critically eyeing
Israel’s limp as once, more he stumped on his way, not liking to tarry
too long.
“But halloo, what’s your hurry, friend?” seeing Israel fairly
departing—“where’re you going?”
“To London,” answered Israel, turning round, heartily wishing the old
fellow any where else than present.
“Going to limp to Lunnun, eh? Well, success to ye.”
“As much to you, sir,” answers Israel politely.
Nigh the opposite suburbs of this village, as good fortune would have
it, an empty baggage-wagon bound for the metropolis turned into the
main road from a side one. Immediately Israel limps most deplorably,
and begs the driver to give a poor cripple a lift. So up he climbs; but
after a time, finding the gait of the elephantine draught-horses
intolerably slow, Israel craves permission to dismount, when, throwing
away his crutch, he takes nimbly to his legs, much to the surprise of
his honest friend the driver.
The only advantage, if any, derived from his trip in the wagon, was,
when passing through a third village—but a little distant from the
previous one—Israel, by lying down in the wagon, had wholly avoided
being seen.
The villages surprised him by their number and proximity. Nothing like
this was to be seen at home. Well knowing that in these villages he ran
much more risk of detection than in the open country, he henceforth did
his best to avoid them, by taking a roundabout course whenever they
came in sight from a distance. This mode of travelling not only
lengthened his journey, but put unlooked-for obstacles in his
path—walls, ditches, and streams.
Not half an hour after throwing away his crutch, he leaped a great
ditch ten feet wide, and of undiscoverable muddy depth. I wonder if the
old cripple would think me the lamer one now, thought Israel to
himself, arriving on the hither side.
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