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- 796
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:05.590Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 718
- text
- Israel reins up to rid himself of the handcuffs, which impede him.
After much painful labor he succeeds in the attempt. Pressing on again
with all speed, day broke, revealing a trim-looking, hedged, and
beautiful country, soft, neat, and serene, all colored with the fresh
early tints of the spring of 1776.
Bless me, thought Israel, all of a tremble, I shall certainly be caught
now; I have broken into some nobleman’s park.
But, hurrying forward again, he came to a turnpike road, and then knew
that, all comely and shaven as it was, this was simply the open country
of England; one bright, broad park, paled in with white foam of the
sea. A copse skirting the road was just bursting out into bud. Each
unrolling leaf was in very act of escaping from its prison. Israel
looked at the budding leaves, and round on the budding sod, and up at
the budding dawn of the day. He was so sad, and these sights were so
gay, that Israel sobbed like a child, while thoughts of his mountain
home rushed like a wind on his heart. But conquering this fit, he
marched on, and presently passed nigh a field, where two figures were
working. They had rosy cheeks, short, sturdy legs, showing the blue
stocking nearly to the knee, and were clad in long, coarse, white
frocks, and had on coarse, broad-brimmed straw hats. Their faces were
partly averted.
“Please, ladies,” half roguishly says Israel, taking off his hat, “does
this road go to London?”
At this salutation, the two figures turned in a sort of stupid
amazement, causing an almost corresponding expression in Israel, who
now perceived that they were men, and not women. He had mistaken them,
owing to their frocks, and their wearing no pantaloons, only breeches
hidden by their frocks.
“Beg pardon, ladies, but I thought ye were something else,” said Israel
again.
Once more the two figures stared at the stranger, and with added
boorishness of surprise.
“Does this road go to London, gentlemen?”
“Gentlemen—egad!” cried one of the two.
“Egad!” echoed the second.
Putting their hoes before them, the two frocked boors now took a good
long look at Israel, meantime scratching their heads under their
plaited straw hats.
“Does it, gentlemen? Does it go to London? Be kind enough to tell a
poor fellow, do.”
“Yees goin’ to Lunnun, are yees? Weel—all right—go along.”
And without another word, having now satisfied their rustic curiosity,
the two human steers, with wonderful phlegm, applied themselves to
their hoes; supposing, no doubt, that they had given all requisite
information.
Shortly after, Israel passed an old, dark, mossy-looking chapel, its
roof all plastered with the damp yellow dead leaves of the previous
autumn, showered there from a close cluster of venerable trees, with
great trunks, and overstretching branches. Next moment he found himself
entering a village. The silence of early morning rested upon it. But
few figures were seen. Glancing through the window of a now noiseless
public-house, Israel saw a table all in disorder, covered with empty
flagons, and tobacco-ashes, and long pipes; some of the latter broken.
After pausing here a moment, he moved on, and observed a man over the
way standing still and watching him. Instantly Israel was reminded that
he had on the dress of an English sailor, and that it was this probably
which had arrested the stranger’s attention. Well knowing that his
peculiar dress exposed him to peril, he hurried on faster to escape the
village; resolving at the first opportunity to change his garments. Ere
long, in a secluded place about a mile from the village, he saw an old
ditcher tottering beneath the weight of a pick-axe, hoe and shovel,
going to his work; the very picture of poverty, toil and distress. His
clothes were tatters.
- title
- Chunk 6