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- 966
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- 2026-01-30T20:48:05.590Z
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- structure-extraction-lambda
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- 901
- text
- CHAPTER IV.
FURTHER WANDERINGS OF THE REFUGEE, WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF A GOOD KNIGHT
OF BRENTFORD WHO BEFRIENDED HIM.
At nightfall, on the third day, Israel had arrived within sixteen miles
of the capital. Once more he sought refuge in a barn. This time he
found some hay, and flinging himself down procured a tolerable night’s
rest.
Bright and early he arose refreshed, with the pleasing prospect of
reaching his destination ere noon. Encouraged to find himself now so
far from his original pursuers, Israel relaxed in his vigilance, and
about ten o’clock, while passing through the town of Staines, suddenly
encountered three soldiers. Unfortunately in exchanging clothes with
the ditcher, he could not bring himself to include his shirt in the
traffic, which shirt was a British navy shirt, a bargeman’s shirt, and
though hitherto he had crumpled the blue collar out of sight, yet, as
it appeared in the present instance, it was not thoroughly concealed.
At any rate, keenly on the look-out for deserters, and made acute by
hopes of reward for their apprehension, the soldiers spied the fatal
collar, and in an instant laid violent hands on the refugee.
“Hey, lad!” said the foremost soldier, a corporal, “you are one of his
majesty’s seamen! come along with ye.”
So, unable to give any satisfactory account of himself, he was made
prisoner on the spot, and soon after found himself handcuffed and
locked up in the Bound House of the place, a prison so called,
appropriated to runaways, and those convicted of minor offences. Day
passed dinnerless and supperless in this dismal durance, and night came
on.
Israel had now been three days without food, except one two-penny loaf.
The cravings of hunger now became sharper; his spirits, hitherto arming
him with fortitude, began to forsake him. Taken captive once again upon
the very brink of reaching his goal, poor Israel was on the eve of
falling into helpless despair. But he rallied, and considering that
grief would only add to his calamity, sought with stubborn patience to
habituate himself to misery, but still hold aloof from despondency. He
roused himself, and began to bethink him how to be extricated from this
labyrinth.
Two hours sawing across the grating of the window, ridded him of his
handcuffs. Next came the door, secured luckily with only a hasp and
padlock. Thrusting the bolt of his handcuffs through a small window in
the door, he succeeded in forcing the hasp and regaining his liberty
about three o’clock in the morning.
Not long after sunrise, he passed nigh Brentford, some six or seven
miles from the capital. So great was his hunger that downright
starvation seemed before him. He chewed grass, and swallowed it. Upon
first escaping from the hulk, six English pennies was all the money he
had. With two of these he had bought a small loaf the day after fleeing
the inn. The other four still remained in his pocket, not having met
with a good opportunity to dispose of them for food.
Having torn off the collar of his shirt, and flung it into a hedge, he
ventured to accost a respectable carpenter at a pale fence, about a
mile this side of Brentford, to whom his deplorable situation now
induced him to apply for work. The man did not wish himself to hire,
but said that if he (Israel) understood farming or gardening, he might
perhaps procure work from Sir John Millet, whose seat, he said, was not
remote. He added that the knight was in the habit of employing many men
at that season of the year, so he stood a fair chance.
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