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- 6648
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:05.591Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 6564
- text
- thousand foes—horse, foot, and dragoons—how like a friend I could fight
for you! Come, you have robbed me of my hair; let me rob your dainty
hand of its price. What, afraid again?”
“No, not that; but—”
“I see, lady; I may do it, by your leave, but not by your word; the
wonted way of ladies. There, it is done. Sweeter that kiss, than the
bitter heart of a cherry.”
When at length this lady left, no small talk was had by her with her
companions about someway relieving the hard lot of so knightly an
unfortunate. Whereupon a worthy, judicious gentleman, of middle- age,
in attendance, suggested a bottle of good wine every day, and clean
linen once every week. And these the gentle Englishwoman—too polite and
too good to be fastidious—did indeed actually send to Ethan Allen, so
long as he tarried a captive in her land.
The withdrawal of this company was followed by a different scene.
A perspiring man in top-boots, a riding-whip in his hand, and having
the air of a prosperous farmer, brushed in, like a stray bullock, among
the rest, for a peep at the giant; having just entered through the
arch, as the ladies passed out.
“Hearing that the man who took Ticonderoga was here in Pendennis
Castle, I’ve ridden twenty-five miles to see him; and to-morrow my
brother will ride forty for the same purpose. So let me have first
look. Sir,” he continued, addressing the captive, “will you let me ask
you a few plain questions, and be free with you?”
“Be free with me? With all my heart. I love freedom of all things. I’m
ready to die for freedom; I expect to. So be free as you please. What
is it?”
“Then, sir, permit me to ask what is your occupation in life—in time of
peace, I mean?”
“You talk like a tax-gatherer,” rejoined Allen, squinting diabolically
at him; “what is my occupation in life? Why, in my younger days I
studied divinity, but at present I am a conjurer by profession.”
Hereupon everybody laughed, equally at the manner as the words, and the
nettled farmer retorted:
“Conjurer, eh? well, you conjured wrong that time you were taken.”
“Not so wrong, though, as you British did, that time I took
Ticonderoga, my friend.”
At this juncture the servant came with the punch, when his master bade
him present it to the captive.
“No!—give it me, sir, with your own hands, and pledge me as gentleman
to gentleman.”
“I cannot pledge a state-prisoner, Colonel Allen; but I will hand you
the punch with my own hands, since you insist upon it.”
“Spoken and done like a true gentleman, sir; I am bound to you.”
Then receiving the bowl into his gyved hands, the iron ringing against
the china, he put it to his lips, and saying, “I hereby give the
British nation credit for half a minute’s good usage,” at one draught
emptied it to the bottom.
“The rebel gulps it down like a swilling hog at a trough,” here scoffed
a lusty private of the guard, off duty.
“Shame to you!” cried the giver of the bowl.
“Nay, sir; his red coat is a standing blush to him, as it is to the
whole scarlet-blushing British army.” Then turning derisively upon the
private: “You object to my way of taking things, do ye? I fear I shall
never please ye. You objected to the way, too, in which I took
Ticonderoga, and the way in which I meant to take Montreal. Selah! But
pray, now that I look at you, are not you the hero I caught dodging
round, in his shirt, in the cattle-pen, inside the fort? It was the
break of day, you remember.”
“Come, Yankee,” here swore the incensed private; “cease this, or I’ll
darn your old fawn-skins for ye with the flat of this sword;” for a
specimen, laying it lashwise, but not heavily, across the captive’s
back.
- title
- Chunk 4