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There was no mistaking that falcon-face. It was the Gentleman. "Who's there?" peering suspiciously. "Boy Hoad, powder-monkey o the Dreadnought." "Is that the Dreadnought?" sharply. "Dreadnought, forty-four. Oi'm drownin, sir. Take us in." His hand was on the boat's gunwale. "What the deuce you doing here?" "Desartin, sir. They was for floggin me at sun-up." "What for?" "For for fun." "For what?"
The courier regarded with disfavour the unlucky Steve. "Forward march, dhirty, desartin', weak-kneed crayture that ye be! Thrott!" Beyond the pine wood the two came into an area which had been overtrampled.
However, if what you say is true, I'm afeared he's not long for this world, and that his talkin' sense at last is only the lightening before death, poor gintleman! I can stay no longer from him, any how, let him be as he may; an' God pardon me for my ongratitude in desartin' him like a villain as I did."
Talk ez much ez ye kin 'bout the sojers gwine inter Winter quarters; 'bout them being mortally sartin not ter do anything tell next Spring, an' 'bout them desartin' by rijimints an' brigades, an' gwine home, bekase they're sick an' tired o' the war." "My," said Rachel, with a gasp, "what awful things to tell!" "Yes," returned the scout complacently, "I s'posed hit'd strike you thet-a-way.
For a matter of nigh upon forty year you've carried me, man and boy, back'ards and for'ards in safety and comfort over these here seas; and now, like a jade, you goes and founders, a desartin' of me in my old age. Arter a lifetime spent upon the heavin' buzzum of the stormy ocean `where the winds do blow, do blow' you're bound to-day to y'ur last moorin's in old Davy's locker.
"Howsomever, Doctor, there wa'n't no smooth sailin' nor fair weather with the cap'en; 'twas always squally in his latitude, and I begun to get mutinous and think of desartin'. About eighteen months arter we sot sail from Valparaiso, I hadn't done somethin' I'd been ordered, or I'd done it wrong, and Cap'en Twist come on deck, ragin' and roarin', with a handspike in his fist, and let fly at my head.
I will never bring disgrace, or shame, or poverty, upon you; for surely these things would fall upon you as a punishment for desartin' him. If you were another if you weren't intended to be the servant of God, I could beg with you starve with you die with you. But when I am gone, remember, that I gave up all my hopes, that you might succeed in yours. I'm sure that is love.
The mind of the courier, striking out vigorously for some kind of a stimulant, laid hold of anger as the nearest efficient. "Bedad," he cried, "ye desartin', dhirty hound! it's right here I'll be afther lavin' ye, with the naked dead and the piles of arms and legs! Let go of my bridle or I'll strike you with my pistol butt! Ughrrrrr! Get out of this, Peggy!"
"You see I'm not free to speak out all I knows," he said. "But surely it's enough to say that my friends have not failed me; that I found them waitin' there with a small boat, so light that they had dragged it up an' concealed it among the rocks, an' that I'd have bin on my way to old England at this good hour if it hadn't bin for poor Miss Sommers, whom we couldn't think of desartin'."
At length there was something like a pause, and several voices shouted out "what the divil do you mane, Tom?" "He's showin' the garran bane at last," shouted another "desartin' his colors!" "oh! we're gintlemen now it seems, an' not his own blaggards, as we used to be Tiper-to'e's vagabones that stood by him oh no! Tom, to hell wid you and your gintlemen three cheers for Gully Preston!"
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