United States or Pitcairn Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
These men were breaking two laws. They had not only stolen the horses, but were trying to evade the American Customs. Your father always called them 'The Rapparees, for they were Irish, and fighters, and known from the Red River to the Rockies as plunderers and desperadoes.
The fallacy of his words was shown ere they were fairly uttered. The visitor whistled in a very peculiar way. And there was a sudden silent rush at the door in question. The bar, immovable as it was, fell before that desperate onslaught, and the door was carried off its hinges. The ragged and miserable-looking mob turned like magic into a crowd of armed desperadoes. And in they pressed.
Now they had been robbed, insulted, and in many cases ruined, and he was commander of the body of desperadoes who had robbed and ruined them. Was it likely that they would forget the injuries which he had inflicted upon them simply because he had married a wealthy lady of the town and had kindly consented to accept the office of city treasurer?
Their heads were filled with visions of Greece and Rome; the praise of republics was ever on their lips; and they avowed to their intimate associates that it was already feasible to compose a commonwealth like that of the Swiss Cantons out of the seventeen Netherlands. They were regarded as dreamers by some, as desperadoes by others.
A small number were pardoned on account of their youth, and a few individuals who effected their escape when led to the gallows, were not pursued. The fact that the townspeople almost connived at the escape of these desperadoes showed that there had been a surfeit of hangings in Rotterdam.
Whenever a fatly provided wagon-train is to be attacked, a fine herd of emigrants' beeves stampeded, the mail to be stopped, or the Gentiles in any way harassed, these desperadoes stain their skin, exchange their clothes for a breech-clout, and rally a horde of the savages, whose favor they have always propitiated, for the ambush and massacre, which in all but the element of brute force is their work in plan, leadership, and execution.
I have read or been told that, unassisted, the pseudo-hero captured a dozen desperadoes; that he was one of the road agents himself; that he was saved from lynching only by the timely arrival of cavalry; that the action of the United States government in rescuing him from the civil authorities was a most high-handed interference with State rights; that he received his reward from a grateful railroad by being promoted; that a lovely woman as recompense for his villainy but bother! it's my business to tell what really occurred, and not what the world chooses to invent.
But as they were still undecided, and many of them wished to go home to France, we heard them often say to one another, that they must get rid of us; that otherwise we should accuse them before the tribunals, if we once had them in the kingdom. "The leader of these desperadoes, a wretch by the name of Duhaut, at once assumed the supreme command. The company now consisted of but seventeen.
I was astonished that Mr. Campbell should appear to Mr. Jarvie as the head of a freebooting Highland clan, and dismayed to think that Diana's fate could be involved in that of desperadoes of this man's description. The packet which Diana Vernon had given me I had opened in the presence of the Highlander, for the ten days had elapsed, and a sealed letter had dropped out.
In addition to this, other offenses were hinted at; the doings of an organized gang of desperadoes and their accomplices were detailed, and facts were brought to light which made the withdrawal of the Sachem license inevitable.
Word Of The Day