United States or Iraq ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Ave the Mossoos twigged anything up?" "Nay," said Dingy Joe. "They're a'ter the naked chap." "Then we've got this little bit o business all to ourselves, the Genelmen o the Gap Gang ave. Let's take im up among the trees, and gag im first." Was God in heaven? would He allow it? As though in answer, close at hand a bugle sounded.
Mossoos might smoke it, but good, solid John Bull suspected it of being a kick-shaw not unconnected with Atheism. He stuck to his pipe chiefly. Nevertheless, it was always open to skill to fabricate its own cigarettes, and Mr. Pellew's aptitude in the art was known to Miss Dickenson. The one he screwed up on receipt of this licence was epoch-making.
"That's old mare Jenny in the shafts, and her three-year-old daughter in the lead. Ha, Miss Blossom! That's your sort! Knock em sprawling! Teach the Mossoos to handle an English lady!" A tall man ran out of the farmyard, a snow-storm of white-frocked children pursuing him; and even at that distance Parson and boy could hear them screaming laughter. The tall man snatched up one and kissed her.
"Yes," replied the old man; "I forget who brought the news home, but I remember hearing it. Poor Sam Meynell died and was buried amongst the Mossoos." "You are sure he was buried at Calais?" "Yes, as sure as I can be of anything. Travelling was no easy matter in those days, and in foreign parts there was nothing but diligences, which I've heard say were the laziest-going vehicles ever invented.
French horse, indeed! Why, you'll spread-eagle all them Mossoos' and Meinherrs' cattle in a brace of seconds " Rake's foe, the head groom, caught him up savagely. "Won't you never learn decent breeding? When we wins we wins on the quiet, and when we loses we loses as if we liked it; all that braying, and flaunting, and boasting is only fit for cads.
Give the Mossoos their due they fought like eroes; but not like h'us, sir! not like h'us!" He strode up and down, breathing flame. "Ah, you should ha seen us. I were in me glory. A bloody massacree, that's what it were. Bloody massacree. Enough to make a blessed saint weep for joy. Pommesoul it were." He turned in his stride, and the lamp showed the tears dribbling down his face.
Even during the chase he couldn't help carrying on in his usual loud and cheeky way, waving good-bye to the Mossoos, offering them a tow-rope, and the like; but now the deck wasn't big enough to hold his swagger, and in their joy of escaping a French prison, the men encouraged him, so that to hear them talk you'd have thought he was Admiral Nelson and Sir Sidney Smith rolled into one.
I exclaimed, in an excited whisper. "Now, Bob, let's dash alongside and board the craft; a selection from the rig of those two men will make exactly the rig I want." "All right," returned Bob. "You're the skipper, give the word, and we'll nab the Mossoos in a jiffy." "Now!" said I. We dashed our oars into the water, and in half a dozen strokes were alongside the astonished fishermen.