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A sweep of my hat sent the sputtering candle flying from its barrel head to the farther corner of the vault, and I dropped quickly behind a row of empty wine-butts to await what should befall. Had she been a ghost, Mistress Margery would scarce have startled me more when she swung the door to let me see her.
Wine-butts were broached in all the courts; the pickled meat prepared in such lots for the siege was distributed among the people, who crowded to congratulate their beloved sovereign on his victory; and the Prince, as was customary with that good man, who never lost an opportunity of giving a dinner-party, had a splendid entertainment made ready for the upper classes, the whole concluding with a tasteful display of fireworks.
There were the five Oporto wine-merchants all hearty English gentlemen gone to their wine-butts, and their red-legged partridges, and their duels at Oporto. It appears that these gallant Britons fight every morning among themselves, and give the benighted people among whom they live an opportunity to admire the spirit national.
The shop had evidently been lately in the occupation of a wine-seller, and there were still several empty wooden wine-butts, and some broken flasks on shelves. In one corner I noticed that the earth which formed the floor had been turned up with spades. There was a small heap of mould, and a large flat stone was thus exposed below the surface.
There was only so much of this strait unwalled as might serve for the issuing of the horsemen or the passing of carriage in time of need. But this unwalled part was not without a very good barricado of wine-butts or pipes, filled with earth, full and thick as they might stand on end one by another, some part of them standing even within the main sea.
"Now, the saints, as many as there be of them," said the Captain, "forefend, lest he has drunk too deep of the wine-butts, and perished by the fall of the castle! Away, Miller! take with you enow of men, seek the place where you last saw him throw water from the moat on the scorching ruins I will have them removed stone by stone ere I lose my curtal Friar."
He saw my object to push him to unfamiliar ground where he might trip and stumble in the darkness and he strove furiously to defeat it. Yet he had no choice, and presently I had him among the empty wine-butts, foining and parrying for his life and pouring out such blasphemies as would make your blood run cold. Here the end came quickly.
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