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Updated: June 7, 2025
Cripplestraw had come for the third time, with a horse and gig; he was dressed in his best clothes, and brought with him on this occasion a basket containing raisins, almonds, oranges, and sweet cakes. Offering them to her as a gift from the old farmer, he repeated his request for her to accompany him, the gig and best mare having been sent as an additional inducement.
'I can't answer to a day, said the corporal, 'but it will certainly be in a down-channel tide; and instead of pulling hard against it, he'll let his boats drift, and that will bring 'em right into Budmouth Bay. 'Twill be a beautiful stroke of war, if so be 'tis quietly done! 'Beautiful, said Cripplestraw, moving inside his clothes. 'But how if we should be all abed, corpel?
'Come to see the King, hip-hip hurrah! cried a voice within, and turning they saw through the leaves the nose and face of Cripplestraw. The waggon contained all Derriman's workpeople. 'Is your master here? said John. 'No, trumpet-major, sir. But young maister is coming to fetch us at nine o'clock, in case we should be too blind to drive home. 'O! where is he now?
Festus clanked up and down, looked gloomily at the beacon, heard the retreating carts and carriages, and called Cripplestraw to him, who came from the stable leading the horse at the same moment that Uncle Benjy peeped unobserved from a mullioned window above their heads, the distant light of the beacon fire touching up his features to the complexion of an old brass clock-face.
'It is my belief that the point they will choose for making the shore is just over there, and he nodded with indifference towards a section of the coast at a hideous nearness to the house in which they were assembled, whereupon Fencible Tremlett, and Cripplestraw of the Locals, tried to show no signs of trepidation. 'When d'ye think 'twill be? said Volunteer Comfort, the blacksmith.
'Tisn't nature that makes me draw back 'tis love. I must go and look for her. 'A woman, sir? 'I didn't want to confess it; but 'tis a woman. Strange that I should be drawn so entirely against my natural wish to rush at 'em! Cripplestraw, seeing which way the wind blew, found it advisable to blow in harmony. 'Ah, now at last I see, sir!
She might read a little more, as I have had so little profit out o' en hitherto. Well, why don't ye speak? Will ye, or won't ye, my dear? 'Not to two, she said. 'Ho, ho! damn it, I must go then, I suppose, said Festus, laughing; and unable to get a further glance from her he left the room and clanked into the back yard, where he saw a man; holding up his hand he cried, 'Anthony Cripplestraw!
Cripplestraw came up in a trot, moved a lock of his hair and replaced it, and said, 'Yes, Maister Derriman. He was old Mr. Derriman's odd hand in the yard and garden, and like his employer had no great pretensions to manly beauty, owing to a limpness of backbone and speciality of mouth, which opened on one side only, giving him a triangular smile.
It will be all the more death to him that I don't want her. Then perhaps he will say to me, "You have taken my one ewe lamb" meaning that I am the king, and he's the poor man, as in the church verse; and he'll beg for mercy when 'tis too late unless, meanwhile, I shall have tired of my new toy. Saddle the horse, Cripplestraw, to-morrow at ten.
I should have joined my company afore this; but they said at last drill that I was too old. So I shall wait up in the hay-loft for tidings as soon as I have packed you off, poor gentleman! 'Do such alarms as these, Cripplestraw, ever happen without foundation? Buonaparte is a wretch, a miserable wretch, and this may be only a false alarm to disappoint such as me? 'O no, sir; O no!
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