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Updated: June 29, 2025
The men's behaviour in billets ramshackle barns for the most part was almost exemplary. Only once or twice small episodes occurred in connection with hen-roosts, and on one occasion a sucking-pig was slaughtered amid its brethren at the dead of night. It must have been a temporary madness that possessed the author of this escapade, for he had no possible chance of escape.
In order of precedence they come One, Two, and Five; in order of personal splendor of uniform they come Five, One, Two; in order of exploits they are all in the same negative position at present; and the Second has done rather the most robbing of hen-roosts. The Fifth, Duryea's Zouaves, lighten up the woods brilliantly with their scarlet legs and scarlet head-pieces.
It was hardly credible that here were actually people who lived out-doors, who slept in their covered wagon or under their tent, and cooked in the open air; it was a visible romance transferred from foreign lands and the remote times of the story-books; and John took these city thieves, who were on their annual foray into the country, trading and stealing horses and robbing hen-roosts and cornfields, for the mysterious race who for thousands of years have done these same things in all lands, by right of their pure blood and ancient lineage.
"'Tis idle, 'tis idle," said Griffith impatiently; "we are not robbers of hen-roosts, nor wine-gaugers, to be prying into the vaults of the English gentry, Captain Manual; but honorable men, employed in the sacred cause of liberty and our country. Lead your party into the ruin, and let them seek their rest; we may have work for them with the dawn."
It was hardly credible that here were actually people who lived out-doors, who slept in their covered wagon or under their tent, and cooked in the open air; it was a visible romance transferred from foreign lands and the remote times of the story-books; and John took these city thieves, who were on their annual foray into the country, trading and stealing horses and robbing hen-roosts and cornfields, for the mysterious race who for thousands of years have done these same things in all lands, by right of their pure blood and ancient lineage.
And, I say, Parker," making a sign to his boat's crew to stop rowing again "I say, Parker, I know you love brawn; I'll send you some that Galleygo tells me he has picked up, along-shore here, as soon as I get aboard. The fellow has been robbing all the hen-roosts in Devonshire, by his own account of the matter."
When matters came to this point, the gipsies, without scruple, entered upon measures of retaliation. Ellangowan's hen-roosts were plundered, his linen stolen from the lines or bleaching-ground, his fishings poached, his dogs kidnapped, his growing trees cut or barked. Much petty mischief was done, and some evidently for the mischief's sake.
It towers above us, blocking out the sky as a street of six-storey houses would do. In fact, it is rather like looking up at a street side, and when we see the sloping ladder leading to the deck, like those used for hen-roosts but on a giant scale, we feel our adventure is well begun.
He was of a race which elsewhere has so immemorially plundered hen-roosts that chickens are as free to it as the air it breathes, without any conceivable taint of private ownership.
"Monsieur," said our bare-legged captain, in a tone and manner not unworthy of Jacques Haret, "I take no offense at your calling me a liar, by implication; in war, lies are stratagems. But your allusion to village hen-roosts is exceedingly painful to a gentleman like myself, who has danced at a court ball with the Duchess Anna Iwanowna.
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