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Updated: June 3, 2025
"Ha!" exclaimed Middlemore, who had all this time been absent on the duties connected with his guard, and now approached the scene of this little action for the first time; "what! do I see my friend Jeremiah Desborough-the prince of traitors, and the most vigorous of wrestlers verily my poor bones ache at the sight of you.
"What," asked Gerald, with an unfeigned surprise, when the laugh against Middlemore had subsided; "and is it really in his own wine that you have all thus been courteously pledging Captain Cranstoun's death?"
"Which is your apology, I suppose," said Middlemore, "for having so far exceeded your apPOINTment, gentlemen." "It certainly is," said Lieutenant Villiers, "but the fault was not ours. We chanced to fall in with Gerald Grantham, and on our way here, and that he detained us, should be a matter of congratulation to us all."
"Ha! well have you won your wager, my noble Captain!" exclaimed Middlemore, putting his hand to his chest, and staggering from the effect of a shot he had that instant received. Forward, men, forward: axemen do your duty. Down with the stockade, my lads, and give them a bellyfull of steel."
Neither had fallen, and Middlemore, if any thing, had the advantage of his enemy; but to his infinite dismay, Desborough beheld a horseman, evidently attracted by the report of the pistol, urging his course with the rapidity of lightning, along the firm sands, and advancing with cries and vehement gesticulations to the rescue.
Desborough took courage at the license conveyed by this pleasantry, and pursued, winking familiarly to Captain Molineux, while he, at the same time, nodded to Middlemore, "Mighty little time, I calculate, had he to think of aggravatin', when I gripped him down at Hartley's pint, that day.
"On, my gallant fellows, on! the left column for ever," cried Middlemore, imitating the example of his Captain, and, in his eagerness to reach the ditch first, leaving his men to follow as they could. Few of these, however, needed the injunction.
Let us secure both, Middlemore, for, thank Heaven we have been enabled to detect the traitor at last, in that which will excuse his final expulsion from the soil, even if no worse befall him. I have only tampered with him thus long to render his conviction more complete."
Finding that Cranstoun was inaccessible, they again, with the waywardness of their years and humour, adverted to the retreat of Raymond, to whom Molineux, Middlemore, and St. Clair the latter a volunteer in the expedition attributed the unpardonable fact of the breaking up of a most delightful party, and the deprivation of a capital supper.
Clair, stopping his ears and throwing up his eyes; "surely, Middlemore, if you are not shot this day, it must be that you were born to be hanged no man can perpetrate so horrible a pun, and expect to live." "I'm hanged if I am then," returned the other; "but, talking of being shot is a there another shot in the locker, Cranstoun another bottle of port?"
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