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Kester himself was almost startled, and yet it was as if he must go on torturing her. 'An' who telled thee so sure and certain as he were drowned? He might ha' been carried off by t' press-gang as well as other men. 'Oh! if I were but dead that I might know all! cried she, flinging herself down on the hay. Kester kept silence.
But o' Thursday t' Resolution, first whaler back this season, came in port, and t' press-gang showed their teeth, and carried off four as good able-bodied seamen as iver I made trousers for; and t' place were all up like a nest o' wasps, when yo've set your foot in t' midst. They were so mad, they were ready for t' fight t' very pavin' stones. 'A wish a'd been theere! A just wish a had!
A young farmer's lad was leading a horse to be shod which had cast a shoe. The press-gang rushed out, seized the young man, and led him off to serve the king. Before leaving he nailed the shoe to a post on the stairs, saying, "Let this stay till I come from the wars to claim it." So it remains to this day unclaimed, a mute reminder of its owner's fate and of the manners of our forefathers.
The press-gang went on till they reached the outskirts of the town, when they brought up before a neat little cottage. Three men were sent round to the back-door, while five others advanced to the front entrance and knocked loudly. "That's where Widow Treviss lives; she's not one to harbour seamen," Dick heard one of the party observe.
Say you've come to make her your wife, and won't leave the church till you've done it. She's still the same woman as when she threw you over. Ah, sir, we men change our natures; but woman is always Eve. I suppose you know a short cut to the church? Very well. I shall take your cart and mare, and drive to meet the press-gang, who won't be in the sweetest of tempers just now.
Our press-gang, unlike the press-gangs of New York or Chicago, had nothing to do with morning publications, and would have failed to comprehend us had we ordered the preparation of a sensation leader, or a report of the last great meeting at Union Square. Our press-gang devoted its time and energies to putting our cotton into bales of the proper size and neatness.
"Then you two didn't come in a boat?" "Never you mind how we came or how we didn't, my lad," said the smuggler, "we're here; and as the game's up, Master Aleck, and all I want to do is to keep out of the clutches of the press-gang and the law, I'll do as I said, go up by and by and try to get the key, and if I can't get the key I'll bring down a file."
'Say? why, a' she could say was to burst out crying, and after a bit, she just repeated her feyther's words, and said anyhow he was dead, for he'd niver live to go to sea wi' a press-gang. She knowed him too well for that. Thou sees she thinks a deal on him for a spirited chap, as can do what he will.
As early as 1755 they gave it as their opinion too little heeded that to bring any matter connected with pressing to judicial trial would be "very imprudent." Not until the year 1833 did belated Nemesis overtake the press-gang. It died the unmourned victim of its own enormities, and the manner of its passing forms the by no means least interesting chapter in its extraordinary career.
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