'Yes, to hunger!' exclaimed the minstrel, flinging down half a loaf of bread, that had remained since breakfast. 'There, Sir, is a proof of it, deduced from the Roman history!'
'As I perceive that war is inevitable,' said Betterton, 'I shall stand acquitted both here and hereafter for all its consequences by my now just going through the form of proposing a general pacification.'
'Pacific Ocean!' cried Jerry. 'No, thank you; I have got a surfeit of that word already.'
'Nay, my honest fellow——'
'Never honest-fellow me,' cried Jerry: 'it won't take, old boy. So bad manners to you, and that is worse than bad luck, go boil your tongue hard, like a calve's, and then it won't wag so glib and smooth;—ay, and go boil your nose white like veal too. But this I can tell you, that you will neither beat us out, nor starve us out; for we have sticks and stones, and meat and good liquor; and we will eat together, and drink together, and——'
'And sleep together, I suppose,' cried Betterton: 'for of course, her ladyship will think nothing of sleeping in the same apartment with twenty or thirty men.'
The fatal words fell upon me like a thunderbolt! It was, indeed, too true, that a large portion of my troops must remain all night in the Black Chamber, as there would be no room for them elsewhere: so how in the name of wonder could I contrive to sleep? Certain it is, that Ellena Di Rosalba travelled a whole day and night in a carriage with two ruffians, who never left her for a moment; and it was not till after Luxima and the missionary had journeyed together several entire days, that (to quote the very words) for the first time since the commencement of their pilgrimage she was hidden from his view. How these heroines managed I know not; but this I know, that I could not abide the idea of sleeping in the presence of men. And yet, to surrender my sweet, my beloved, my venerable castle, the hereditary seat of my proud progenitors, at the moment of an immortal victory, ere the laurel was yet warmed on the throbbings of my forehead;—and all for what? For the most pitiful and unclassical reason that ever disgraced a human creature. Why, I should be pointed at, scouted at. 'Look, look, there is the heroine who surrendered her castle, because——' and then a whisper and a titter, and a ''Tis fact 'pon my honour.' Oh, my friend, my friend, the thought was madness!
I considered, and reconsidered, but every moment only strengthened me more and more in the conviction that there was no remedy.
'Jerry,' said I, 'dear Jerry, we must surrender.'
'Surrender!' exclaimed Jerry, 'Why then, death alive, for what?'