CHAPTER V. I AM MISTAKEN FOR A GAUGER IN IRELAND, A GREAT MISTAKE.
“It was a wild and strange retreat
As ere was trod by outlaws’ feet.”—Scott.
As I hail no ambition to make a Turkish exit, and cause a vacancy in the Twenty-first Fusileers, to use a bull, “even before it was filled,” I submitted with Christian fortitude, and held my peace accordingly. Unresisted, the captors bore me across a shingly beach; for I heard the loose stones rattle as their hurried steps displaced them. In a few minutes they reached a boat, and bundled me in with scanty ceremony, as “honest Jack” was ejected into Datchet Mead. Directly, several men jumped across the thwarts—the keel grated on the gravel—the oars fell rapidly on the water—and away we went, Heaven knew whither!
On leaving the beach, my captors appeared to consider a longer silence unnecessary; for they laughed and jested with each other, although what seemed marvellous good fun to them, was death to me.
“Good night, Tom,”—said a pleasant gentleman from the shore,—“God bless the venture! sure it’s the first ye carried of the kind!”
“Don’t,” observed a second, “make mistakes; men are not malt; and be sure ye don’t give the contents of yonder sack a steeping.”
“I have done worse however, before now,” returned a rough voice beside me, “and on my poor conscience, I think a few stones in the bottom of the bag would make all right, and save both time and trouble.”
Supposing it no harm to share a conversation in which I was so essentially concerned, I muttered an indistinct dissent.