CHAPTER V. I AM MISTAKEN FOR A GAUGER IN IRELAND, A GREAT MISTAKE.
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.
“What’s that he’s mumbling about?” inquired a person in the boat’s bow.
“And what’s that to you?” was politely responded by my next neighbour, as he applied knuckles, hard as ebony, to my ribs, I presume to enforce his admonition. “_Badda-hurst_, * or I’ll slip you across the gunnel before you have time to bless yourself. Pull, will ye? Hurry to the island; for before this time I should have been half way to Carrick Beg, instead of ferrying blackguard gaugers to Innisteagles.”
Ferrying blackguard gaugers! “What did the fellow mean? It was a singular observation, and I ventured to remark it.
“What--muttering again!” replied the voice. “Can you swim, friend?”
I managed to answer, that “I had never tried it, tied neck and heels together.”