University of Virginia Library

21. CHAPTER XXI.
SAMSON AMONG THE PHILISTINES.

AT length, as the ship, gliding on past three or four
vessels at anchor in the roadstead—one, a man-of-war
just furling her sails—came nigh Falmouth town, Israel,
from his perch, saw crowds in violent commotion on the
shore, while the adjacent roofs were covered with sight-seers.
A large man-of-war cutter was just landing its
occupants, among whom were a corporal's guard and three
officers, besides the naval lieutenant and boat's crew.
Some of this company having landed, and formed a sort
of lane among the mob, two trim soldiers, armed to the
teeth, rose in the stern-sheets; and between them, a martial
man of Patagonian stature, their ragged and handcuffed
captive, whose defiant head overshadowed theirs,
as St. Paul's dome its inferior steeples. Immediately the
mob raised a shout, pressing in curiosity towards the
colossal stranger; so that, drawing their swords, four of
the soldiers had to force a passage for their comrades,
who followed on, conducting the giant.

As the letter of marque drew still nigher, Israel heard
the officer in command of the party ashore shouting, “To
the castle! to the castle!” and so, surrounded by shouting
throngs, the company moved on, preceded by the
three drawn swords, ever and anon flourished at the
rioters, towards a large grim pile on a cliff about a mile
from the landing. Long as they were in sight, the bulky
form of the captive was seen at times swayingly towering
over the flashing bayonets and cutlasses, like a great
whale breaching amid a hostile retinue of sword-fish.
Now and then, too, with barbaric scorn, he taunted them
with cramped gestures of his manacled hands.

When at last the vessel had gained her anchorage,
opposite a distant detached warehouse, all was still; and
the work of breaking out in the hold immediately commencing,
and continuing till nightfall, absorbed all further
attention for the present.

Next day was Sunday; and about noon Israel, with
others, was allowed to go ashore for a stroll. The town
was quiet. Seeing nothing very interesting there, he
passed out, alone, into the fields alongshore, and presently
found himself climbing the cliff whereon stood
the grim pile before spoken of.

“What place is you?” he asked of a rustic passing.

“Pendennis Castle.”

As he stepped upon the short crisp sward under its
walls, he started at a violent sound from within, as of
the roar of some tormented lion. Soon the sound became
articulate, and he heard the following words bayed
out with an amazing vigor:

“Brag no more, Old England; consider you are but an
island! Order back your broken battalions! home, and
repent in ashes! Long enough have your hired tories
across the sea forgotten the Lord their God, and bowed
down to Howe and Kniphausen—the Hessian! — Hands
off, red-skinned jackal! Wearing the king's plate,[1] as
I do, I have treasures of wrath against you British.”

Then came a clanking, as of a chain; many vengeful
sounds, all confusedly together; with strugglings. Then
again the voice:

“Ye brought me out here, from my dungeon to this
green—affronting yon Sabbath sun—to see how a rebel
looks. But I show ye how a true gentleman and Christian
can conduct in adversity. Back, dogs! Respect a
gentleman and a Christian, though he be in rags and smell
of bilge-water.”

Filled with astonishment at these words, which came
from over a massive wall, enclosing what seemed an open
parade-space, Israel pressed forward, and soon came to
a black archway, leading far within, underneath, to a
grassy tract, through a tower. Like two boar's tusks,
two sentries stood on guard at either side of the open
jaws of the arch. Scrutinizing our adventurer a moment,
they signed him permission to enter.

Arrived at the end of the arched-way, where the sun
shone, Israel stood transfixed at the scene.

Like some baited bull in the ring, crouched the Patagonian-looking
captive, handcuffed as before; the grass

of the green trampled, and gored up all about him, both
by his own movements and those of the people around.
Except some soldiers and sailors, these seemed mostly
townspeople, collected here out of curiosity. The stranger
was outlandishly arrayed in the sorry remains of a half-Indian,
half-Canadian sort of a dress, consisting of a fawn-skin
jacket—the fur outside and hanging in ragged tufts—
a half-rotten, bark-like belt of wampum; aged breeches
of sagathy; bedarned worsted stockings to the knee; old
moccasins riddled with holes, their metal tags yellow with
salt-water rust; a faded red woollen bonnet, not unlike a
Russian night-cap, or a portentous, ensanguined full-moon,
all soiled, and stuck about with bits of half-rotted straw.
He seemed just broken from the dead leases in David's
outlawed Cave of Adullam. Unshaven, beard and hair
matted, and profuse as a corn-field beaten down by hail-storms,
his whole marred aspect was that of some wild
beast; but of a royal sort, and unsubdued by the cage.

“Aye, stare, stare! Though but last night dragged
out of a ship's hold, like a smutty tierce; and this morning
out of your littered barracks here, like a murderer;
for all that, you may well stare at Ethan Ticonderoga
Allen, the unconquered soldier, by —! You Turks
never saw a Christian before. Stare on! I am he, who,
when your Lord Howe wanted to bribe a patriot to fall
down and worship him by an offer of a major-generalship
and five thousand acres of choice land in old Vermont—
(Ha! three-times-three for glorious old Vermont, and
my Green-Mountain boys! Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!)
I am he, I say, who answered your Lord Howe, `You, you

offer our land? You are like the devil in Scripture,
offering all the kingdoms in the world, when the d——d
soul had not a corner-lot on earth! Stare on!'”

“Look you, rebel, you had best heed how you talk
against General Lord Howe,” here said a thin, wasp-waisted,
epauletted officer of the castle, coming near and flourishing
his sword like a schoolmaster's ferule.

“General Lord Howe? Heed how I talk of that toad-hearted
king's lick-spittle of a scarlet poltroon; the vilest
wriggler in God's worm-hole below? I tell you, that
herds of red-haired devils are impatiently snorting to ladle
Lord Howe with all his gang (you included) into the see-thingest
syrups of tophet's flames!”

At this blast, the wasp-waisted officer was blown backwards
as from before the suddenly burst head of a steam-boiler.

Staggering away, with a snapped spine, he muttered
something about its being beneath his dignity to bandy
further words with a low-lived rebel.

“Come, come, Colonel Allen,” here said a mild-looking
man in a sort of clerical undress, “respect the day better
than to talk thus of what lies beyond. Were you to
die this hour, or what is more probable, be hung next
week at Tower-wharf, you know not what might become,
in eternity, of yourself.”

“Reverend Sir,” with a mocking bow, “when not better
employed braiding my beard, I have a little dabbled
in your theologies. And let me tell you, Reverend Sir,”
lowering and intensifying his voice, “that as to the world
of spirits, of which you hint, though I know nothing of

the mode or manner of that world, no more than do you,
yet I expect when I shall arrive there to be treated as
well as any other gentleman of my merit. That is to
say, far better than you British know how to treat an
American officer and meek-hearted Christian captured in
honorable war, by ——! Every one tells me, as you
yourself just breathed, and as, crossing the sea, every
billow dinned into my ear, that I, Ethan Allen, am to
be hung like a thief. If I am, the great Jehovah and the
Continental Congress shall avenge me; while I, for my
part, shall show you, even on the tree, how a Christian
gentleman can die. Meantime, sir, if you are the clergyman
you look, act out your consolatory function, by getting
an unfortunate Christian gentleman about to die, a
bowl of punch.”

The good-natured stranger, not to have his religious
courtesy appealed to in vain, immediately dispatched his
servant, who stood by, to procure the beverage.

At this juncture, a faint rustling sound, as of the advance
of an army with banners, was heard. Silks, scarfs,
and ribbons fluttered in the background. Presently, a
bright squadron of fair ladies drew nigh, escorted by certain
outriding gallants of Falmouth.

“Ah,” sighed a soft voice, “what a strange sash, and
furred vest, and what leopard-like teeth, and what flaxen
hair, but all mildewed;—is that he?”

“Yea, is it, lovely charmer,” said Allen, like an Ottoman,
bowing over his broad, bovine forehead, and breathing the
words out like a lute; “it is he—Ethan Allen, the soldier;
now, since ladies' eyes visit him, made trebly a captive.”

“Why, he talks like a beau in a parlor, this wild,
mossed American from the woods,” sighed another fair
lady to her mate; “but can this be he we came to see?
I must have a lock of his hair.”

“It is he, adorable Delilah; and fear not, even though
incited by the foe, by clipping my locks, to dwindle my
strength. Give me your sword, man,” turning to an
officer:—“Ah! I'm fettered. Clip it yourself, lady.”

“No, no—I am——”

“Afraid, would you say? Afraid of the vowed friend
and champion of all ladies all round the world? Nay,
nay, come hither.”

The lady advanced; and soon, overcoming her timidity,
her white hand shone like whipped foam amid the matted
waves of flaxen hair.

“Ah, this is like clipping tangled tags of gold-lace,”
cried she; “but see, it is half straw.”

“But the wearer is no man-of-straw, lady; were I free,
and you had ten thousand foes—horse, foot, and dragoons
—how like a friend I could fight for you! Come, you
have robbed me of my hair; let me rob your dainty hand
of its price. What, afraid again?”

“No, not that; but——”

“I see, lady; I may do it, by your leave, but not
by your word; the wonted way of ladies. There, it
is done. Sweeter that kiss, than the bitter heart of a
cherry.”

When at length this lady left, no small talk was had
by her with her companions about someway relieving the
hard lot of so knightly an unfortunate. Whereupon a

worthy, judicious gentleman, of middle-age, in attendance,
suggested a bottle of good wine every day, and clean
linen once every week. And these the gentle Englishwoman—too
polite and too good to be fastidious—did
indeed actually send to Ethan Allen, so long as he tarried
a captive in her land.

The withdrawal of this company was followed by a
different scene.

A perspiring man in top-boots, a riding-whip in his
hand, and having the air of a prosperous farmer, brushed
in, like a stray bullock, among the rest, for a peep at the
giant; having just entered through the arch, as the ladies
passed out.

“Hearing that the man who took Ticonderoga was
here in Pendennis Castle, I've ridden twenty-five miles
to see him; and to-morrow my brother will ride forty
for the same purpose. So let me have first look. Sir,”
he continued, addressing the captive, “will you let me
ask you a few plain questions, and be free with you?”

“Be free with me? With all my heart. I love freedom
of all things. I'm ready to die for freedom; I expect to.
So be free as you please. What is it?”

“Then, sir, permit me to ask what is your occupation
in life—in time of peace, I mean?”

“You talk like a tax-gatherer,” rejoined Allen, squinting
diabolically at him; “what is my occupation in life?
Why, in my younger days I studied divinity, but at present
I am a conjurer by profession.”

Hereupon everybody laughed, equally at the manner
as the words, and the nettled farmer retorted:

“Conjurer, eh? well, you conjured wrong that time
you were taken.”

“Not so wrong, though, as you British did, that time
I took Ticonderoga, my friend.”

At this juncture the servant came with the punch, when
his master bade him present it to the captive.

“No!—give it me, sir, with your own hands, and
pledge me as gentleman to gentleman.”

“I cannot pledge a state-prisoner, Colonel Allen; but
I will hand you the punch with my own hands, since you
insist upon it.”

“Spoken and done like a true gentleman, sir; I am
bound to you.”

Then receivin the bowl into his gyved hands, the iron
ringing against the china, he put it to his lips, and saying,
“I hereby give the British nation credit for half a minute's
good usage,” at one draught emptied it to the bottom.

“The rebel gulps it down like a swilling hog at a
trough,” here scoffed a lusty private of the guard, off duty.

“Shame to you!” cried the giver of the bowl.

“Nay, sir; his red coat is a standing blush to him, as
it is to the whole scarlet-blushing British army.” Then
turning derisively upon the private: “You object to my
way of taking things, do ye? I fear I shall never please
ye. You objected to the way, too, in which I took Ticonderoga,
and the way in which I meant to take Montreal.
Selah! But pray, now that I look at you, are not you
the hero I caught dodging round, in his shirt, in the cattle-pen,
inside the fort? It was the break of day, you
remember.”

“Come, Yankee,” here swore the incensed private;
“cease this, or I'll darn your old fawn-skins for ye with
the flat of this sword;” for a specimen, laying it lashwise,
but not heavily, across the captive's back.

Turning like a tiger, the giant, catching the steel between
his teeth, wrenched it from the private's grasp, and
striking it with his manacles, sent it spinning like a juggler's
dagger into the air, saying, “Lay your dirty
coward's iron on a tied gentleman again, and these,” lifting
his handcuffed fists, “shall be the beetle of mortality
to you!”

The now furious soldier would have struck him with
all his force, but several men of the town interposed,
reminding him that it were outrageous to attack a chained
captive.

“Ah,” said Allen, “I am accustomed to that, and therefore
I am beforehand with them; and the extremity of
what I say against Britain, is not meant for you, kind
friends, but for my insulters, present and to come.” Then
recognizing among the interposers the giver of the bowl,
he turned with a courteous bow, saying, “Thank you again
and again, my good sir; you may not be the worse for
this; ours is an unstable world; so that one gentleman
never knows when it may be his turn to be helped of
another.”

But the soldier still making a riot, and the commotion
growing general, a superior officer stepped up, who terminated
the scene by remanding the prisoner to his cell,
dismissing the townspeople, with all strangers, Israel
among the rest, and closing the castle gates after them.