The Outlaw (Volume 1)

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1835. Excerpt: ... The great overgrown monster who stood before him, in huge jack-boots and wide-topped gloves, metamorphosed into a shepherd, with a flock of lambs, a crook, a wreath of poppies, and a straw hat! it was too much for his gravity; which was tried still more, while Jammings continued mingling up, in a strange way, hinls against the immorality of Sergeant Snap'em, a pathetic lamentation for Cicely, and a repetition of his resolve to tarry no longer with the troops of James. It was in vain that Basil told him the impossibility of a stout able fellow like him receiving permission to quit his regiment. Then, replied 'Old Iron, ' I'll desert--it's in my destiny that I'm not to be a soldier. And how know you that, my fine fellow? How do I know it, your honour? Why, your honour remembers the woman in a red hood I told you of; and she was queen of the beggars, I thought--but she's better than that--a wonderful soothsayer! And hearing she could tell every thing, I went to her last night, where her tent is pitched down yonder, and resolved to make trial of her knowledge. First, I asked her who I was, and she told me! and I asked who you was, and she told me! And she initiated me likewise, that you would go a journey to-day to St. Mary's priory; and she told me you would fall in love with an Irish lady; and she told me your cousin was there too, but she said a black cloud shed poison on her when she was born--and she looked at the stars, and said I wasn't born to be a general! And, what was the most excruciating thing of all, she said that hussy Cicely was bora under a wild star, and would certainly die mad. And she took me out and made me look over at Sydney Pleasance, and showed me where a dark cloud hung over the house--a horrible dark cloud it was! Enough of such trumpery! exclaimed Ba...