The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle

zle, who meets with a small misfortune in the Night, and asserts her Prerog

, as she understood the danger to which her future husband was exposed, she fainted in the arms of her sister-in-law, to the surprise of all the spectators, who could not comprehend the cause of h

s adherents on horseback; while the bride and her friends were invited

bout four o'clock in the afternoon. When they understood he was safely housed at the George, they rode up to the door in a body, and expressed their satisfaction in three cheers; which were returned by the company within, as soon as they were instructed in the nature of the salute by Trunnion, who, by this time, had entered into all the jollity of his new friends, and was indeed more t

y to his hammock, while the lieutenant was driven away to the place where the bride and her friends remained in great anxiety, which vanished whe

direction. This genial banquet was entirely composed of sea-dishes; a huge pillaw, consisting of a large piece of beef sliced, a couple of fowls, and half a peck of rice, smoked in the middle of the board: a dish of hard fish, swimming in oil, appeared at each end; the sides being furnished with a mess of that savoury composition known by the name of lub's-course, and a plate of salmagundy. The second course displayed a goose of a monstrous magnitude, flanked with two Guinea-hens, a pig barbacued, a hock of salt pork, in the midst of a pease-pudding, a leg of mutton roasted, with potatoes, and another boil

ent; and the evening being spent in the most social manner, the bride was by her sister conducted to her apartment

k, which, though enlarged with a double portion of canvas, and dilated with a yoke for the occasion, was at best but a disagreeable, not to say dangerous situation. She accordingly complained with some warmth of this inconvenience, which she

perceiving herself falling, screamed aloud, and by that exclamation brought Hatchway with a light into the chamber. Though she had received no injury by the fall, she was extremely discomposed and incensed at the accident, which she even openly ascribed to the obstinacy and whimsical oddity of the commodore, in such petulant terms as evidently declared that she thought her great aim accomplished, and her authority secured against all the shocks of

she sallied from her chamber, explored her way through paths before unknown, and in the course of her researches perceived a large bell, to which she made such effectual application as alarmed every soul in the family. In a moment she was surrounded by Hatchway, Pipes, and all the rest of the serva

in less than two hours, the whole economy of the garrison was turned topsy-turvy, and everything involved in tumult and noise. Trunnion, being disturbed and distracted with the uproar, turned out in his shirt like a maniac, and, arming himself with a cudgel of crab-tree, made an irruption into his wife's apartment, where, perceiving a couple of carpenters at work in joining a bedstead, he, with many dreadful oaths and opprobrious invectives, ordered them to desist, swearing he would suffer no bulk

s fetters, when he was exempted from the disgrace by the accidental entrance of his spouse, who rescued him from the hands of hi

from being satisfied with this apology, he groped about for the bell, the inflammation of his eye having utterly deprived him of sight; and the rope being, by the precaution of the delinquents, conveyed out of his reach, began to storm with incredible vociferation, like a li

defiance; they therefore unsheathed their cutlasses, which they commonly wore as badges of their commission; and a desperate engagement in all probability would have ensued, had not the lady of the castle interposed, and prevented the effects of their animosity, by assur

he told the commodore he should always be ready to execute his lawful commands; but that he co

or having admitted such a cockatrice into his family. But all these exclamations did not avail; they were among the last essays of his resistance to the will of his wife, whose influence among his adherents had already swallowed up his own, and peremptorily told him that he must leave the management of everything within-doors to her, who understood best what was for his hono