The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle
The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle The captain, with reluctance, yielded the preference in this particular to Jack, who was immediately invited to a conference, by a note subscribed with Pickle's own hand. He was found at the prison-gate waiting for Gauntlet, to know the issue of his negotiation. He no sooner received this summons, than he set all his sails, and made the best of his way to his friend's apartment; being admitted by the turnkey, in consequence of Peregrine's request, communicated by the messenger who, carried the billet. Pipes followed close in the wake of his shipmate; and, in a few minutes after the note had been despatched, Peregrine and Gauntlet heard the sound of the stump, ascending the wooden staircase with such velocity, that they at first mistook it for the application of drumsticks to the head of an empty barrel. This uncommon speed, however, was attended with a misfortune; he chanced to overlook a small defect in one of the steps, and his prop plunging into a hole, he fell backwards, to the imminent danger of his life. Tom was luckily at his back, and sustained him in his arms, so as that he escaped without any other damage than the loss of his wooden leg, which was snapped in the middle, by the weight of his body in falling; and such was his impatience, that he would not give himself the trouble to disengage the fractured member. Unbuckling the whole equipage in a trice, he left it sticking in the crevice, saying, a rotten cable was not worth heaving up, and, in this natural state of mutilation, hopped into the room with infinite expedition.