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Article TRYING TO CHANGE A SOVEREIGN. ← Page 9 of 11 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Trying To Change A Sovereign.
And it didn't seem likely to come off . The day was wet . Perhaps the powder was damp , and the touch-paper of the set piece wouldn ' t ignite . Perhaps Messrs . Brock ' s workpeople had struck . " Bloody with spurring , fiery hot with haste , " a horseman galloped up the
hill . The watchers closed around him . He exhibited to them a yellow envelope which he had already torn open , and from which he had withdrawn a grey flimsy-looking document . It was a Post-Office Telegram form , and it bore these suggestive words in addition to the necessary addresses .
Cut Company in liquidation . all members made Contributories J copped Game up Fireworks postponed no
money returned meet at Dunchurch
The company dispersed , the horseman—only stopping to he sworn in at the Horns upon the Horns—dashed through Highgate , and was soon far off on the great northern road . But a , though not the , pyrotechnic display did come off , only not in London . A hundred miles away a few desperate men , hunted by the Posse comitatws
from Ashb y St . Leger , in far off Northamptonshire , through Dunchurch , haled from Coughton , were brought to bay at a farm-house known as Holbeach , in Staffordshire . As yet Oliver Cromwell had not delivered 'his famous injunction to " keep your powder dry , " and the ammunition of such of the scared members of the " Long " firm as were still at liberty was considerabl y wetted . Picture the scene . Within , around the hearth of the farm-house , some dozen frantic men . Without , catchpolls , and militia , and J . P . ' s , and sheriffs , and under-sheriffs , clamouring for admittance in the king ' s name .
"Dolts , dry your powder on the hearth , " screamed the head of the firm within . " Constables , set fire to the outbuildings , " roared the sheriff of the county without . In a box deposited upon the hearth was exposed a quantity of black granules . In the midst thereof a white linen bag holding some score of
pounds of powder more . There is a fiz , a bang , a roar ; fire within , fire without . Some half-a-dozen scorched , smudged , writhing figures prone on the floor—two or three of them desperately wounded—struggle to their feet , aword in hand . " Stand back to back * * * * And fight it to the last ! or words to that effect , shouts Mr . Catesby , only , yon see he couldn ' t quote Lord Macaulay , because that peer , like Townsend the runner , in the verse of the ballad I have used for a text at the head of this portion of my paper , " wasn ' t born till arter that , "
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Trying To Change A Sovereign.
And it didn't seem likely to come off . The day was wet . Perhaps the powder was damp , and the touch-paper of the set piece wouldn ' t ignite . Perhaps Messrs . Brock ' s workpeople had struck . " Bloody with spurring , fiery hot with haste , " a horseman galloped up the
hill . The watchers closed around him . He exhibited to them a yellow envelope which he had already torn open , and from which he had withdrawn a grey flimsy-looking document . It was a Post-Office Telegram form , and it bore these suggestive words in addition to the necessary addresses .
Cut Company in liquidation . all members made Contributories J copped Game up Fireworks postponed no
money returned meet at Dunchurch
The company dispersed , the horseman—only stopping to he sworn in at the Horns upon the Horns—dashed through Highgate , and was soon far off on the great northern road . But a , though not the , pyrotechnic display did come off , only not in London . A hundred miles away a few desperate men , hunted by the Posse comitatws
from Ashb y St . Leger , in far off Northamptonshire , through Dunchurch , haled from Coughton , were brought to bay at a farm-house known as Holbeach , in Staffordshire . As yet Oliver Cromwell had not delivered 'his famous injunction to " keep your powder dry , " and the ammunition of such of the scared members of the " Long " firm as were still at liberty was considerabl y wetted . Picture the scene . Within , around the hearth of the farm-house , some dozen frantic men . Without , catchpolls , and militia , and J . P . ' s , and sheriffs , and under-sheriffs , clamouring for admittance in the king ' s name .
"Dolts , dry your powder on the hearth , " screamed the head of the firm within . " Constables , set fire to the outbuildings , " roared the sheriff of the county without . In a box deposited upon the hearth was exposed a quantity of black granules . In the midst thereof a white linen bag holding some score of
pounds of powder more . There is a fiz , a bang , a roar ; fire within , fire without . Some half-a-dozen scorched , smudged , writhing figures prone on the floor—two or three of them desperately wounded—struggle to their feet , aword in hand . " Stand back to back * * * * And fight it to the last ! or words to that effect , shouts Mr . Catesby , only , yon see he couldn ' t quote Lord Macaulay , because that peer , like Townsend the runner , in the verse of the ballad I have used for a text at the head of this portion of my paper , " wasn ' t born till arter that , "