ONE: "Bribed, stolen, or strayed, an Ugly Gorilla, answering to the name of Ben. The animal may be distinguished by his filthy habits, associates frequently with swine and like hogs, delights in rolling in manure, and is often to be found in Ditches. Is remarkable for his unnatural cruelty towards his own young, whom he treats with shocking unkindness. The animal has likewise a propensity for boasting and lies. The Gorilla's[Pg 177] temper is dreadfully bad, horribly vicious, and fearfully vindictive. A reward of Five Pounds will be given by Jothan True Blue, chairman of the Poor Man's Big Loaf Association, to any Blue Lamb who may find this Odious Creature, as his one object while at large is to steal the Poor Man's Loaf. He would also take, if he could, the Poor Man's Vote, and confine the Poor Man's Children to the dirt and ignorance in which he himself wallows, being unable to read or write, and was once heard to ask the Cringing Colonel, his keeper, what was the meaning of Tory Principle and Purity' on his election banners. We too would like to know."He came shuffling up to her, and for a moment stood straining his blind eyes into her face.
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THREE:So when Reuben came to his territory the next [Pg 44]afternoon he found a small crowd assembledDitch, Ginner, Realf of Grandturzel, Coalbran of Doozes, Pilcher of Birdseye, with a sprinkling of their wives, families, and farm-hands. He himself had brought Naomi, and Harry was to join them when he came back from an errand to Moor's Cottage. Reuben felt a trifle important and in need of spectators. This was to be the crowning act of conquest. When those roots were shattered away there would be nothing but time and manure between him and the best oat-crop in Peasmarsh."You need not trouble yourself," replied Holgrave: "what I want to do I can do myself."
THREE:However, though he was a great trouble to his father, he was not so irritating as Richard. He had the advantage that one could lay hands on him and vent one's fury in blows, but Richard had an extraordinary knack of keeping just on the safe side of vengeance. For one thing he was the best educated of all Reuben's children, and the result of education had been not so much to fill his mind as to sharpen his wits to a formidable extent. For another, he loathed to be beaten, and used all his ingenuity to avoid it. Reuben could flog Albert for going off to the Moor when he was told to clean out the pigsties, but he could not flog Richard for being sick at his first spadeful. As a matter of fact he did actually perpetrate this cruelty when Richard's squeamishness caused him any gross inconvenience, but there was no denying that the boy was on the whole successful in avoiding his dues.It was about midnight that Wells, who had been thinking a great deal of the probability of gaining access to the fortress, went to the smith's quarters, and proposed to attempt an entrance. Tyler commended his devotion; and the galleyman, provided with a rope, to which an iron hook was affixed, and a flask or two of wine, dropped unobserved into the water. He swam on as softly as possible beneath the wall, and in the shadow cast by the moonlight. There was one part where he observed that an angle of the building cast a broad shade on the parapet; and here, without a moment's hesitation, he stopped, and throwing up the rope, the hook caught. Though encumbered by his wet apparel, he climbed up with the agility of a boy; but the instant his figure appeared above the wall, two men with drawn swords sprung forward.
THREE:"What! my Dick," asked the smith, eagerly, starting up from his posture at the window, and his listless countenance suddenly becoming animated."A cowman's girl!" he groaned, "at Eggs Hole, too, where they d?an't know plums from damsons! Marry her! I'd sooner have Albert and his wenches."
