At last being come to
the point where, as I said, the river makes a short turn, he stands
parleying with them a great while, and sometimes, pretending to wade
over, he puts his long pole into the water, then finding it pretty
shallow he pulls off his hose and goes in, still thrusting his pole in
before him, till being gotten up to his middle, he could reach beyond
him, where it was too deep, and so shaking his head, comes back again.
The soldiers on the other side, laughing at him, asked him if he could
swim? He said, "No," "Why, you fool you," says one of the sentinels,
"the channel of the river is twenty feet deep." "How do you know
that?" says the dragoon. "Why, our engineer," says he, "measured it
yesterday." This was what he wanted, but not yet fully satisfied,
"Ay, but," says he, "maybe it may not be very broad, and if one of you
would wade in to meet me till I could reach you with my pole, I'd give
him half a ducat to pull me over." The innocent way of his discourse
so deluded the soldiers, that one of them immediately strips and goes
in up to the shoulders, and our dragoon goes in on this side to meet
him; but the stream took t' other soldier away, and he being a good
swimmer, came swimming over to this side.
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