The women would at once deny that
anyone was there, but a door was pretty sure to be found locked,
and upon this being broken open the fugitive would be found hiding
under a pile of clothes or mats. Sometimes he would leap through
the windows, sometimes take to the flat roof, and as the houses
join together in the most confused way the roofs offered immense
facilities for escape, and most lively chases took place.
No excuses or pretences availed. A man seen limping painfully along
the street would, after a brief examination of his leg to see if
there was any external mark which would account for the lameness,
be sent at a round trot down the road, amid peals of laughter from
the women and girls looking on.
The indignation of some of the men thus seized, loaded and sent up
country under a strong escort, was very funny, and their astonishment
in some cases altogether unfeigned. Small shopkeepers who had never
supposed that they would be called upon to labor for the defense of
their freedom and country, found themselves with a barrel of pork
upon their heads and a policeman with a loaded musket by their side
proceeding up country for an indefinite period. A school teacher was
missing, and was found to have gone up with a case of ammunition.
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