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Borrow, George Henry, 1803-1881

"The Romany Rye"

No sooner had we got out than the
honest cook gave me a little bit of money and a loaf, and told me
to follow a way which he pointed out, which he said would lead to
the sea; and then, having embraced me after the Italian way, he
left me, and I never saw him again. So I followed the way which
the cook pointed out, and in two days reached a seaport called
Chiviter Vik, terribly foot-foundered, and there I met a sailor who
spoke Irish, and who belonged to a vessel just ready to sail for
France; and the sailor took me on board his vessel, and said I was
his brother, and the captain gave me a passage to a place in France
called Marseilles; and when I got there, the captain and sailor got
a little money for me and a passport, and I travelled across the
country towards a place they directed me to called Bayonne, from
which they said I might, perhaps, get to Ireland. Coming, however,
to a place called Pau, all my money being gone, I enlisted into a
regiment called the Army of the Faith, which was going into Spain,
for the King of Spain had been dethroned and imprisoned by his own
subjects, as perhaps you may have heard; and the King of France,
who was his cousin, was sending an army to help him, under the
command of his own son, whom the English called Prince Hilt,
because when he was told that he was appointed to the command, he
clapped his hand on the hilt of his sword.


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