he real state of
their condition, his knees began to shake, his teeth to chatter, and he
uttered a most doleful lamentation, importing his fear of being carried
to some hideous dungeon of the Bastille, where he should spend the rest
of his days in misery and horror, and never see the light of God's sun,
nor the face of a friend; but perish in a foreign land, far removed from
his family and connexions. Pickle d--d him for his pusillanimity; and
the exempt hearing a lady bemoan herself so piteously, expressed his
mortification at being the instrument of giving her such pain, and
endeavoured to console them by representing the lenity of the French
government, and the singular generosity of the prince, by whose order
they were apprehended.

Peregrine, whose discretion seemed to forsake him on all such occasions,
exclaimed, with great bitterness, against the arbitrary administration
of France, and inveighed, with many expressions of contempt, against
the character of the offended prince, whose resentment, far from being
noble, he mid, was pitiful, ungenerous, and unjust. To this remonstrance
the officer made no reply, but shrugged up his shoulders in silent
astonishment at the hardiesse of the prisoner; and the fiacre was just
on the point of setting out, when they heard the noise of a scuffle at
the back of the coach, and the voice of Tom Pipes pronouncing, "I'll
be d--d if I do." This trusty attendant had been desired by one of the
guards to descend from his station in the rear; but as he resolved to
share his master's fate, he took no notice of their entreaties, until
they were seconded by force; and that he endeavoured to repeal with his
heel, which he applied with such energy to the jaws of the soldier, who
first came in contact with him, that they emitted a crashing sound like
a dried walnut between the grinders of a Templar in the pit. Exasperated
at this outrage, the other saluted Tom's posteriors with his bayonet,
which incommoded him so much that he could no longer keep his post, but,
leaping upon the ground, gave his antagonist a chuck under the chin, and
laid him upon his back, then skipping over him with infinite agility,
absconded among the crowd of coaches, till he saw the guard mount before
and behind upon his master's fiacre, which no sooner set forward,
than he followed at a small distance, to reconnoitre the place where
Peregrine should be confined. After having proceeded slowly through many
windings and t