When dinner was done my master went out to his labors, and, as I could
discover by his voice and gestures, gave his wife a strict charge to
take care of me. I was very much tired and disposed to sleep, which, my
mistress perceiving, she put me on her own bed, and covered me with a
clean white handkerchief, but larger and coarser than the mainsail of a
man-of-war.
I slept about two hours, and dreamed I was at home with my wife and
children, which aggravated my sorrows when I awaked and found myself
alone in a vast room, between two and three hundred feet wide, and above
two hundred high, lying in a bed twenty yards wide. My mistress was gone
about her household affairs, and had locked me in. The bed was eight
yards from the floor.
[Illustration: "I ... DREW MY HANGER TO DEFEND MYSELF." P. 18.]
Presently two rats crept up the curtains, and ran smelling backwards and
forwards on my bed. One of them came almost up to my face; whereupon I
rose in a fright, and drew out my hanger to defend myself. The horrible
animals had the boldness to attack me both sides, and one of them held
his forefeet at my collar; but I killed him before he could do me any
mischief. He fell down at my feet; and the other, seeing the fate of his
comrade, made his escape, but not without one good wound on the back,
which I gave him as he fled, and made the blood run trickling from him.
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