The poor
girl laid me on her bosom, and fell a-weeping with shame and grief. She
apprehended some mischief would happen to me from rude vulgar folks, who
might squeeze me to death, or break one of my limbs by taking me in
their hands. She had also observed how modest I was in my nature, how
nicely I regarded my honor, and what an indignity conceive it to be
exposed for money, as a public spectacle, to the meanest of the people.
She said her papa and mamma had promised that Grildrig should be hers,
but now she found they meant to serve her as they did last year when
they pretended to give her a lamb, and yet as soon as it was fat sold it
to a butcher. For my own part I may truly affirm that I was less
concerned than my nurse. I had a strong hope, which left me, that I
should one day recover my liberty; to the ignominy of being carried
about for a monster, I considered myself to be a perfect stranger in the
country, and that such a misfortune could never be charged upon me as a
reproach if ever I should return to England; since the king of Great
Britain himself, in my condition, must have undergone the same distress.
My master, pursuant to the advice of his friend, carried me in a box
the next market-day, to the neighboring town, and took along with him
his little daughter, my nurse, upon a pillion[48] behind him.
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