[Illustration: "THIS GRACIOUS PRINCESS HELD OUT HER LITTLE FINGER."
P. 32.]
The queen observed my coldness, and, when the farmer was gone out of
the apartment, asked me the reason. I made bold to tell her majesty
that I owed no other obligation to my late master, than his not
dashing out the brains of a poor harmless creature, found by chance in
his field; which obligation was amply recompensed by the gain he had
made in showing me through half the kingdom, and the price he had now
sold me for. That the life I had since led was laborious enough to
kill an animal of ten times my strength. That my health was much
impaired by the continual drudgery of entertaining the rabble every
hour of the day, and that, if my master had not thought my life in
danger, her majesty would not have got so cheap a bargain. But as I
was out of all fear of being ill-treated under the protection of so
great and good an empress, the ornament of nature, the darling of the
world, the delight of her subjects, the phoenix[55] of the creation;
so, I hoped my late master's apprehensions would appear to be
groundless, for I already found my spirits to revive, by the influence
of her most august presence.
This was the sum of my speech, delivered with great improprieties and
hesitation; the latter part was altogether framed in the style peculiar
to that people, whereof I learned some phrases from Glumdalclitch, while
she was carrying me to court.
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