rom her mother. 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
honour, and what an indignity I should 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 never left me, that I should one day
recover my liberty: and as 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 neighbouring town, and took along with him his
little daughter, my nurse, upon a pillion behind him. The box was close
on every side, with a little door for me to go in and out, and a few
gimlet holes to let in air. The girl had been so careful as to put the
quilt of her baby's bed into it, for me to lie down on. However, I was
terribly shaken and discomposed in this journey, though it was but of
half an hour: for the horse went about forty feet at every step and
trotted so high, that the agitation was equal to the rising and falling
of a ship in a great storm, but much more frequent. Our journey was
somewhat farther than from London to St. Alban's. My master alighted at
an inn which he used to frequent; and after consulting awhile with the
inn-keeper, and making some necessary preparations, he hired the
_grultrud_, or crier, to give notice through the town of a strange
creature to be seen at the sign of the Green Eagle, not so big as a
_splacnuck_ (an animal in that country very finely shaped, about six feet
long,) and in every part of the body resembling a human creature, could
speak several words, and perform a hundred diverting tricks.

I was placed upon