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could be got, which indeed was coarser than sackcloth; and these
she constantly washed for me with her own hands. She was likewise
my school-mistress, to teach me the language: when I pointed to
any thing, she told me the name of it in her own tongue, so that in
a few days I was able to call for whatever I had a mind to. She
was very good-natured, and not above forty feet high, being little
for her age. She gave me the name of Grildrig, which the family
took up, and afterwards the whole kingdom. The word imports what
the Latins call nanunculus, the Italians homunceletino, and the
English mannikin. To her I chiefly owe my preservation in that
country: we never parted while I was there; I called her my
Glumdalclitch, or little nurse; and should be guilty of great
ingratitude, if I omitted this honourable mention of her care and
affection towards me, which I heartily wish it lay in my power to
requite as she deserves, instead of being the innocent, but unhappy
instrument of her disgrace, as I have too much reason to fear.

It now began to be known and talked of in the neighbourhood, that
my master had found a strange animal in the field, about the
bigness of a splacnuck, but exactly shaped in every part like a
human creature; which it likewise imitated in all its actions;
seemed to speak in a little language of its own, had already
learned several words of theirs, went erect upon two legs, was tame
and gentle, would come when it was called, do whatever it was bid,
had the finest limbs in the world, and a complexion fairer than a
nobleman's daughter of three years old. Another farmer, who lived
hard by, and was a particular friend of my master, came on a visit
on purpose to inquire into the truth of this story. I was
immediately produced, and placed upon a table, where I walked as I
was commanded, drew my hanger, put it up again, made my reverence
to my master's guest, asked him in his own language how he did, and
told him HE WAS WELCOME, just as my little nurse had instructed me.
This man, who was old and dim-sighted, put on his spectacles to
behold me better; at which I could not forbear laughing very
heartily, for his eyes appeared like the full moon shining into a
chamber at two windows. Our people, who discovered the cause of my
mirth, bore me company in laughing, at which the old fellow was
fool enough to be angry and out of countenance. He had the
character of a great miser; and, to my misfortune, he well deserved
it, by the cursed advice he gave my master, to show me as a sight
upon a market-day in the next town, which was half an hour's
riding, about two-and-twenty miles from our house. I guessed there
was some mischief when I observed my master and his friend
whispering together, sometimes pointing at me; and my fears made me
fancy that I overheard and understood some of their words. But the
next morning Glumdalclitch, my little nurse, told me the whole
matter, which she had cunningly picked out from her mother.

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