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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 a table in the largest room of the inn, which
might be near three hundred feet square. My little nurse stood on
a low stool close to the table, to take care of me, and direct what
I should do. My master, to avoid a crowd, would suffer only thirty
people at a time to see me. I walked about on the table as the
girl commanded; she asked me questions, as far as she knew my
understanding of the language reached, and I answered them as loud
as I could. I turned about several times to the company, paid my
humble respects, said THEY WERE WELCOME, and used some other

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