VII: SLAVERY
In my own country I have often remarked the cruel lack of consideration with which women treat their servants, but here I was appalled by the bland inhumanity of the conduct of these women toward myself. I was given no wages and no liberty. (I could not keep my engagement with Audrey.) I was a hind, and lived in horror of the degradation into which I saw that I must sink. Day after day of the cruel work of the fields brought me to a torpid condition in which I could but blindly obey the orders given me when I returned home. Especially I dreaded the evenings on those days when the mistress of the house went to the district stores, for she always returned out of temper and found fault with everything I did. Also, when she was out of temper, her readings from the Book of Christmas were twice as long as usual.
I was some weeks in this melancholy condition, not knowing how I could make my escape and indeed despairing of it, when I was sent on a message to the next farm. On the way back I met Audrey, at the sight of whose young beauty I forgot the despair which latterly had seized me. I rushed to her and caught her up in my arms and kissed her. Thereupon she said she would never go back, but would stay with me forever. I could not deny her, for I had found in her the incentive which I had lost in my growing indifference to my fate. She was but a child, and the only gracious being I had met in this ill-fated country. Hand in hand we wandered until dusk, when I hid her in the hay-loft and returned to my duties.
I was severely chidden for my long absence and ordered during the next week to wear the Skirt of Punishment, a garment of the shape fashionable among women at the time of the great change. Poor Audrey could not help laughing when she saw me in it, but having no other clothes I had to put off all thought of escape until I was released from punishment. Never before had I realised how cramped the mind could become from the confinement of the legs. My week in a skirt came very near to breaking my spirit. Another four days of it and I believe I should have grovelled in submissive adoration before my tyrant. Only my nightly visits to Audrey kept me in courage and resolution.