Presently I was taken to see an ox roasted whole; and it was here, while we were looking on at the lurid tumult, occurred a rencontre which was to alter the whole current of my life. A fat, drunken sweep in his war-paint jostled my father, who, himself in the fury of wine, turned and felled the beast to the ground. We were isolated from our friends at the moment, and a ring was immediately formed, and the sweep called upon to stand up and pay his interest like a man. He rose, nothing loth, it seemed, and faced my father, who was forced to engage.
“My little ’orse and cart to a red-un that I whop ye!” cried the sweep.
“Done!” answered my father, and they fell to.
I was sure of the result, and stood by quite self-possessed and eager while they fought. A round or two settled it, and there sat the sweep, unable to rise again, with a white tooth dropped on his coat-front.
When my father came away, I clung to him and kissed him in ecstasy. He was quite cool, and only a little breathed; and when, for the honour of sport, he had settled for the sweep’s trap to be driven round to his door in the morning, intending to put it up to auction, he shouldered me laughing, and carried me away amidst cheers.
It was near midnight by then, and, happening upon a royal servant, he gave me into the man’s charge, and, in spite of my remonstrances, bade him convey me home. I sulked all the way, and was in no mood, after my excitement, to sympathise with my mother’s agitated reception of her truant. She had been near distracted all these hours, thinking me drowned or kidnapped, and could not control a gust of temper upon hearing how I had been employed.
“O, my maman,” I said saucily, “you must understand I have never been in a convent, and so know how to take care of myself.”
It was wicked; but it was my governess speaking, not I.
II.
I AM ABDUCTED
My mamma questioned me again in the morning about my adventures. She was very hollow-eyed and nervous, which offended me; for for her to appear ill in body or ill at ease in mind seemed to make my own young sanity something that it was wrong or selfish in me to enjoy. I was inconsiderate, no doubt; yet tell me, my Alcide, is it, on the other hand, considerate of dyspepsia to be always wet-blanketing health and contentment? Is not the human the only animal permitted of right to inflict his sickness on his fellows, while in every other community the invalid is “out of the law” of nature? It is thus, undoubtedly, that deterioration is provided against. To be attracted to the sweet and wholesome, and repelled by distemper, is that selfishness? If it is not, then am I content to be misunderstood by all others, so long as Heaven will recognise the real love of humankind which inspires my wish to secure its untainted image in myself. There must be a divine virtue in health, seeing how disease is the heir of sin. Is not to sympathise, then, with depression, to condone evil?