His loud discourse had roused the mistress of the house who came knocking at the door, saying:
“Baffin, if you don’t behave yourself I shall come and tickle you.”
So astounded and outraged was I at this address that I leapt out of my bed, donned my kilt, and said:
“Come in, woman, and see what you have done. This learned old man, whose mind was one of the glories of the world, has been driven to his death, starved, deprived of the intellectual habits through which a long life had been——”
I got no further, for the woman flung herself upon me and tickled my sides and armpits until I shrieked. Two other women came rushing up and held me on the floor, and then with a feather they tickled my feet until I was nearly mad. I wept and cried for mercy, and at last they desisted and withdrew, leaving me with the corpse, to which they paid not the slightest attention.
The next morning I was told to dig a grave and to prepare the body for burial. There was no more ceremony than in a civilised country is given to the interment of a dog, and in the house I only heard the old man referred to twice. The youngest of the women said, “He was a dear old idiot,” but the mistress of the house shut her mouth like a trap on the words: “One the less.”
But a day or two later I found upon the grave a pretty wreath of wild flowers, and that evening under a hedge I came on a little girl, who was crying softly to herself. I had not seen her before and was puzzled to know where she came from. She said her name was Audrey and she lived at the next farm, where they were very unkind to her, and she used to meet the old man in the fields and he was very nice to her, and when she heard he was dead she wanted to die too. The men on the farm were rough and dirty, and the women were all spiteful and suspicious.
When I asked her if she had put the wreath on my old friend’s grave, she was frightened and made me promise not to tell anyone. Of course I promised, and I took her home. As we parted we engaged to meet again in the wood half-way between our two houses.
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.