Here my self-support gave way all at once; and with a movement of my hands, intended to show her my ragged state, and call it to witness that I had suffered something, I broke into a passion of crying, which I suppose had been pent up within me all the week.
My aunt, with every sort of expression, sat on the gravel, staring at me, until I began to cry; when she got up in a great hurry, collared me, and took me into the parlor. Her first proceeding there was to unlock a tall press, bring out several bottles, and pour some of the contents of each into my mouth. I think they must have been taken out at random, for I am sure I tasted aniseed water, anchovy sauce, and salad dressing. Then she rang the bell.
"Janet," she said, when her servant came in, "go upstairs, give my compliments to Mr. Dick, and say I wish to speak to him."
Mr. Dick proved to be a pleasant-faced man of whimsical ways, but upon whose advice my aunt greatly relied. As he proposed now that I be given a bath and put to bed, my aunt lost no time in following these ideas.
Janet had gone away to get the bath ready, when my aunt, to my great alarm, became in one moment rigid with wrath, and had hardly voice to cry out, "Janet! Donkeys!"
Upon which, Janet came running up the stairs as if the house were in flames, darted out on a little piece of green in front, and warned off two donkeys that had presumed to set hoof upon it; while my aunt, rushing out of the house, seized the bridle of a third animal, led him forth from those sacred precincts, and boxed the ears of the unlucky urchin in attendance.
To this hour I don't know whether my aunt had any lawful right of way over that patch of green; but she had settled it in her own mind that she had, and it was all the same to her. The one great outrage of her life, demanding to be constantly avenged, was the passage of a donkey over that spot. No matter what she was doing or saying, a donkey turned the current of her ideas in a moment, and she was upon him straight. Jugs of water and watering-pots were kept in secret places ready to be discharged on the offending boys; sticks were laid in ambush behind the door; sallies were made at all hours; and incessant war prevailed.
Perhaps this was an agreeable excitement to the donkey-boys; or perhaps the more sagacious of the donkeys, understanding how the case stood, stubbornly delighted in coming that way. I only know that there were three alarms before the bath was ready; and that on the occasion of the last and most desperate of all, I saw my aunt engage, single-handed, with a sandy-headed lad of fifteen, and bump his sandy head against her own gate, before he realized what was the matter. These interruptions were the more ridiculous to me, because she was giving me broth out of a tablespoon at the time (having firmly persuaded herself that I was actually starving, and must receive food at first in very small quantities), and, while my mouth was yet open to receive the spoon, she would put it back into the basin, cry "Janet! Donkeys!" and go out to the assault.
The bath was a great comfort. For I began to be sensible of acute pains in my limbs from lying out in the fields, and was now so tired and low that I could hardly keep myself awake for five minutes together. When I had bathed they enrobed me in a shirt and a pair of trousers belonging to Mr. Dick, and tied me up in two or three great shawls. What sort of bundle I looked like, I don't know, but I felt a very hot one. Feeling also very faint and drowsy, I soon fell asleep.
The next morning at breakfast my aunt said, with a determined shake of her head, "Well, I've written to him."