‘Let you go, my angel! What, just as I have recovered my lost treasure! No, let them come in and see how naughty children are punished when they rebel against lawful authority.’
So saying, he came tripping across the room and flung the door open, admitting into a somewhat odd scene. Fifine was tied across a heavy chair in the middle of the room, crying as if her heart would break, her clothes turned up with the utmost precision, while the ugliest old man I ever saw was administering a whipping, which had already been severe, judging from the state of her hips and her tear-stained swollen face.
‘Pardon, ladies,’ he said with an odious leer. ‘Shall not a man do what he likes with his own? This lady is my runaway wife, my chattel, my goods: and who shall forbid my chastising her when I find her?’
Merry Order of St. Bridget.
Fanciful Flogging.
She got hold of a book out of the library about the feminine customs of Rome, and she resolved to make me attend upon her toilet as the slaves of Roman ladies did. So she looked up a short tunic which was among the fancy dresses, and the next morning she made me go and strip, and come back to her with nothing on but this garment, which was just like a sack, with short sleeves only, of soft white merino trimmed with red satin. It did not come to my knees, and my legs and feet were bare except for a pair of red sandals.
‘Now take care what you are about, Perkins,’ she said. ‘I am going to deal with you exactly as the ladies in Rome dealt with their slaves.’
‘But I am not a slave, my lady,’ I said, pertinently enough, I dare say, for I felt angry. ‘There are no slaves here.’
‘You are mine as long as you are in this room,’ she replied. ‘When my toilet is sufficiently completed I shall punish you for that speech.’ She made me bathe her and dress her hair, and then before she put on her stays she said quite calmly: ‘Bring the rod.’ I brought it, and she made me kiss her and beg her pardon for what I had said; and then I knelt on the couch, and she whipped me till she was tired—and I, well, I did not get over it for a long time.
Merry Order.