Thornycroft Farm, near Barbury Green, July 1, 190-.
In alluding to myself as a Goose Girl, I am using only the most modest of my titles; for I am also a poultry-maid, a tender of Belgian hares and rabbits, and a shepherdess; but I particularly fancy the rôle of Goose Girl, because it recalls the German fairy tales of my early youth, when I always yearned, but never hoped, to be precisely what I now am.
As I was jolting along these charming Sussex roads the other day, a fat buff pony and a tippy cart being my manner of progression, I chanced upon the village of Barbury Green.
One glance was enough for any woman, who, having eyes to see, could see with them; but I made assurance doubly sure by driving about a little, struggling to conceal my new-born passion from the stable-boy who was my escort. Then, it being high noon of a cloudless day, I descended from the trap and said to the astonished yokel: “You may go back to the Hydropathic; I am spending a month or two here. Wait a moment—I’ll send a message, please!”
I then scribbled a word or two to those having me in custody.
“I am very tired of people,” the note ran, “and want to rest myself by living a while with things. Address me (if you must) at Barbury Green post-office, or at all events send me a box of simple clothing there—nothing but shirts and skirts, please. I cannot forget that I am only twenty miles from Oxenbridge (though it might be one hundred and twenty, which is the reason I adore it), but I rely upon you to keep an honourable distance yourselves, and not to divulge my place of retreat to others, especially to—you know whom! Do not pursue me. I will never be taken alive!”
Having cut, thus, the cable that bound me to civilisation, and having seen the buff pony and the dazed yokel disappear in a cloud of dust, I looked about me with what Stevenson calls a “fine, dizzy, muddle-headed joy,” the joy of a successful rebel or a liberated serf. Plenty of money in my purse—that was unromantic, of course, but it simplified matters—and nine hours of daylight remaining in which to find a lodging.
