After being cast out of that village I
travelled for nearly a month, subsisting by begging tolerably well,
for though most of the Spanish are thaives, they are rather
charitable; but though charitable thaives they do not like their
own being taken from them without leave being asked, as I found to
my cost; for on my entering a garden near Seville, without leave,
to take an orange, the labourer came running up and struck me to
the ground with a hatchet, giving me a big wound in the arm. I
fainted with loss of blood, and on reviving I found myself in a
hospital at Seville, to which the labourer and the people of the
village had taken me. I should have died of starvation in that
hospital had not some English people heard of me and come to see
me; they tended me with food till I was cured, and then paid my
passage on board a ship to London, to which place the ship carried
me.
"And now I was in London with five shillings in my pocket--all I
had in the world--and that did not last for long; and when it was
gone I begged in the streets, but I did not get much by that,
except a month's hard labour in the correction-house; and when I
came out I knew not what to do, but thought I would take a walk in
the country, for it was spring-time, and the weather was fine, so I
took a walk about seven miles from London, and came to a place
where a great fair was being held; and there I begged, but got
nothing but a halfpenny, and was thinking of going farther, when I
saw a man with a table, like that of mine, playing with thimbles,
as you saw me.
Pages:
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490