DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70301#0188
1615 kirby’s wonderful museum.
it the sweetest water I had ever tasted, and at this distance
of time the remembrance of it is so sweet, that were it now
possible to obtain any of it, I am sure I could swallow it
with avidity. I have frequently taken both frogs and toads
out of my neck, where I suppose they sought shelter while
I slept. The toads I always destroyed, but the frogs I care-
fully preserved, as I did not know but I might be under the
necessity of eating them, which I should not have scrupled
to do had I been very hungry.
Saturday the iGth, there fell but little rain, and I had the
satisfaction to hear the voices of some boys in the wood. I
immediately called out with all my might, but in vain;
though I afterwards learned that they actually heard me, but,
prepossessed with an idle story that a wild man resided in
the wood, ran away affrighted.
Sunday, the 17 th, was my birth-day, when I completed my
41st year; and I think it was the next day that some of my
acquaintance, having accidentally heard that I had gone the
way I did, sent out two or three porters purposely to search
the pits for me. These men went to the miller’s house, and
made inquiry for me; but on account of the heavy rain at
the time never entered the wood, and cruelly returned to
their employers, telling them that they had searched the pit,
and I was not to be found. Many people in my dismal
situation would, no doubt, have died with despair; but I
thank God, I enjoyed a perfect serenity of mind, so much
so, that on the Tuesday afternoon, when I had been six
nights in the pit, I very composedly, by way of amusement,
combed my wig on my knee, humming a tune, and thinking
of Archer in the Beaux Stratagem.
At length, Sept. 20, the morning, the happy morning for
my deliverance came—a day that, while my memory lasts, I
will always celebrate with gratitude to heaven. Through the
brambles and bushes that covered the mouth of the pit, I
could discover the sun shining bright, and my pretty war-
it the sweetest water I had ever tasted, and at this distance
of time the remembrance of it is so sweet, that were it now
possible to obtain any of it, I am sure I could swallow it
with avidity. I have frequently taken both frogs and toads
out of my neck, where I suppose they sought shelter while
I slept. The toads I always destroyed, but the frogs I care-
fully preserved, as I did not know but I might be under the
necessity of eating them, which I should not have scrupled
to do had I been very hungry.
Saturday the iGth, there fell but little rain, and I had the
satisfaction to hear the voices of some boys in the wood. I
immediately called out with all my might, but in vain;
though I afterwards learned that they actually heard me, but,
prepossessed with an idle story that a wild man resided in
the wood, ran away affrighted.
Sunday, the 17 th, was my birth-day, when I completed my
41st year; and I think it was the next day that some of my
acquaintance, having accidentally heard that I had gone the
way I did, sent out two or three porters purposely to search
the pits for me. These men went to the miller’s house, and
made inquiry for me; but on account of the heavy rain at
the time never entered the wood, and cruelly returned to
their employers, telling them that they had searched the pit,
and I was not to be found. Many people in my dismal
situation would, no doubt, have died with despair; but I
thank God, I enjoyed a perfect serenity of mind, so much
so, that on the Tuesday afternoon, when I had been six
nights in the pit, I very composedly, by way of amusement,
combed my wig on my knee, humming a tune, and thinking
of Archer in the Beaux Stratagem.
At length, Sept. 20, the morning, the happy morning for
my deliverance came—a day that, while my memory lasts, I
will always celebrate with gratitude to heaven. Through the
brambles and bushes that covered the mouth of the pit, I
could discover the sun shining bright, and my pretty war-