the arm. I fainted with loss of blood, and on my 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
springtime, 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 half-penny, 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. I looked at the play, and saw him win
money and run away, and hunted by constables more than once. I kept
following the man, and at last entered into conversation with him; and
learning from him that he was in want of a companion to help him, I
offered to help him if he would pay me; he looked at me from top to toe,
and did not wish at first to have anything to do with me, as he said my
appearance was against me. 'Faith, Shorsha, he had better have looked at
home, for his appearance was not much in his favour: he looked very much
like a Jew, Shorsha. However, he at last agreed to take me to be his
companion, or bonnet as he called it; and I was to keep a look-out, and
let him know when constables were coming, and to spake a good word for
him occasionally, whilst he was chating folks with his thimbles and his
pea. So I became his bonnet, and assisted him in the fair, and in many
other fairs beside; but I did not like my occupation much, or rather my
master, who, though not a big man, was a big thaif, and an unkind one,
for do all I could I could never give him pleasure; and he was
continually calling me fool and bogtrotter, and twitting me because I
could not learn his thaives' Latin, and discourse with him in it, and
comparing me with another acquaintance, or bit of a pal of his, whom he
said he had parted with in the fair, and of whom he was fond of saying
all