h tennis balls; however, I made a shift to creep on
all four, and shelter myself, by lying flat on my face, on the lee-side
of a border of lemon-thyme; but so bruised from head to foot that I
could not go abroad in ten days. Neither is this at all to be wondered
at, because nature in that country, observing the same proportion
through all her operations, a hailstone is near eighteen hundred times
as large as one in Europe; which I can assert upon experience, having
been so curious as to weigh and measure them.

But a more dangerous accident happened to me in the same garden, where
my little nurse, believing she had put me in a secure place (which I
often entreated her to do, that I might enjoy my own thoughts), and
having left my box at home to avoid the trouble of carrying it, went to
another part of the gardens, with her governess and some ladies of her
acquaintance. While she was absent, and out of hearing, a small white
spaniel, belonging to one of the chief gardeners, having got by accident
into the garden, happened to range near the place where I lay; the dog
following the scent came directly up, and taking me in his mouth, ran
straight to his master, wagging his tail, and set me gently on the
ground. By good fortune he had been so well taught that I was carried
between his teeth without the least hurt, or even tearing my clothes.
But the poor gardener, who knew me well, and had a great kindness for
me, was in a terrible fright; he gently took me up in both his hands,
and asked me how I did, but I was so amazed and out of breath that I
could not speak a word. In a few minutes I came to myself, and he
carried me safe to my little nurse, who by this time had returned to the
place where she left me, and was in cruel agonies when I did not appear
nor answer when she called. She severely reprimanded the gardener on
account of his dog.

This accident absolutely determined Glumdalclitch never to trust me
abroad for the future out of her sight. I had been long afraid of this
resolution, and therefore concealed from her some little unlucky
adventures that happened in those times when I was left by myself. Once
a kite hovering over the garden made a stoop at me, and if I had not
resolutely drawn my hanger, and run under a thick espalier, he would
have certainly carried me away in his talons.

Another time, walking to the top of a fresh molehill, I fell to my neck
in the hole through which that animal had cast up the earth