[The Romany Rye by George Borrow]@TWC D-Link bookThe Romany Rye CHAPTER XLVI 5/14
After being cast out of that village I travelled for nearly a month, subsisting by begging tolerably well, for though most of the Spaniards 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 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.
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