After these ceremonies, we were conducted to the wedding- room,
and, as soon as the company retired, I approached to embrace my
mistress, but, instead of answering me with transports, she
shoved me off, and cried out most fearfully; upon which all the
ladies of the apartment came running into the chamber to know
what she cried for; and, for my own part, I was so thunderstruck,
that I stood, without the power of so much as asking what she
meant by it. Dear sister, said they to her, what is the matter?
Let us know it, that we may try to relieve you. Take, said she,
out of my sight that vile fellow. Why, madam, said I, wherein
have I deserved your displeasure? You are a villain, said she,
furiously: what, to eat garlic, and not wash your hands! Do you
think that I would suffer such a filthy fellow to touch me? Down
with him, down with him upon the ground, continued she,
addressing herself to the ladies; and pray let me have a good
bull's pizzle. In short, I was thrown down upon the ground, and
while some held my hands, and others my feet, my wife, who was
presently furnished with a weapon, laid on me most unmercifully,
till I could scarcely breathe: then she said to the ladies, Take
him, send him to the justiciary judge, and let the hand be cut
off with which he fed upon the garlic ragoo. God bless my soul,
cried I, must I be beat, bruised, unmercifully mauled, and, to
complete my affliction, have my hand cut off, for eating of a
ragoo with garlic, and forgetting to wash my hands? What
proportion is there between the punishment and the crime? Plague
on the ragoo, plague on the cook that dressed it, and may he be
equally unhappy that served it up!
All the ladies that were by took pity on me, when they heard the
cutting off of my hand spoken of.
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