The wretches! they even proceeded to throw stones. My young
bridegroom saw one of these which would have struck me had he not
thrown himself forward, holding up his hat as a shield. The stone
struck him in the eye, and he dropped forward upon my mother's knee
senseless.
The crowd were shocked then, and fell back, but what good did that do
to him? He was carried to his chamber, and a surgeon was sent for,
who said that there was no great injury done, for the eye itself had
not been touched, but that he must be kept perfectly quiet until the
last minute, if he was to be able to travel without danger, when the
suite were to set off in two day's time. They would not let me go
near him. Perhaps I was relieved, for I should not have known what
to do; yet I feared that he would think me unkind and ungrateful, and
I would have begged my mother and Eustace to thank him and make my
excuses, but I was too shy, and I felt it very hard to be blamed for
indifference and rudeness.
Indeed, we four young ones kept as much together as we could do in
the house and gardens, and played all our dear old games of
shuttlecock, and pig go to market, and proverbs, and all that you, my
children, call very English sports, because we knew only too well
that we should never play at them altogether again. The more I was
blamed for being childish, the more I was set upon them, till at last
my mother said that she was afraid to let me go, I was so childish
and unfeeling; and my father replied that she should have thought of
that before.
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