Another day Glumdalclitch left me on a smooth grassplot to divert myself, while she walked at some distance with her governess.  In the meantime there suddenly fell such a violent shower of hail that I was immediately, by the force of it, struck to the ground; and when I was down the hailstones gave me such cruel bangs all over the body, as if I had been pelted with 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, and coined some lie, not worth remembering, to excuse myself for spoiling my clothes.  I likewise broke my right shin against the shell of a snail, which I happened to stumble over, as I was walking alone, and thinking on poor England.