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MY SECRET LIFE me to have her. “Oh! won’t she”, said Sarah “she takes to ruddling natoral, I can tell you.” Sarah said she told her everything I had done to her, including the licking, and I felt quite ashamed of Sarah knowing that I was so green, as I shall tell presently.

Fred returned, and I had difficulty in getting her often. My cousins walked out in the cool of the evening, I with them; often we passed the cottage, and I made signs if I saw the girls. I sometimes then had her upright in a small shed or by a hay-stack in the dark, where the hay pricked my knuckles.

Fred was soon to join his regiment, was always borrowing money of me “for a shove”, and never repaid me; but he was a liberal, good-hearted fellow; and when in after life I was without money and he kept a woman, he said, “You get a shove out of ****”, meaning his woman, “she likes you, and I shant mind, but don’t tell me.” I actually did fuck her; nor did he ever ask me,—but that tale will be told hereafter. Nothing till his death pleased him more than referring to our having looked at the backside of his mother and at his sister’s quims, he would roar with laughter at it. He was an extraordinary man.

One day we rode to the market-town; and putting up our horses, strolled about. Fred said, “Let’s both go and have a shove.” “Where are the girls?” said I. “Oh! I know, lend me some money.” “I only have ten shillings.” “That is more than we shall want.” We went down a lane past the Town-Hall, by white-washed little cottages, at which girls were sitting or standing at the doors making a sort of lace. “Do you see a girl you like?” said he. “Why, they are lace-makers.” “Yes, but some of them fuck for all that; there is the one —173—