Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/196

190 and spirit in abundance, and knew when she was ill used: now and then she would seize upon John's commons, snatch a leg of a pullet, or a bit of good beef, for which they were sure to go to fisty-cuffs. Master was indeed too strong for her; but miss would not yield in the least point, but even when master had got her down, she would scratch and bite like a tiger; when he gave her a cuff on the ear, she would prick him with her knitting-needle. John brought a great chain one day to tie her to the bedpost, for which affront miss aimed a penknife at his heart. In short, these quarrels grew up to rooted aversions, they gave one another nicknames: she called him Gundyguts, and he called her Lousy Peg; though the girl was a tight clever wench as any was, and through her pale looks you might discern spirit and vivacity, which made her not, indeed, a perfect beauty, but something that was agreeable. It was barbarous in parents not to take notice of these early quarrels, and make them live better together, such domestic feuds proving afterward the occasion of misfortunes to them both. Peg had, indeed, some odd humours, and comical antipathies, for which John would jeer her. "What think you of my sister Peg (says he) that faints at the sound of an organ, and yet will dance and frisk at the noise of a bagpipe?" "What's that to you, Gundyguts (quoth Peg) every body's to choose their own musick." Then Peg had taken a fancy not to say her Pater noster, which made people imagine strange things of her. Of the three