Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/201

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OHN BULL, otherwise a good-natured man, was very hardhearted to his sister Peg, chiefly from an aversion he had conceived in his infancy. While he flourished, kept a warm house, and drove a plentiful trade, poor Peg was forced to go hawking and pedling about the streets, selling knives, scissars, and shoebuckles: now and then carried a basket of fish to the market; sewed, spun, and knit for a livelihood, till her fingers-ends were sore, and when she could not get bread for her family, she was forced to hire them out at journeywork to her neighbours. Yet in these her poor circumstances she still preserved the air and mien of a gentlewoman, a certain decent pride, that extorted respect from the haughtiest of her neighbours; when she came into any full assembly she would not yield the pas to the best of them. If one asked her, are not you related to John Bull? "Yes," says she, "he has the honour to be my brother." So Peg's affairs went, till all the relations cried out shame upon John for his barbarous usage of his own flesh and blood; that it was an easy matter for him to put her in a creditable way of living, not only without hurt, but with advantage to himself, being she was an industrious person, and might be serviceable to him in his way of business. Rh