Page:Unparalleled sufferings and surprising adventures of Philip Quarle.pdf/13

 the hardships he lay under, so that seeing but little prospect of changing his present condition, by getting away from thence for a while, he thinks on means to make it as easy as possible, whilst he remained in it; for having projected a bed, and taking the grass, which by that time was dry, he falls to work; and a mat being the thing concluded upon, he twists his hay into ropes, the bigness of his leg; then he cuts a pretty number of sticks, about two feet long, which he drives in the ground, ten in a row, and near four inches asunder, and opposite to them such another row at six or seven feet distance from the first, which made the length of his mat; then having fastened one end of his rope to one of his corner sticks, he brings it round the other corner stick, and so to the next at the other end, till he has laid his frame, then he weaves across shorter ropes of the same, in the manner they make pallions on board with old cable ends. When he had finished his mat, he beat it with a long stick, which made it swell up; and the grass being of a soft cottony nature, he had a warm and easy bed to lie on.

The comfort and pleasure he found on his soft mat (being grown sore with lying on the ground for the space of a month and more) so liberally gratified him for the time and labour he had bestowed in making it, that it gave him encouragement to go about another; a covering being the next necessary wanted, for though the winter was as yet pretty warm, and he in a great measure, seasoned by the hardships he had gone through; yet the winter approaching, and the present season still favourable for him to make provision against it, he goes and cuts more grass; which being made ready for use, he lengthens his