This led to the scheme of stealing
his own mother to be his instructor, which they effected in the most
masterly style, binding and gagging her in her own house, and carrying
her from a populous hamlet in the fair forenoon, without having been
discovered.
Agnes immediately took her boy under her tuition, and was soon given to
understand that her will was to be the sole law of the community; and
all the while that they detained her, they never refused her aught, save
to take her home again. Our little daughter she had named Beatrice,
after her maternal grandmother. She was born six months and six days
after Agnes's abstraction. She spoke highly of the pongos, of their
docility, generosity, warmth of affection to their mates and young ones,
and of their irresistible strength. At my wife's injunctions, or from
her example, they all wore aprons: and the females had let the hair of
their heads grow long. It was glossy black, and neither curled nor
woolly, and on the whole, I cannot help having a lingering affection for
the creatures.
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