Read "The Maid of Sker" by R.D. Blackmore online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Nothing less than steadfast faith, and an ancient British constitution, can have enabled me to survive this highly-dappled period. It was not in my body only, or legs, or parts I think nothing of, but in my brain that I felt it most, when I had the sense to feel it. And having a brain which has no right to claim exemption from proper work, because of being under average, I happened to take a long time to recover from so many spots striking inwards. An empty-headed man might have laughed at the little drills into his brainpan; but with me (as with a good beehive early in October) there could not be the prick of a bradawl but went into honey. And so my brain was in a buzz for at least a twelvemonth afterwards.
Therefore I now must tell what happened, rather as it is told to me, than as myself remember it. Only you must not expect such truth, as I always give, while competent.