The process is very simple; the
gay Lothario, when all is silent, steals to the chamber of his mistress,
who receives him in bed, but with the modest precaution of wearing her
under petticoat, which is always fastened at the bottom--not
unfrequently, I am told, by a sliding knot. It may astonish a London
gallant to be told that this extraordinary experiment often ends in
downright wedlock--the knot which cannot slide. A gentleman of
respectability also assured me that he was obliged to indulge his female
servants in these nocturnal interviews, and that too at all hours of the
night, otherwise his whole family would be thrown into disorder by their
neglect; the carpet would not be dusted, nor would the kettle boil. I
think this custom should share the fate of the northern Welsh goats.
* * * * Habit has so reconciled the mind to the comforts of _bundling_,
that a young lady who entered the coach soon after we left Shrewsbury,
about eighteen years of age, with a serene and modest countenance,
displayed considerable historical knowledge of the custom, without one
touch of bashfulness."[11]
Thus much for Wales, where the custom seems to have been entirely
confined to the lower classes of society, and where we have reason to
think it still prevails to some extent to this day.
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