After a competent preparation by apologies, and encouragement to go through my part with spirit and constancy, he stood up near the fire, whilst I went to fetch the instruments of discipline out of a closet hard by: these were several rods, made each of two or three strong twigs of birch tied together, which he took, handled, and viewed with as much pleasure, as I did with a kind of shuddering presage.
Next we took from the side of the room a long broad bench, made easy to lie at length on by a soft cushion in a callico-cover; and everything being now ready, he took his coat and waistcoat off; and at his motion and desire, I unbuttoned his breeches, and rolling up his shirt rather above his waist, tucked it on securely there; when directing naturally my eyes to that humoursone master-movement, in whose favour all these dispositions were making, it seemed almost shrunk into his body, scarce showing its tip above the sprout of hairy curls that clothed those parts, as you may have-seen a wren peeping its head out of the grass.
Stooping them to untie his garters, he gave them to me for the use of tying him down to the legs of the bench: a circumstance no farther necessary than, as I suppose, it made part of the humour of the thing, since he prescribed it to himself, amongst the rest of the ceremonial.
I led him then to the bench, and according to my cue, played at forcing him to lie down: which, after-some little show of reluctance, for form-sake, he submitted to; he was straightway extended flat upon his: belly, on the bench, with a pillow under his face; and as he thus tamely lay, I tied him slightly hand and feet, to the legs of it; which done, his shirt remaining trussed up over the small of his back, I drew his breeches quite down to his knees; and now he lay, in all the fairest, broadest display of that part of the back-view; in which a pair of chubby, smooth-cheeked and passing white posteriors rose cushioning upwards from two stout, fleshful thighs, and ending their cleft, or separation by an union at the small of the back, presented a bold mark, that swelled, as it were, to meet the scourge.
Seizing now one of the rods, I stood over him, and according to his direction, gave him in one breath, ten lashes with much good-will, and the utmost nerve and vigour of arm that I could put to them, so as to make those fleshy orbs quiver again under them; whilst he himself seemed no more concerned, or to mind them, than a lobster would a flea-bite. In the mean time, I view intently the effect of them, which to me at last appeared surprisingly cruel: every lash had skimmed the surface of those white cliffs, which they deeply reddened, and lapping round the side of the furthermost from me, cut specially, into the dimple of it, such livid weals, as the blood either spun out from, or stood in large drops on; and, from some of the cuts, I picked out even the splinters of the rod that had stuck in the skin. Nor was this raw work to be wondered at, considering the greenness of the twigs and the severity of the infliction, whilst the whole surface of the skin was so smooth-stretched over the hard and firm pulp of flesh that filled it, as to yield no play, or elusive swagging under the stroke: which thereby took place the more plump, and cut into the quick.