SCIENCE OF FOXHUNTING. 279 



could to prevent too great excitement, and we verily- 

 believed from the course we had so promptly pursued 

 the virus would not have penetrated into his system. 

 He was now in the hands of the surgeon, who 

 gave him the medicines he considered right, and the 

 next day his arm was in a frightful state of inflam- 

 mation, when drawing poultices were resorted to, 

 until all the inflammatory symptoms had subsided. 

 The ominous three days passed away — three weeks 

 — three months — and yet no appearance of hydro- 

 phobia, and he began to think he was tolerably safe. 

 But as some of his friends had been talking to him 

 about sea-dipping, he said, " I think, sir, I should 

 now feel quite comfortable in mj- mind if I had a 

 good washing in sea-water/' 



^^ Certainly, George,^' was our reply, " you shall 

 have that or anything else you fancy — but my 

 candid opinion is, now, that you cannot go mad, as 

 you call it, if you wished to do so." 



Well, he had sea-dipping. We sent our first 

 whipper-in down with him to Weymouth, to see all 

 fair; but by the advice of the blue-jackets employed 

 on the occasion — who had got certain crotchets into 

 their heads, that a man in his case ought to be 

 thoroughly saturated with the briny fluid — he was 

 very nearly drowned outright by the operation, 

 since they ducked him and ducked him malgre his 

 cries for mercy, until the vital spark had been very 

 nearly drenched out of his body, and unless the 

 whipper-in had taken him from them, he must 

 assuredly have been killed in the curing. Sailors 

 and seafaring men are proverbially superstitious. 



