110 REMINISCENCES, ETC. 



department" which were beginning to give him alarm. The 

 doctor recommended the application of the wet bandage to 

 his stomach at bedtime, there to remain until the following 

 morning, adding, " I will see you to-morrow, when I shall 

 be better able to judge of your s3^mptoras." At night the 

 patient, having saturated the folds of linen in cold spring 

 water, began the application as directed, but the shock to 

 his internal economy being greater than he had bargained 

 for, he bethought himself of taking off the chill by re- 

 dipping the bandage into water in which there was a cer- 

 tain portion of his favourite beverage. Having thus made 

 things ratlier more comfortable, he awaited the doctor's 

 visit the next morning. " Show me your bandage," was 

 almost the learned man's first exclamation. It was no 

 sooner produced than the doctor regarded its discolora- 

 tions for a moment with feelings of lively satisfaction, and 

 then solemnly addressing his patient, who had some diflS- 

 culty in retaining his gravity, exclaimed, " I thought so, 

 Sir, this is the port you have drunk for the last twenty years 

 coming out." But, although the squire loved this story, 

 he was always a very staunch advocate of the water-cure, 

 which he said could well bear a laugh against it. He 

 was sixty-seven years of age when he first tried it, and 

 must have had no common vigour, but indeed the constitu- 

 tion of a man in the prime of life, for it to have done him 

 the good which it effected. He used to say that till he became 

 a hydropathist he hunted four days a week, and six after- 

 wards. On these two days thus added to his meets, Carter, 

 his huntsman, used to hunt with a separate pack ; and some- 

 times, when master and man talked over their day's sport 

 together in the evening, the squire used to say, " Well, you 

 can give a better account of your fox than I can of mine," 

 for he never grudgingly gave credit where credit was due. 



The year 1845 is memorable as having witnessed the 

 innumerable schemes of railway enterprise which terminated 

 in the ruin of thousands. Among the lines projected was 



