248 Edward’s Health Foils. [cuar. xi. 
with him; indeed, he never drank it, either at home or 
abroad. “TI believe,” he says, “that if I had indulged in 
drink, or even had I used it at all on these occasions, I could 
never have stood the cold, the wet, and the other privations 
to which I was exposed. As for my food, it mainly con- 
sisted of good oatmeal cakes. It tasted very sweet, and was 
washed down with water from the nearest spring. Some- 
times, when I could afford it, my wife boiled an egg or two, 
and these were my only luxuries. But, as I have already 
said, water was my only drink.” 
In 1858 Edward had reached his forty-fourth year. At 
this age, men who have been kindly reared and fairly fed 
are usually in their prime, both of mind and body. But 
Edward had used himself very hardly; he had spent so 
many of his nights out-of-doors, in the cold and the wet; 
he had been so tumbled about among the rocks; he had so 
often, with all his labors, to endure privation, even to the 
extent of want of oatmeal—that it is scarcely to be won- 
dered at if at that time his constitution should have begun 
to show marks of decay. He had been frequently laid up 
by colds and rheumatism. Yet, when able to go out again, 
he usually returned to his old courses. 
At last his health gave way altogether. He was com- 
pelled to indulge in the luxury of a doctor. The doctor 
was called in, and found Edward in a rheumatic fever, with 
an ulcerated sore throat. There he lay, poor man, his mind 
wandering about his birds. He lay for a month. He got 
over his fever, but he recovered his health slowly. The 
doctor had a serious talk with him. Edward was warned 
against returning to his old habits. He was told that, 
although his constitution had originally been sound and 
healthy, it had, by constant exertion and exposure to cold 
and wet, become impaired to a much greater degree than 
had at first been supposed. Edward was also distinctly in- 
formed that if he did not at once desist from his nightly 
wanderings, his life would not be worth a farthing. Here, 
