KINGTON AND RADNORSHIRE 145 



passed all. However, he was in other respects a pleasant 

 companion, being quite unconscious that his conversation was 

 not appreciated, and to him I probably owe my life. One 

 day, I think on a Sunday afternoon, we were walking together 

 up a rocky and boggy valley, which extended some miles to 

 the west of the town. As we were strolling along, picking our 

 way among the rocks and bog, I inadvertently stepped upon 

 one of those small bog eyeholes which abound in such places, 

 and are very dangerous, being often deep enough to swallow 

 up a man, or even a horse. One leg went in suddenly up to 

 the hip, and I fell down, but fortunately with my other leg 

 stretched out upon the surface. I was, however, in such a 

 position that I could not rise, and had I been alone my efforts 

 to extricate myself might easily have drawn my whole body 

 into the bog, as I could feel no bottom to it. But my com- 

 panion easily pulled me out, and we walked home, and thought 

 little of it. It had, however, been a hard frost for some time, 

 and the mud was ice-cold, and after a few days I developed a 

 bad cough with loss of appetite and weakness. The local doctor, 

 John Henry Heaton by name, was a friend of ours, and fre gave 

 me some medicine, but it did no good, and I got worse and 

 worse, with no special pain, but with a disgust of food, and 

 for more than a week I ate nothing but perhaps a small biscuit 

 each day soaked in tea without milk, though always before 

 and since I greatly disliked tea without milk. At length the 

 doctor got frightened, and told my brother that he could do 

 nothing for me, and that he could not be answerable for my 

 life. He added that he knew but one man who could save me, 

 a former teacher of his, Dr. Ramage, who was the only man 

 who could cure serious lung disease, though he was consid- 

 ered a quack by his fellow practitioners. 



As I got no better, a few days later we started for London, 

 I think sleeping at Birmingham on the way. On going to 

 Dr. Ramage, who tested my lungs, etc., he told my brother 

 that he was just in time, for that in a week more he could 

 probably not have saved me, as I had an extensive abscess 

 of the lungs. His treatment was very simple but most effec- 

 tive, and was the forerunner of that rational treatment by 



