AgO, NO5.

Globe, Volume VI, Issue 644, 12 July 1876, Page 3

AgO, NOS.

A DOCTOR’S STORY. It is more than live-and twenty years since I first set up in practice in this part of the country, coming here a stranger to it. Now I know every inch of the road for miles round, rough and wild as it is ; then I often lost my way, and it was with some difficulty in so sparsely-populated a country that I learned the landmarks which guide you over the moors when bad weather obliterates the track. You remember, when we rode over the summit of the moor yesterday, how you admired the distant view of the sea, and how you called my attention also to the picturesque appearance of a deserted and dis-

mantled oottage on the right of na view of the sea is undoubtedly a fine One, and strikes me now every time I see It, even after years’ asqnaintanceahip; bat I cannot admire that cottage, though rich green moss md yellowlichen have gathered upon its thatched roof, and though the purple heather grows close up to its walls. 1 responded to yout admiration of the view of the sea, but I said nothing abont that cottage, nor you may remember now, did I make any response to your fancies regarding it. A worn and wholly-obliterated sign hangs before it; the place had evidently been an inn, yon said 9 and as we rode down the hill, you indulged in some fanciful speoalations as to old travellers who had sought shelter therein; and how the wind must have beaten round it at nights, bringing strange message from the storm-tossed sea, and soaring them with its violence even within the stoutlybuilt walls. The place looked at if it had a story, yon said, and on my assenting, you pressed me to tell it. I now fulfil my promise; and no one can tell you the story of that roadside inn with more |j authority than I can, for I passed the most terrible and memorable night of my life 3 there, and had something more to soars me * than sounds of wind or sea.

1 came here, immediately after passing the College, nearly thirty years ago, a stranger, as I have said, and was at first assistant to a Dr Greenfield, long since dead, who afterwards took me into partnership. The practice in those days was not what it Is now—for this town has grown wonderfully of late years, ae also have some of the surronndina hamlets—though we had a great deal of outside practice beyond the moor, and event in some places still more distant. A country doctor’s life is not a very enviable one. He does not get paid too liberally, bis fees are small, and the gratitude he earns with them still smaller, while the amount of responsibility thrown upon his shoulders is enormous. Bear with a word or two in defence of my profession. You go to a London doctor, who examines yon, prescribes, and pockets his guinea, and probably you never see him again. You retam to my care—your regular medical man In the oonntry, and if you get well, what a wonderful man the London doctor is ; while if you die, I am blamed for it. Take another case. It is comparatively easy to perform an operation in a London hospital, where, if you fail, there are half-a-dozen men competent to taka up the knife and finish your work: it is another thing to have to perform a hurried operation with the nearest medical man miles away, and no one to help yon but an unqualified assistant, or perhaps a dispenser, whose knowledge of surgery (£ to say the most of it, painfully rudimentSqffc Liheravi animam ! You will pardoo it} and I will go on with my story. Some few weeks after I had come here, Ihad occasion to go and visit one or tw» patients in the little cluster of eottages about two miles beyond the top of the moor, and consequently between ten and eleven miles from the town. It was a fine winter day, and the snow lay crisp and bright in the sunshine. There was no need fot haste, and we were by no means busy, so I determined to walk. I was young and then, and I seldom lost tne opportunity of* walking, for by so doing I gamed a better knowledge of the country, as well as an increment of health from the exercise. The journey to the town was a long one for poor people, so we kept a small stock of medieal necessaries at the place of which I have spoken, under the guardianship of one of the cottagers, and I took several small articles I remembered we required there, among them a little phial of a strong solution of nitrate of silver, to be diluted hereaiter and used for certain diseases of the eye. Bear in mind that little phial of nitrate of silver, for, under Providence, it brought a murderer to the gallows. I set off briskly for my twelve-mile walk about noon. On my road over the moor I passed that cottage inn; the sign was legible then, and it told how Gabriel Sturm provided good entertainment for man and beast the house looking far more Suited to travellers of the former species than the former. It looked, indeed, nearly as woe-begone than m it does now, and as if few wayfarers cared to accept Mr Gabriel Sturm’s offer. This was the case, I learned afterwards ; for the house had a bad name, though I had been too short a time in the neighbourhood to hear of it. How far that reputation served you shall presently judge. In the meantime, picture me striding bravely up the hill, now and then having to nue a detour upon this moor to avoid an unusually formidable snowdrift. I reached Hobtrush —for so the cluster of cottages which was my destination was named, after a local spirit supposed to haunt woods—and on arriving there I found more work to do than 1 expected. There was, moreover, ayonng woman, who, with a consideration for her medical man not often shown by her sex in such cases, took the opportunity of presenting her husband with another baby, and so saved me a special journey. All this made me very late, and had there been any accommodation in Hobtrush I might have been tempted to stay. As it was, I made up my mind for the walk, fervently trusting ft would be moonlight. But before I went, I looked carefully over our small surgery, which was in an attic room in the cottage, and regarded with superstitious reverence by the inhabitants. These may seem trivial details, but, as you will see, they are essen- _ tial to the story. At the surgery, among others, I did three things 1. 1 found more of the nitrate of silver solution than I expected, so I merely filled up the small bottle and replaced the little phial in its case. ?. I had entertained some suspicion of the goodness of a certain acid supplied us, and finding an old bottle of it on an obsure shelf { I put it in my pocket to take home and test its strength, 3. I found the ring of the large brass syringe we kept there was broken; the syringe worked perfectly well, but the ring should be mended, and I pocketed it also for that purpose. I need mention nothing else —the silver solution, the acid, and the syringe are all the details with which I need trouble you. [ To be continued.']