failed in its purpose completely. A rush-light was most capricious in its process of burning, sometimes it flared, then died down to a glowing core, then started up again in flame, at other times it flickered perversely. The rays issuing from either the top or the side orifices shared in the vagaries of the burning rush. There was the full moon on the ceiling, but that waxed and waned and pulsated with the productive flame. The discs of light through the sides did the same: they danced, they frolicked, they winked at the patient lying in his bed, then ogled him with impudence. Anon they played strange games with the figured wall-papers, producing the most eccentric combinations. The same with the patterned chintz bed-curtains. There was no certainty whether or not some of these eyes of light were not hiding behind the valances of the bed, and the half-drowsy patient grew nervous lest they should steal from out their hiding-place and stare him out of countenance. Anything more provocative of wakefulness could hardly have been devised.
Some fifty years later, when I was rummaging in an attic that contained an accumulation of superseded and disused kitchen and other utensils, I pounced on the identical cylindrical night-light-holder that had been my trouble and terror in childhood. I did not kiss it like the mustard poultice, but kicked it on to the ash-midden in the pigs' court and bade it rest and rust there in pace.
My constitution must have been robust, in spite of the opinion of the physicians, or I could not have survived the draughts of castor-oil, the blue pills followed by drenches of senna and salts, the powders basely disguising themselves in raspberry jam, the ipecacuanha doses, the gargles, the plasters, the blisters, the cotton-wool paddings before and behind the ribs, the leeches, the cuppings and the bleedings.
