Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/165

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My Continental Tour: Switzerland
135

medicine with me, except a quarter of a bottle of sweet spirits of nitre, which I was taking for rheumatic fever. I poured it all down his throat, and then I covered his face over with a black silk handkerchief I had round my neck, that I might not see him, and squeezed myself up in the farthest corner. In about twenty minutes he came to, and asked me how long he had been like that. I told him, and he asked me if I was dreadfully frightened, and I said, "Yes." He said, "I am subject to these fits, but they generally last much longer; this has been very slight." So I said, "I think it is my duty to tell you that I have put about three ounces of spirits of nitre down your throat." He said, "Well, I think it must have done me good, because I feel very comfortable." I called the guard the first station we arrived at, told him what had occurred, and begged him to move me into a carriage with other people, which he did. I never knew anything so slow as the trains were; and at the stations there seemed no one to help, nor to tell one where anything was. I got two seats with my back to the engine, so that I could lie down. The heat was intense. The carriage was crammed. There was a ladylike little woman, with a brawny nurse and two of the worst-behaved children I ever saw. They fought, and sang, and cried, and teased my bullfinch, and kicked my shins, and trod on my toes; but the mother was too nice to offend, and so I bore it. At Maçon at 8 p.m. we stopped to sup; and then I felt I could bear no more of it, so I begged the guard to change me to a quiet carriage, and he put me in with