Page:Life of the honourable Col. James Gardiner (1).pdf/5

 and that, if they could convey him thither, he did not doubt but his uncle would liberally reward them. He had indeed a friend there, but the relationship was pretended. However, on hearing this, they laid him on a sort of hand-barrow, and sent him with a file of musqueteers towards the place, but the men lost their way and got into a wood towards the evening, in which they were obliged to continue all night. The poor patient’s wound being still undressed, it is not to be wondered at, that by this time it raged violently. The anguish of it engaged him earnestly to beg that they would either kill him outright, or leave him there to die, without the torture of any other motion; and indeed they were obliged to rest for a considerable time, on account of their own weariness. Thus he spent the second night in the open air, without any thing more than a common bandage to staunch the blood, and he often mentioned it as a most astonishing providence, that he did not bleed to death.

Judging it quite unsafe to attempt carrying him to Huy, whence they were now several miles distant, his convoy took him early in the morning to a convent in the neighbourhood, where he was hospitably received, and treated with great kindness and tenderness. But the cure of his wound was committed to an ignorant barber-surgeon, who lived near the house. The tent which this artist applied was almost like a peg driven into the wound; yet, by the blessing of God, he recovered in a few months. The lady abbess, who called him her son, treated him with the affection and care of a mother. He received a great many devout admonitions from the ladies there, and they would fain have persuaded him to acknowledge so miraculous a deliverance, by embracing the Catholic Faith, as they were pleased to call it. But, though no religion lay near his heart, he had too much of the spirit of a gentleman, lightly to change that form of religion, which he wore loose about him; as well as too much good sense, to swallow the absurdities of popery.