Page:Most remarkable passages in the life of the honourable Colonel James Gardiner.pdf/9

 weariness. Thus he spent the second night in the open air, without any thing more than a common bandage to staunch the blood. He hath often mentioned it as a most astonishing providence, that he did not bleed to death; which, under God, he ascribed to the extreme coldness of these 2 nights.

Judging it quite unsafe to attempt carrying him to Huy, from 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 care of his wound was committed to an ignorant barber surgeon, who lived near the house; the best shift that could then be made, at a time when, it may be easily fupposed, persons of ability in their profession had their hands full of employment. The tent which this artist applied, was almost like a peg driven into the wound; and gentlemen of kill and experience, when they came to hear of the manner in which he was treated, wondered how he could possibly survive such management. But, by the blessing of God, on these applications, rough as they were, he recovered in a few months. The Lady Abbels, who called him er son, treated him with the affection and care of a mother; and he always declared, that every thing which he saw within these walls was conducted with the stricest decency and decorum. He received a great many devout admonitions from the ladies there; and they would sain have persuaded him to acknowledge what they thought so miraculous deliverance, by embracing the Catholic Faith, as they were pleased to call it, but they could not succeed; for, though no religion lay near his heart, yet he had too much the spirit of a gentleman, instantly to change that form of religion which he wore, as it were, loose about him, as well as too much good sense to swallow these monstrous absurdities of Popery which