In a month or two the new proprietor began
to improve in health, and drive about his own grounds, or be rowed on his
lake, lying on soft beds.
But in the fifth month of his residence local pains seized him, and he
began to waste. For some time the precise nature of the disorder was
obscure; but at last a rising surgeon declared it to be an abscess in the
intestines (caused, no doubt, by external violence).
By degrees the patient became unable to take solid food, and the drain
upon his system was too great for a mere mucilaginous diet to sustain
him. Wasted to the bone, and yellow as a guinea, he presented a pitiable
spectacle, and would gladly have exchanged his fine house and pictures,
his heathery hills dotted with sheep, and his glassy lake full of spotted
trout, for a ragged Irishman's bowl of potatoes and his mug of
buttermilk--and his stomach.
CHAPTER XXVII.
CURTAIN.
Striking incidents will draw the writer; but we know that our readers
would rather hear about the characters they can respect.
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