The Recreations of a Country ParsonBoyd, Andrew Kennedy Hutchison
General
The Recreations of a Country Parson
Boyd, Andrew Kennedy Hutchison
Clergy -- Anecdotes; Country life -- England; Rural clergy -- England
It did not seem a minute since we had fallen asleep, when we were
awakened by some one entering our room, and by a voice which said,
'I hef come tu pack yew.' It was the bath-man, William, to whose
charge we had been given, and whom we soon came to like exceedingly;
a most good-tempered, active, and attentive little German. We were
very sleepy, and inquired as to the hour; it was five a.m. There
was no help for it, so we scrambled out of bed and sat on a chair,
wrapped in the bed-clothes, watching William with sleepy eyes. He
spread upon our little bed a very thick and coarse double blanket;
he then produced from a tub what looked like a thick twisted cable,
which he proceeded to unroll. It was a sheet of coarse linen, wrung
out of the coldest water. And so here was the terrible wet sheet
of which we had heard so much. We shuddered with terror. William
saw our trepidation, and said, benevolently, 'Yew vill soon like
him mosh.' He spread out the wet sheet upon the thick blanket,
and told us to strip and lie down upon it. Oh! it was cold as ice!
William speedily wrapped it around us. Awfully comfortless was the
first sensation. We tried to touch the cold damp thing at as few
points as possible. It would not do. William relentlessly drew
the blanket tight round us; every inch of our superficies felt the
chill of the sheet. Then he placed above us a feather bed, cut out
to fit about the head, and stretched no end of blankets over all.
'How long are we to be here?' was our inquiry. 'Fifty minutes,'
said William, and disappeared. So there we were, packed in the wet
sheet, stretched on our back, our hands pinioned by our sides, as
incapable of moving as an Egyptian mummy in its swathes. 'What on
earth shall we do,' we remember thinking, 'if a fire breaks out?'
Had a robber entered and walked off with our watch and money, we
must have lain and looked at him, for we could not move a finger.
By the time we had thought all this, the chilly, comfortless feeling
was gone; in ten minutes or less, a sensation of delicious languor
stole over us: in a little longer we were fast asleep. We have
had many a pack since, and we may say that the feeling is most
agreeable when one keeps awake; body and mind are soothed into an
indescribable tranquillity; the sensation is one of calm, solid
enjoyment. In fifty minutes William returned. He removed the blankets
and bed which covered us, but left us enveloped in the sheet and
coarse blanket. By this time the patient is generally in a profuse
perspiration. William turned us round, and made us slip out of bed
upon our feet; then slightly loosing the lower part of our cerements
so that we could walk with difficulty, he took us by the shoulders
and guided our unsteady steps out of our chamber, along a little
passage, into an apartment containing a plunge bath. The bath was
about twelve feet square; its floor and sides covered with white
encaustic tiles; the water, clear as crystal against that light
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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