"You know the names of the Twelve Apostles, dearie? You say them names, one by one, before your open window, rain or storm, wet or shine, five times a day fasting. But mind you, 'twixt every name you draw in your breath through your nose, right down to your pretty toes, as long and as deep as you can, and let it out slow through your pretty little mouth. There's virtue for your cough in those names spoke that way. And I'll give you something you can see, moreover. Here's a stick of maple which is the warmest tree in the wood. It's cut one inch long for you every year," Jerry said. "That's sixteen inches. You set it in your window so that it holds up the sash, and thus you keep it, rain or shine, or wet or fine, day and night. I've said words over it which will have virtue on your complaints." Bridport lies two miles inland from the sea and its unheard-of harbour of West Bay. We first hear of the town in the reign of Edward the Confessor, when it could boast a mint, a priory of monks and two hundred houses. In Saxon days it was probably a place of some importance, owing to the fact of it being the port to the River Brit, but its early history is without any distinctive mark or important event. When Charles II. arrived at Bridport in his hasty flight from Charmouth the town was full of soldiers, but the royal party went boldly to an inn (the _George_, now a shop, incorporating part of the old building opposite the Town Hall) and mixed with the company. Every stranger was mistrusted by the troops, however, and Charles and his suite quitted the town after a hasty meal. They retired by the main Dorchester road and took a lane leading to Broadwindsor and so escaped. Lee Lane, a mile to the east of Bridport, is said to be the actual scene where the royal party retreated to security. The first thing the pilgrim will notice when entering Bridport is the generous width of the streets, and it is a curious fact that the local industries have left their stamp on the town in this way. The town was always famed for its hempen manufactures, and it furnished most of the cordage for the royal fleet in the good old times of "wooden walls." It was for this reason the roads were made wider--to allow each house to have a "rope walk." At one time the town enjoyed almost a monopoly in the manufacture of cordage. Gallows' ropes also were made here, hence the grim retort often heard in Wessex: "You'll live to be stabbed with a Bridport dagger!" George Barnet, "a gentleman-burgher of Port Bredy," in Hardy's _Fellow Townsmen_, was descended from the hemp and rope merchants of Bridport.