Chapter 19 - Page 2

which put a period to this reformed
existence.

"Sir Ferdinando, who was above all things a patriot, had adopted,
from the earliest days of the conflict with the French, his own
peculiar method of celebrating our victories. When the happy
news reached London, it was his custom to purchase immediately a
large store of liquor and, taking a place on whichever of the
outgoing coaches he happened to light on first, to drive through
the country proclaiming the good news to all he met on the road
and dispensing it, along with the liquor, at every stopping-place
to all who cared to listen or drink. Thus, after the Nile, he
had driven as far as Edinburgh; and later, when the coaches,
wreathed with laurel for triumph, with cypress for mourning, were
setting out with the news of Nelson's victory and death, he sat
through all a chilly October night on the box of the Norwich
"Meteor" with a nautical keg of rum on his knees and two cases of
old brandy under the seat. This genial custom was one of the
many habits which he abandoned on his marriage. The victories in
the Peninsula, the retreat from Moscow, Leipzig, and the
abdication of the tyrant all went uncelebrated. It so happened,
however, that in the summer of 1815 Sir Ferdinando was staying
for a few weeks in the capital. There had been a succession of
anxious, doubtful days; then came the glorious news of Waterloo.
It was too much for Sir Ferdinando; his joyous youth awoke again
within him. He hurried to his wine merchant and bought a dozen
bottles of 1760 brandy. The Bath coach was on the point of
starting; he bribed his way on to the box and, seated in glory
beside the driver, proclaimed aloud the downfall of the Corsican
bandit and passed about the warm liquid joy. They clattered
through Uxbridge, Slough, Maidenhead. Sleeping Reading was
awakened by the great news. At Didcot one of the ostlers was so
much overcome by patriotic emotions and the 1760 brandy that he
found it impossible to do up the buckles of the harness. The
night began to grow chilly, and Sir Ferdinando found that it was
not enough to take a nip at every stage: to keep up his vital
warmth he was compelled to drink between the stages as well.
They were approaching Swindon. The coach was travelling at a
dizzy speed--six miles in the last half-hour--when, without
having manifested the slightest premonitory symptom of
unsteadiness, Sir Ferdinando suddenly toppled sideways off his
seat and fell, head foremost, into the road. An unpleasant jolt
awakened the slumbering passengers. The coach was brought to a
standstill; the guard ran back with a light. He found Sir
Ferdinando still alive, but unconscious; blood was oozing from
his mouth. The back wheels of the coach had passed over