But the misfortunes of this hero had not yet ended. The town having been taken by assault, the conquerors were so barbarous as to throw him out of a window. He fortunately fell on a heap of dung, where, abandoned by every one, he passed three days, until his relation Ducroiset had him carried off privately in the night, and sent to a house up the country, where his wounds were dressed as opportunity offered. There, after so many disasters, he recovered so perfect a state of health, that he survived forty years after all these accidents. That particular providence, which had saved this man from so many perils, also presided over his birth. His mother dying with child, during the absence of her husband, had been buried without any one thinking to extract the child, by the Cæsarian operation, when fortunately the day after she was interred, the husband arrived, and learnt with surprise the death of his wife, and the little attention that was paid to the fruit of her womb. He instantly required her grave to be dug up, and having had his unfortunate wife opened, Civile was extracted while living.
VIII.
Sir Hugh Ackland, after being laid out as a corpse, recovered by a bumper of brandy.
The late Sir Hugh Ackland, of Devonshire, apparently died of a fever, and was laid out as dead: the nurse, with two of the footmen, sat up with the corpse. Lady Ackland, sent them a bottle of brandy to drink in the night: one of the servants being an arch rogue, told the other that his master dearly loved brandy when he was alive, and, says he, I am resolved he shall drink one glass, with us now he is dead. The fellow accordingly poured out a bumper of brandy, and forced it down his throat: a guggling immediately ensued, and a violent motion of the neck, and upper part of the breast. The other footman and the nurse were so terrified, that they ran down stairs; and the brandy genius hastening away with rather too much speed, tumbled down stairs head-foremost. The noise of the fall, and his cries, alarmed a young gentleman that slept in the house that night, who got up, and went to the room where the corpse lay, and, to his great surprise, saw Sir Hugh sitting upright. He called the servants; Sir Hugh was put into a warm bed, and the physician and apothecary were sent for. These gentlemen in a few weeks perfectly restored their patient to health, and he lived several years after. The above, says the writer, is well known to the people in Devonshire, as in most companies Sir Hugh used to tell this strange circumstance, and talk of his resurrection by his brandy footman, to whom, when he really died, he left a handsome annuity.
IX.
Sir Gervase Scroop.
In Edge-hill fight, Sir Gervase Scroop, fighting valiantly for his king, received twenty-six wounds, and was left on the ground amongst the dead: next day, his son Adrian obtained leave of the king, to find and fetch off his father’s corpse, and his hopes pretended no higher than a decent interment thereof: such a search was thought in vain amongst so many naked bodies with wounds disguised from themselves, and where pale death had confounded all complexions together. However, he having some general hint of the place, where his father fell, did light upon his body, which had some warmth left therein: the heat was with rubbing within a few moments improved to motion, that motion within some hours into sense, that sense within a day into speech: within certain weeks he arrived to a perfect recovery, living more than ten years after, a monument of God’s mercy and his son’s affection. The effect of this story (says Dr. Fuller) I received from his own mouth in Lincoln College.
X.
“We know some,” saith Alexander Benedictus, “who have been laid in their graves half alive; and some noble persons have been disposed in their sepulchres, whose life has lain hid in the secret repositories of the heart. One great lady was thus entombed, who was after found dead indeed; but sitting, and removed from her place, as one that had returned to life amongst the carcases of the dead. She had pulled off the hair from her head, and had torn her breast with her nails, signs too apparent of what had passed; and that she had long in vain called for help, while alone in the society of the dead.”