It appears that when the horse came home, her husband and another person set out on the road with a lantern, and went quite to Cambridge, where they only learnt that she left the inn at six that evening. They explored the road afresh that night, and for four succeeding days, and searched the huts of the gipsies, whom they suspected might have robbed and murdered her, till she was unexpectedly discovered in the manner already mentioned.
Mr. Okes, a surgeon, first saw her in the cart, as she was removing home. She spoke to him with a voice tolerably strong, but rather hoarse; her hands and arms were sodden, but not very cold though her legs and feet were. She was put to bed, and weak broth given her occasionally. From the time of her being lost she had eaten only snow, and believed she had not slept till Friday the 8th. The hurry of spirits, occasioned by too many visitors, rendered her feverish; and her feet were found to be completely mortified. The cold had extended its violent effects from the end of the toes to the middle of the instep, including more than an inch above the heels, and all the bottom of the feet, insomuch, that she lost all her toes with the integuments from the bottom of one foot. Her life was saved, but the mutilated state in which she was left, without even a chance of ever being able to attend to the duties of her family, was almost worse than death itself. She lingered until the 13th of July, 1799, when she expired, after a lapse of five months from the period of her discovery.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 40·37.
[51] Gentleman’s Magazine.