That officer
was my dearest friend. It was Oldeb. You will perceive by these
manuscripts," (here the speaker produced a note-book in which
several pages appeared to have been freshly written,) "that at the
very period in which you fancied these things amid the hills, I was
engaged in detailing them upon paper here at home."
In about a week after this conversation, the following paragraphs
appeared in a Charlottesville paper:
"We have the painful duty of announcing the death of Mr. Augustus
Bedlo, a gentleman whose amiable manners and many virtues have long
endeared him to the citizens of Charlottesville.
"Mr. B., for some years past, has been subject to neuralgia, which
has often threatened to terminate fatally; but this can be regarded
only as the mediate cause of his decease. The proximate cause was
one of especial singularity. In an excursion to the Ragged
Mountains, a few days since, a slight cold and fever were
contracted, attended with great determination of blood to the head. To
relieve this, Dr. Templeton resorted to topical bleeding. Leeches were
applied to the temples. In a fearfully brief period the patient
died, when it appeared that in the jar containing the leeches, had
been introduced, by accident, one of the venomous vermicular
sangsues which are now and then found in the neighboring ponds.
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