Ladies’ Edinburgh Magazine > Volume 5

264 The Ladies' Edinburgh Magazine.
ever, when I found this was no chivalrous stranger, but the
master of the houtique. Still I never failed to admire him
as I. saw him day after day towering aloft, and managing to
stow away, not one only, but four or five pratiques in the
corners of the kiosquc, whence they emerged, not much
flattened, bearing Tauchnitz editions and French novels.
We lived, not on the digiie, but in the village, in the house
of Dr. Verhaaghe, the principal medico of the place. There
"we could see, in its most striking aspect, that which gives a
distinctive character to Blankenberghe, namely, the manners
of a fashionable watering-place, with its cursaals, grand
hotels, cosmopolitan waiters, and French chefs, brought into
sharp contact with the ways and habits of a kindly, homely
race of fishermen and small bourgeois, still standing in the
old paths, neither the parasites, nor the imitators, nor the
despoilers of their glittering butterfly visitors. The same
contrast has been seen elsewhere,—in the Highlands for
example, and at Biarritz,—but now at those places modern
civilization has done its work on the independence of the
native character as sweepingly as it has done in New
Zealand on the existence of the native races. Dr.
Verhaaghe's house is known as possessing the most liberal
criisine in the town, and it combines many of the comforts
and conveniences of a modern hotel with the kindly hospi¬
tality of an old-fashioned hostelry. The doctor presided
at liis tahle dlwte and kept the accounts, but did not other¬
wise appear to take au active part in the management of
the house. The door of his natty, well-ordered surgery was
close to the entrance of the house, and as it generally stood
invitingly open, I trust it was no impertinent curiosity that
i'requently led me to sit down on the opposite bench and
see the cordial Flemish greetings that passed between him
and his 'morning patients,' who enjoy the benefit of his
skill at the rate of 7-|d. per visit. He is said to have no
great faith in medicine, and to prescribe it sparingly; but I
once saw him spread a large blister with so liberal a hand,
that I presume his researches have given him confidence in
the abnormal thickness of the Flemish epidermis. He does
not seem to make a regular round of visits, but is sent for
in any emergency; for example, when a lamp fell on the
head of a countess during a public concert, or when one
trooper's horse kicked its neighbour whilst their owners
were bathing cL la militaire under the supervision of their
officers. To show how sensible and liberal his treatment
was, 1 may mention that once when I was more ailing than