A Doctor of the Old School | Page 2

received new courage. It is surely more honor than a

new writer could ever have deserved to receive the approbation of a
profession whose charity puts us all to shame.
May I take this first opportunity to declare how deeply my heart has
been touched by the favor shown to a simple book by the American
people, and to express my hope that one day it may be given me to see
you face to face.
IAN MACLAREN. Liverpool, Oct. 4, 1895.

A GENERAL PRACTITIONER.
I
A GENERAL PRACTITIONER
Drumtochty was accustomed to break every law of health, except
wholesome food and fresh air, and yet had reduced the Psalmist's
farthest limit to an average life-rate. Our men made no difference in
their clothes for summer or winter, Drumsheugh and one or two of the
larger farmers condescending to a topcoat on Sabbath, as a penalty of
their position, and without regard to temperature. They wore their
blacks at a funeral, refusing to cover them with anything, out of respect
to the deceased, and standing longest in the kirkyard when the north
wind was blowing across a hundred miles of snow. If the rain was
pouring at the Junction, then Drumtochty stood two minutes longer
through sheer native dourness till each man had a cascade from the tail
of his coat, and hazarded the suggestion, halfway to Kildrummie, that it
had been "a bit scrowie," a "scrowie" being as far short of a "shoor" as
a "shoor" fell below "weet."
[Illustration: SANDY STEWART "NAPPED" STONES]
This sustained defiance of the elements provoked occasional judgments
in the shape of a "hoast" (cough), and the head of the house was then
exhorted by his women folk to "change his feet" if he had happened to
walk through a burn on his way home, and was pestered generally with

sanitary precautions. It is right to add that the gudeman treated such
advice with contempt, regarding it as suitable for the effeminacy of
towns, but not seriously intended for Drumtochty. Sandy Stewart
"napped" stones on the road in his shirt sleeves, wet or fair, summer
and winter, till he was persuaded to retire from active duty at
eighty-five, and he spent ten years more in regretting his hastiness and
criticising his successor. The ordinary course of life, with fine air and
contented minds, was to do a full share of work till seventy, and then to
look after "orra" jobs well into the eighties, and to "slip awa" within
sight of ninety. Persons above ninety were understood to be acquitting
themselves with credit, and assumed airs of authority, brushing aside
the opinions of seventy as immature, and confirming their conclusions
with illustrations drawn from the end of last century.
When Hillocks' brother so far forgot himself as to "slip awa" at sixty,
that worthy man was scandalized, and offered laboured explanations at
the "beerial."
"It's an awfu' business ony wy ye look at it, an' a sair trial tae us a'. A'
never heard tell o' sic a thing in oor family afore, an' it's no easy
accoontin' for't.
"The gudewife was sayin' he wes never the same sin' a weet nicht he
lost himsel on the muir and slept below a bush; but that's neither here
nor there. A'm thinkin' he sappit his constitution thae twa years he wes
grieve aboot England. That wes thirty years syne, but ye're never the
same aifter thae foreign climates."
Drumtochty listened patiently to Hillocks' apology, but was not
satisfied.
"It's clean havers about the muir. Losh keep's, we've a' sleepit oot and
never been a hair the waur.
"A' admit that England micht hae dune the job; it's no cannie stravagin'
yon wy frae place tae place, but Drums never complained tae me if he
hed been nippit in the Sooth."

The parish had, in fact, lost confidence in Drums after his wayward
experiment with a potato-digging machine, which turned out a
lamentable failure, and his premature departure confirmed our vague
impression of his character.
"He's awa noo," Drumsheugh summed up, after opinion had time to
form; "an' there were waur fouk than Drums, but there's nae doot he
was a wee flichty."
When illness had the audacity to attack a Drumtochty man, it was
described as a "whup," and was treated by the men with a fine
negligence. Hillocks was sitting in the post-office one afternoon when I
looked in for my letters, and the right side of his face was blazing red.
His subject of discourse was the prospects of the turnip "breer," but he
casually explained that he was waiting for medical advice.
"The gudewife is keepin' up a ding-dong frae mornin' till nicht aboot
ma face, and a'm fair deaved (deafened), so a'm watchin' for MacLure
tae get a bottle as he comes wast;