240 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. IX. 



nor can such a state of body exist without a sympathetic 

 fever being lighted up, and vexing the whole system. It is 

 no new condition for me to be in, and I have acquired a 

 little experience in dealing with its annoyances. There are 

 two good symptoms : I eat like a man who has a living 

 body ; and I have a very composed spirit, unless when 

 fretted by the talk of others. To be alone, or only with 

 Jessie, as I am here, is the pleasantest condition of matters, 

 according to my present mood." Often had his hopes of 

 improvement in health been met by days and nights even 

 more wearisome being allotted to him. So was it to be 

 now. About a fortnight had been spent in Rothesay, when 

 one morning, seeing a strange fish lying on the beach, he 

 dropped down the low embankment which separated him 

 from it. Endeavouring to guard against the fall which his 

 lameness might have caused, he overstrained the right arm, 

 and broke the bone near the shoulder. Among strangers, 

 and in lodgings far from comfortable, the accident was 

 doubly distressing ; but his quiet calmness and gentle 

 patience failed not. Kindness was received from unex- 

 pected quarters, and his friends, as usual, showed devoted 

 love. One of them, Dr. John Struthers, no sooner heard 

 of the accident than he started for Rothesay, to satisfy him- 

 self that the arm was properly set, and having spent an 

 hour, was obliged to return home. With George the 

 anxiety was to spare all possible distress to absent friends. 

 " I lay," he wrote afterwards, " through the long nights, 

 with a weary cough, a lost vacation, and a shattered frame, 

 intensely realizing how much sorrow Jessie, mother, and 

 uncle, were enduring for me." To his mother he dictated 

 a letter the day after the accident. " Nothing but my right 

 arm, being the disabled one, keeps me from writing to you 

 myself to assure you I am very well. I trust you will not 



