II 



Mari'iage 2 7 



In i860 he married Mary Bailey, a lady whose 

 extraordinary benevolence endeared her to every one 

 who was fortunate enough to come within the circle 

 of her friendship, and whose faculty for managing 

 affairs of business enabled her to take from her 

 husband's shoulders the burden of many of the petty 

 cares of life. Surely, had he then established himself 

 in a London practice, his scientific acquirements 

 and his great knowledge of the world would have 

 enabled him to win his way up to a place in the 

 very highest rank of his profession. Contemporary 

 medical men thought so ; but though he seemed to 

 possess many of the qualities which go to the making 

 of a great physician, he also possessed many other 

 qualities which rendered it impossible for him ever 

 to become one, or, indeed, ever seriously to attempt 

 to become one. A man who loved ' to hunt God's 

 cattle upon God's ain hills ' ; a man to whom the 

 ' wafts of heather honey ' and the smell of the salt 

 ocean were the sweetest of all scents, the roar of a 

 salmon river and the music of the brae the sweetest 

 of all sounds ; a man whose soul loved to dwell in 

 the magnificent dreams of the old dramatists, and 

 to sail, with the old voyagers, past sandy bays 

 and verdant islands over ' the sunlit sea,' could 

 hardly have looked forward with complacency to 

 the prospect of days spent in prescribing for the 

 diseases of a multitude of patients in a consulting- 

 room in Harley Street, driving in a brougham from 

 one house of sickness to another through the din 



