252 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. VI. 



The troubles of this excursion were increased by James Rus- 

 sell, with characteristic heedlessness, having left home with shoes 

 so worn, that it was found necessary to have a pair made by a 

 country workman. These, being strong and heavy, so blistered 

 his feet that he was thankful to take them off, and limp along 

 shoeless in the quiet roads. The result of the unwonted exertion 

 to George was a sprain, which might have yielded readily to 

 simple appliances ; but a dislike to give trouble, combined with 

 a child-like forgetfulness of pain not immediately pressing, led 

 to concealment from his kind hostess that he had suffered aught. 

 It was a cloud no bigger than a man's hand, yet it was to 

 darken all his life. Passing over the same ground fifteen years 

 later, he spoke almost shudderingly to a sister of this walk and 

 all it recalled to mind. 



Three days later than the letter just given, he went to Glas- 

 gow, to attend the meeting of the British Association. A week 

 of exertion and excitement, almost inseparable from such assem- 

 blies, caused further injury to health, and he returned home 

 seriously ill. His friend, l)r. Skae, was his medical attendant ; 

 and now began that deep debt of obligation which his friends 

 of the medical profession laid him under throughout the rest of 

 his life. Their aid was in most cases given unasked, prompted 

 by a loving regard, and with the tenderness of brothers did more 

 than one watch the ebb and flow of his strength, prolonging by 

 affectionate care the years of his earthly sojourn. 



A letter to Daniel, of October 2d, speaks of his health : " I 

 shall not apologize for taking a small sheet in answer to your 

 kind, candid letter of this morning, for I am still an invalid. I 

 have been confined to bed all day for the last week, and have to 

 look forward to an imprisonment to the house, at least for the 

 next fortnight. Leeching and poulticing were of no avail, and 

 the end was an abscess, which was opened two days ago, leav- 

 ing a gash more than an inch long to heal up before I am sound 

 on my pins again. If I could have looked to the tiling in the 

 country, I might have prevented all this, but that was impos- 

 sible ; and my hurried departure, the very day the Association 

 was over, I feared might be thought a sign of extravagant 

 anxiety to be home again. . . . And now I must finish this 



