On this subject. Richard Middlemas answered with
the same promptitude and candour.—“He
had,” he said, “in order to forming his
opinion more safely, consulted with his friend, the
Town-clerk.” The Doctor nodded approbation.
“Mr. Lawford had, indeed, been most friendly,
and had even offered to take him into his own office.
But if his father and benefactor would permit him
to study, under his instructions, the noble art in
which he himself enjoyed such a deserved reputation,
the mere hope that he might by-and-by be of some use
to Mr. Gray in his business, would greatly overbalance
every other consideration. Such a course of education,
and such a use of professional knowledge when he had
acquired it, would be a greater spur to his industry
than the prospect even of becoming Town-clerk of Middlemas
in his proper person.”
As the young man expressed it to be his firm and unalterable
choice, to study medicine under his guardian, and
to remain a member of his family, Dr. Gray informed
Mr. Moncada of the lad’s determination; who,
to testify his approbation, remitted to the Doctor
the sum of L100 as apprentice fee, a sum nearly three
times as much as Gray’s modesty had hinted at
as necessary.
Shortly after, when Dr. Gray and the Town-clerk met
at the small club of the burgh, their joint theme
was the sense and steadiness of Richard Middlemas.
“Indeed,” said the Town-clerk, “he
is such a friendly and disinterested boy, that I could
not get him to accept a place in my office, for fear
he should be thought to be pushing himself forward
at the expense of Tam Hillary.”
“And, indeed, Clerk,” said Gray, “I
have sometimes been afraid that he kept too much company
with that Tam Hillary of yours; but twenty Tam Hillarys
would not corrupt Dick Middlemas.”
CHAPTER THE THIRD.
Dick was come to high renown
Since he commenced physician;
Tom was held by all the town
The better politician.
TOM AND DICK.
At the same period when Dr. Gray took under his charge
his youthful lodger Richard Middlemas, he received
proposals from the friends of one Adam Hartley, to
receive him also as an apprentice. The lad was
the son of a respectable farmer on the English side
of the Border, who educating his eldest son to his
own occupation, desired to make his second a medical
man, in order to avail himself of the friendship of
a great man, his landlord, who had offered to assist
his views in life, and represented a doctor or surgeon
as the sort of person to whose advantage his interest
could be most readily applied. Middlemas and Hartley
were therefore associated in their studies. In
winter they were boarded in Edinburgh, for attending
the medical classes which were necessary for taking
their degree. Three or four years thus passed
on, and, from being mere boys, the two medical aspirants
shot up into young men, who, being both very good-looking,
well dressed, well bred, and having money in their
pockets, became personages of some importance in the
little town of Middlemas, where there was scarce any
thing that could be termed an aristocracy, and in
which beaux were scarce and belles were plenty.
