e
woman was dismissed, and I was consigned to a healthy peasant, who is
still alive to boast of her _laddie_ being what she calls _a grand
gentleman_.[23] I showed every sign of health and strength until I was
about eighteen months old. One night, I have been often told, I showed
great reluctance to be caught and put to bed; and, after being chased
about the room, was apprehended, and consigned to my dormitory with
some difficulty. It was the last time I was to show such personal
agility. In the morning I was discovered to be affected with the fever
which often accompanies the cutting of large teeth. It held me three
days. On the fourth, when they went to bathe me as usual, they
discovered that I had lost the power of my right leg. My grandfather,
an excellent anatomist as well as physician, the late worthy Alexander
Wood, and many others of the most respectable of the faculty, were
consulted. There appeared to be no dislocation or sprain; blisters and
other topical remedies were applied in vain.[24] When the efforts of
regular physicians had been exhausted without the slightest success,
my anxious parents, during the course of many years, eagerly grasped
at every prospect of cure which was held out by the promise of
empirics, or of ancient ladies or gentlemen who {p.013} conceived
themselves entitled to recommend various remedies, some of which were
of a nature sufficiently singular. But the advice of my grandfather,
Dr. Rutherford, that I should be sent to reside in the country, to
give the chance of natural exertion, excited by free air and liberty,
was first resorted to; and before I have the recollection of the
slightest event, I was, agreeably to this friendly counsel, an inmate
in the farmhouse of Sandy-Knowe.

[Footnote 23: She died in 1810.--(1826.)]

[Footnote 24: [Regarding this illness, see a medical note by
Dr. Creighton to the article, "Scott," in the _Encyclopaedia
Britannica_.]]

An odd incident is worth recording. It seems my mother had sent a maid
to take charge of me, that I might be no inconvenience in the family.
But the damsel sent on that important mission had left her heart
behind her, in the keeping of some wild fellow, it is likely, who had
done and said more to her than he was like to make good. She became
extremely desirous to return to Edinburgh, and as my mother made a
point of her remaining where she was, she contracted a sort of hatred
at poor me, a