II. 1774--1775. The first year at Sandy-Knowe. In this year, note first his new nurse. The child had a maid sent with him to prevent his being an inconvenience to the family. This maid had left her heart behind her in Edinburgh (ill trusted), [65] and went mad in the solitude;--"tempted by the devil," she told Alison Wilson, the housekeeper, "to kill the child and bury it in the moss."
"Alison instantly took possession of my person," says Scott. And there is no more said of Alison in the autobiography.
But what the old farm-housekeeper must have been to the child, is told in the most finished piece of all the beautiful story of 'Old Mortality.' Among his many beautifully invented names, here is one not invented--very dear to him.
"'I wish to speak an instant with one Alison Wilson, who resides here,' said Henry.
"'She's no at hame the day,' answered Mrs. Wilson in propriâ personâ--the state of whose headdress perhaps inspired her with this direct mode of denying herself--'and ye are but a mislear'd person to speer for her in sic a manner. Ye might have had an M under your belt for Mistress Wilson of Milnwood.'" Read on, if you forget it, to the end, that third chapter of the last volume of 'Old Mortality.' The story of such return to the home of childhood has been told often; but never, so far as I have knowledge, so exquisitely. I do not doubt that Elphin's name is from Sandy-Knowe also; but cannot trace it.
Secondly, note his grandfathers' medical treatment of him; for both his grandfathers were physicians,--Dr. Rutherford, as we have seen, so professed, by whose advice he is sent to Sandy-Knowe. There, his cattle-dealing grandfather, true physician by diploma of Nature, orders him, whenever the day is fine, to be carried out and laid down beside the old shepherd among the crags or rocks around which he fed his sheep. "The impatience of a child soon inclined me to struggle with my infirmity, and I began by degrees to stand, to walk, and to run. Although the limb affected was much shrunk and contracted, my general health, which was of more importance, was much strengthened by being frequently in the open air; and, in a word, I, who in a city had probably been condemned to hopeless and helpless decrepitude, (italics mine,) was now a healthy, high-spirited, and, my lameness apart, a sturdy child,--non sine dîs animosus infans."