Mr Gideon Gray, surgeon in the village of Middlemas,
situated in one of the midland counties of
Scotland, led the rough, active, and ill-rewarded
course of life which we have endeavoured to describe.
He was a man between forty and fifty,
devoted to his profession, and of such reputation
in the medical world, that he had been more than
once, as opportunities occurred, advised to exchange
Middlemas and its meagre circle of practice,
for some of the larger towns in Scotland, or
for Edinburgh itself. This advice he had always
declined. He was a plain blunt man, who did not
love restraint, and was unwilling to subject himself
to that which was exacted in polite society. He
had not himself found out, nor had any friend hinted
to him, that a slight touch of the cynic, in manner
and habits, gives the physician, to the common
eye, an air of authority which greatly tends to
enlarge his reputation. Mr Gray, or, as the country
people called him, Doctor Gray, (he might
hold the title by diploma for what I know, though
he only claimed the rank of Master of Arts,) had
few wants, and these were amply supplied by a
professional income which generally approached
two hundred pounds a-year, for which, upon an
average, he travelled about five thousand miles on
horseback in the course of the twelve months.
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