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 III.
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.
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