Page:Martha Spreull by Zachary Fleming.pdf/24

12 Frae that day to this, between bills paid and bills no' paid, my interest in edication has remained unabated. In the time that the auld College remained in High Street, efter throwing open my hoose, I put through my hands in all, six ministers, ten doctors, and a dizzen failures!—the latter mainly o' the minister class.

It is a guid while noo since I kent the College first; maist o' my earlier recollections o't are o' the gruesome kind. Body-lifting bein' then in vogue, baith in toon and country; and wi' these awesome practices, whether justly or no, the College wis associated. I can mind fine when I wis a lassie, what a tiravee wis raised ower the discovery of pairts o' a human body and skull in a close near the ootskirts o' the College buildings. So sairly did it affect my young imagination that I saw the same sicht in oor ain close in the High Street nightly for at least a month efter. Folk said that when the doctor bodies couldna get dead subjects they didna scruple to tak' leevin' anes. I mind hoo my mother wis afflicted wi' that fear.



"Martha," she wud say, "aye rin whan ye're passin' the