The showy inn where one got no real comforts and where the cooking was bad, was of course the object of her special detestation.

Many times she drove all over Perthshire; she went as far north as Loch Maree, and, on one occasion at least, she drove all the way from Brighton to Edinburgh arriving, by the way, to find a patient on the door-step, and that patient a dowager countess! As a rule the horse and chaise were put on the train from Carlisle to Rugby.

And the woods and hills seemed the very home of her spirit. More than anything else they brought the poetry to her lips,—Whittier’s My Psalm very frequently in later years,—she did so love those “robes of praise”—and his Autograph too,—

But always most frequently of all, perhaps, Mrs. Browning’s couplet,—

Of course there were hardships to be faced too,—as one reckoned hardships in those days! Often the rain came down in sheets when one was half way across a shelterless mountain pass; or one drove unexpectedly into deeper and deeper snow till it even happened that the groom had to borrow a spade from a neighbouring cottage, and dig a way out of the drift. Not infrequently night came on before a suitable inn had been found,—for it is by no means every country inn that has stabling,—let alone a lock-up coach-house,—and one drove mile after mile with a tired horse and diminishing hopes.

In all such minor emergencies the indomitable spirit rose to meet the occasion. One well nigh forgot the ageing woman and saw only the gallant-hearted boy. She loved driving across a ford, though in some of the Highland rivers it is highly desirable, if not necessary, to know the lie of the ground beneath, and to choose just the right détour or zig-zag.

In the neighbourhood of Woking one day when the floods were out, she stopped to ask the way, and was informed that the route she proposed to take was under water and dangerous. It would have been awkward to change plans at that stage, so S. J.-B. drove on, though the water gradually rose above the axles.

Presently a meek voice was heard from the groom behind. “He said it was dangerous.” But S. J.-B. did not hear.

She was never foolhardy, but she did love the off-chance of an adventure, and there would have been danger often if her nerve had given way, or if she had not had a thorough understanding with her horse. In the moment of emergency one saw what excellent comrades they were. She knew how to get the last ounce of pluck and endurance out of him in case of need.

It was all made up to him when the strain was over! That hot mash on reaching the inn was the first thing thought of, and on a trying day there was always a snack of some sort for the groom before the inn was reached, so that the thought of his own supper might not bulk too largely in his general view of life and duty.

She was the friend of all her horses, and was never happy with one that failed to respond. Blinkers and bearing-reins were an abomination to her. She even objected to brass, and refused to use the smart be-crested harness that came to her from her father’s stable.

Her first favourite was White Angel, a pony. Professor Wilson had helped her to choose him for a driving-tour in her student days. She hired him several times and finally bought him. When she was at Berne for her degree, he lived in her Mother’s stable at Brighton. “Angel and Turk send their duty,” Mrs. Jex-Blake used to write. “Master Turk says, ‘Very dull Christmas without Missis. He don’t think much of Switzerland.’”

White Angel was badly named,—he was a lovable creature, but far more of a sprite than an angel. There was never any harm in his mischief, and she used to recount his pranks with the greatest delight. Above all things he hated to be beaten. Going up Corstorphine Hill, he would not allow even a pair of horses to pass him. He would allow them to come close up, and then he would throw up his heels and race to the top as if the chaise had been a nut-shell. And she enjoyed his spirit far too much to check him.

He continued this practice up to a period of life when most creatures place comfort above such expensive luxuries; but there came a time when he had to give in. Then, as he heard younger hoofs gaining on him, he would turn his head with great dignity and look the other way, refusing to see that he was being outdone.

Very early in the days of practice, Blackbird came to reinforce him, replacing a smarter, more troublesome horse whom S. J.-B. passed on to Dr. Pechey: and on the whole Blackbird was her dearest horse friend. He was such a gentleman, so willing to coöperate with her, and if necessary to exert himself only too much on those occasional long days in the Highlands. She never could see that he was growing old and ceasing to be a credit to her,—indeed she seldom could see that of anything she had cared for. No flower that had brightened her writing-table was allowed to spend its last hour on an ash-heap. So Blackbird remained king of the stable, doing an occasional easy job, till the remonstrances of S. J.-B.’s friends prevailed against even that, and he was lent to a farmer friend to fill an easy place in the country.

Everyone meant well and kindly, but the farmer lent him after a time to a less soft-hearted dairyman, and one day when S. J.-B. went out to visit her old friend, she found him rheumatic and broken-kneed and lean. She said scarcely a word, but asked to be left with him in the stable. She had taken out a feed of beans, Blackbird’s special weakness, and she gave him the feeding-bag herself,—then put her arms round his neck and sobbed.

A day or two later Blackbird went to whatever place is reserved for such good and faithful friends.

There was Austral, too, the favourite of her later years,—a gentleman in every sense of the word,—his father and mother both in the Australian stud-book. The father was Oxford, the mother Uproarious, and the colt had been cleverly named Undergraduate. It was S. J.-B. who changed his name: she probably thought it inappropriate to a horse of eight or nine years; and indeed it was a word that for her was too full of associations.

No other animal came anywhere near horses in her estimation. Cats she disliked. In the old student days she had gone to see Miss Pechey at the home of the lady whose children were fortunate enough to have her for their governess. In the course of dinner, a spoiled and cherished family cat leapt gently on to the table, coming between S. J.-B. and the person to whom she was talking. Without stopping to think, S. J.-B. put out her arm and brushed the cat on to the floor.

When, some thirty years later, she was recalling how she had wondered whether so pretty a girl as Miss Pechey could have nerve enough to study medicine, and how she had been informed by one who knew that the pretty girl was “calm as an ox,” Mrs. Pechey Phipson grimly intervened,—“I assure you I was anything but calm when you swept that cat on to the floor!”

S. J.-B. laughed. And her laugh was a thing to hear,—especially when the old jokes and the old stories were recalled,—a hearty musical laugh that brought such wholesome tears to her eyes, and that would not allow her face to set into really tragic lines.

But there is something more to be said about her dislike to cats. After lunch at Bruntsfield Lodge, it was her custom to gather up the bits of bread that were left and take them out to the lawn to feed the birds. She loved to see the creatures flying towards her the moment she appeared, and no cat was ever tolerated in the grounds.

One evening in early summer, when she came in from her work to a high-walled garden all shimmering with promise, a half-grown kitten stood in the way. “Shoo!” said S. J.-B. “Go away! Who allowed that cat to be here?”

Everyone trembled,—except the little intruder. It looked S. J.-B. full in the face, and held its ground.

Of course it was turned out, but a few days later she saw it in the same place, leaping at a moth in the sunshine. And that time nothing was said.

And a few days later still, when she had passed beyond the garden into the house, the kitten walked forward to meet her. This really was too much; but when she protested, the kitten simply looked in her face and smiled.

So it was allowed to remain under due restrictions, until one night S. J.-B. was awakened by a loud sneeze. She struck a light, and there, on the shoulder of the sofa at the foot of her bed, calmly reposing on a big woollen shawl, with its eyes fixed on her in gentle protest against the open window, was the kitten.

It was simply uncanny. Of course it was only a kitten, but to S. J.-B. it was always more. “It must have known me in a previous incarnation,” she said. So she called it Karma, and before many days were over it was a favoured and lovable member of the household, taking all sorts of liberties in the most attractive way, and even lying unforbidden on her lap. “Li’l cat!” she used to say affectionately.

There is one more animal friend worth recalling, though pedigree and admirers he had none,—the Nameless Dog at Bordighera.

S. J.-B. had gone to Bordighera in the winter of 1897-98 with a friend who had been ill, and greatly did she enjoy the almost unfailing sunshine. She seldom made acquaintances under such conditions, but two delightful Irish ladies proved irresistible, and a pleasant partie carrée was the result. Every day S. J.-B. used to walk with one or other of her friends through the unlovely main street and sit for hours on the rocks at the Cap, watching the waves tumbling about on that fine bit of coast.

One day, in passing through the somewhat squalid town, she was stopped by a brawl among a few dogs,—a poor half-starved pariah was being set upon and robbed of some morsel it had contrived to pick up. Never was a more unwholesome-looking object than that dog,—with a coat utterly out of condition,—wounds in every stage of refusal to heal,—and an eye so mauled and battered that only a sanguine prognosis could have associated it with the idea of any special function in the future. The poor wretch showed no fight, but slunk away as soon as its tormentors would let it go,—a pitiful craven, utterly beaten in the struggle for life.

Next day it was seen again, slinking about in some bye-way, afraid of everyone who came near. Of course S. J.-B. had a crust in her pocket, and of course the dog got that crust, in spite of rivals and in spite of its own groundless fears. Next day it was looking out, and from that day the crust never failed. Little by little the natural vitality of the creature began to gain ground; he became something like a dog, and able to hold his own. His wounds healed, and he soon could forage a bit for himself; but he never forgot to look out for S. J.-B., and he never refused her crust. He began to walk with her to the Cap, and to lie at a respectful distance till she was ready to go home.

One day when she was confined to the house, he appeared on the steps of the hotel. The waiter of course gave him a greeting that in former times would have driven him well on the road to San Remo; but now he held his ground. “What on earth does he want?” said the man. “Oh,” said one of the others, “it’s Miss Blake’s dog.” At that moment S. J.-B. came downstairs to déjeuner. She fetched him half her roll from the dining-room, and the waiters might grumble as they pleased.

From that time the dog formally constituted himself her body-guard, and quite a creditable body-guard he was, with two good keen eyes always on the look-out, and a coat worth wearing. He had positively acquired a “presence.” He waited for her every day at the hotel gate, and he walked proudly in front of her to the Cap. No other dog dared to come near. No beggar ventured to molest. The very purveyors of inlaid jewellery had to keep their distance.

At last—just before she left the Riviera—the Nameless Dog secured a large bit of strongly smelling fish. There would have been a free fight for it in the early days, but no other dog disputed his possession of it now. He can’t have been overfed, poor fellow, even then; but he brought his coveted trophy to S. J.-B. in triumph, and laid it at her feet.

I am afraid he missed her horribly, and of course she could not explain to him and say Goodbye,—as no doubt she did to Blackbird. But she left behind a creature able to stand on his own legs, and show a brave face to the world: I am not sure that she didn’t leave behind the germ of a soul.

And, while this little story is scrupulously true, it tells in a humble parable many episodes in the life of S. J.-B. that were known to very few.

It was that winter at Bordighera that gave her strength and energy for the final uprooting. The autumn of 1898-99 was spent on a driving tour of 1100 miles through the S.E. counties of England in search of a suitable house. She set about the search in her usual business-like way,—pasting into a book all the likely houses from the agents’ lists, rejecting at a sweep all within ten miles of London, all above or below a certain price and acreage, all that fell short of the desired level above the sea, all that were in a town, or that advertised their proximity to a railway station. The tour was then planned to include as many as possible of those that remained.

There were a few unusual disqualifications. One house that attracted her belonged to the Rector of the parish, who refused to let to a Roman Catholic or a dissenter, and, although S. J.-B. was neither, she did not wish to be subjected to any test. Another house—more strangely still—was only to be let to someone who would carry on the evangelistic meetings in an out-building. “What if I were to take the house and preach Buddhism?” she said.

Finally she decided on the house which she afterwards named Windydene, near the village of Mark Cross, on the Forest Ridge of Sussex, some five or six miles south of Tunbridge Wells. “It is neither a new or an old house,” she wrote to her friend, Miss Keily,—“built probably some 50 years ago,—very comfortable and airy, and with pleasant garden and shrubberies, a good kitchen garden (much neglected of late) and about 8 acres for pasture and hay.”

Having put various negotiations and alterations in train, she returned to Edinburgh for the final winding-up.

And there was much in those last months that lingered pleasantly in her memory. In June 1898 the British Medical Association had met in Edinburgh, and S. J.-B., like most other doctors, had kept open house. Some thirty medical women were present at the meeting, and, before it broke up, Dr. Jane Walker organized a dinner under the presidency of the old Edinburgh pioneer. Mrs. Garrett Anderson and Mrs. Scharlieb were among the guests. As always, S. J.-B. spoke very happily, and a number of those present got for the first time something like a just impression of her personality.

Early in 1899 a Farewell Reception was given in her honour by the Committee of her Hospital, and some happy inspiration made the occasion not only a social success, but a gathering of unique interest. The majority of the large company were in evening dress, but the Dispensary patients were encouraged to look upon the Reception as their affair too, and they came in what dress they had. Moreover, it was no mere “meeting,” it was a real “party,” with refreshments galore in a side room, and no compulsion to listen to more speeches than one was in a mood for. The Marchioness of Bute, President of the Hospital, who was ill, was represented by one of the Vice-Presidents, Lady Helen Munro Ferguson. Lady Victoria Campbell made a point of being present, as did the Countess of Moray, and many patients, colleagues and allies of all sorts.

It was Professor Masson who moved the resolution of the evening:

Dr. Balfour felt inclined, he said, to quote the words of the old song:

He indicated apologetically that the words were not wholly appropriate, but S. J.-B. speedily set his mind at rest on that score. She felt old and hoary enough.

Dr. Peel Ritchie recalled how he had begun to help the women students simply from love of fair play, with no enthusiasm at all for the cause, but how he had been gradually worked up to a warmer feeling and interest; and Dr. (afterwards Sir John) Sibbald confessed that he had taken no part in the old conflict at all; but acknowledged gladly that his original dislike to the whole thing had gradually given way as he had watched the life of the protagonist, with increasing admiration, appreciation and....”

At that fine silence he left it.

A bouquet of roses was presented by Dr. Jessie Macgregor, one of the most brilliant of S. J.-B.’s students; and a basket of flowers by Winifred Beilby, daughter of a lady who had been a member of Committee for many years, and a patient from the first.

Yes, it was a great send-off, and S. J.-B. was simple-hearted enough to enjoy it all like a child.

There were other tokens of recognition too,—among them a presentation from a great number of women doctors, and another from the Dispensary patients.

There is no doubt that Dr. Sibbald voiced the opinion of many in his tribute to S. J.-B. For years she had lived among the Edinburgh people, driving about in her quiet brougham or unpretentious pony-chaise, and retiring to the high-walled garden. In a way they could not but get to know her. They might like or dislike her, but she went on her way, doing her work absolutely without ostentation, welcoming publicity when it seemed likely to forward her aims or the welfare of the community, shunning it absolutely as a matter of private taste.

With most of these whose opinion was worth having, opposition and dislike were simply worn down. She was impulsive, she made mistakes and would do so to the end of her life: her naturally hasty temper and imperious disposition had been chastened indeed, but the chastening fire had been far too fierce to produce perfection. She held out at times about trifles,—failed to see that they were trifles—and at times she terrified people more than she knew. Above all she cared nothing for the praise and blame of any but those whom she respected or loved. Of her indeed it might be said that she heard the beat of a different drummer. But there was another side to the picture after all. Many of those who regretted and criticised details were yet forced to bow before the big transparent honesty, the fine unflinching consistency, of her life.

It remains only to give some picture of S. J.-B.’s life in retirement. Dr. Clouston had shaken his head when he heard what she proposed to do. It was a great risk to give up a life packed with work and interest for one of leisure.

“I am not going to be idle,” she had said. “I am going to farm.”

“Then you’ll lose a lot of money.”

“I can’t lose much on ten acres.”

“Ah!” He seemed to indicate that ten acres was not enough; but as a matter of fact S. J.-B. reaped now all the advantage of that love of detail which had so often proved a snare. “Windydene” had been unoccupied and more or less neglected for some time, so there was abundant scope for an enterprising “Squire.” And the situation was as choice as even the county of Sussex can provide. From the terrace one looked right across to the South Downs, and even Fairlight was supposed to be visible on a clear day. The garden had been ideally planned on ground that fell away rather steeply to the south. It had spacious lawns cunningly planted, some of the trees being of real value and beauty.

Beyond the lawns were shady paths and all sort of unexpected openings and surprises; and beyond these again were the meadows hedged with blackberries, and carpeted in spring with cowslip and ladies’ smock. From the meadows one passed through to the woods, and so to the whole billowy stretch of the Weald, with its varied foliage, its blue lights and chasing shadows, its lakes of white mist in the still summer mornings.

S. J.-B. had seen the place first in November. She actually took possession in May, when the red chestnuts were in bloom and the woods full of bluebells.

“‘The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places’,” she said, “‘I have a goodly heritage’;” and the words were constantly on her lips till the end. Kipling’s “Sussex by the Sea” might have been written for her, so gratefully did she take possession of it.

Her first care was to institute a fruit garden, building a south wall and planting vines, figs, peaches, nectarines and apricots. In the course of a few years her strawberries in particular had acquired quite a reputation.

She started a dairy too, and supervised it herself. It was a real joy to her to have cows in the paddock and to produce her own cream and butter. The hay-making and the harvest supper were great events in the year.

But long before she had got as far as this—before the house was more than tolerably straight after the great flitting—she was inviting guests to share the joys of the spring and summer. All through the later years of her life she had the intimate daily companionship she prized so generously, but her doors stood open always as of old. “Windydene is a Mecca,” one of the younger medical women said, and there were those to whom it was a Mecca and something more. From S. J.-B.’s old fellow-students down to some unknown girl graduate, they came from all parts of the world. We have seen what Dr. Lillie Saville thought of life at Windydene, and indeed Lady Jenkinson’s “soul and body, especially soul” often finds an echo. A woman doctor who met S. J.-B. first at that British Medical Association dinner in Edinburgh writes years later:

But it was not only women doctors who came. Literary folk were guests too, and, above all, the old friends, whatever they had chanced to become. Miss Du Pre, Lady Jenkinson, Miss Catharine Eliott-Lockhart, Miss E. Cordery, Mrs. Gardiner, Mr. James Cordery, Mr. Phipson and Dr. Pechey Phipson, Mrs. (Dr.) Mears, and many others. The arrival of Dr. Agnes M‘Laren from her season’s practice on the Riviera was one of the events of the early summer; she always came by Newhaven and so to Crowborough, where S. J.-B. faithfully awaited her. A still earlier event in the year was the arrival of Miss Caroline Jex-Blake, “when the primroses were out,” and her joy in the meadows and woods was a thing that only those who knew her could conceive.

Little enough entertainment in the ordinary sense was offered to the guests at any time. Breakfast in bed was an unfailing institution for tired workers, and most of the guests were tired workers. There was fruit and cream to heart’s content and beyond it; there were long leisurely drives uphill and down dale through that beautiful country,^[158]—plenty of chess for those who were worthy of chess,—unforgettable evenings round the study fire; and at all other times—stated meals apart—an almost unlimited choice of books,—and liberty to do as one pleased.

S. J.-B. used to say that her one extravagance at Windydene was journals and books. She had always been a book buyer, and books were more essential than ever now. New shelves had to be put up every year or so. Her collection of recent novels alone induced a well-known publisher to say that she ought to have a testimonial from authors and publishers. There was a certain amount of practical benevolence in this. In Edinburgh she had often said that an important part of her treatment of patients was the lending of suitable novels, and at Windydene she often had twenty or thirty books out at a time. Her taste was catholic in the extreme, but she specially appreciated among others Peter Ibbetson, San Celestino and Out of Due Time; and—like so many distinguished people—she keenly enjoyed detective stories, especially for reading in the watches of the night.

She had lost none of her love of poetry. The “poetry book-case” had an honoured place as of old; but, as she sat in her big chair by the fire, she had a revolving stand filled with special favourites within reach of her right hand, and, on her left (in the angle of the chimney-piece) a tiny set of shelves brought from the corresponding nook in her Edinburgh consulting room, contained her Mother’s Bible and a few other chosen friends.

But the range of her purchases during those later years was very wide: almost at random one recalls Blomefield’s Norfolk, all Father Tyrrell’s works, a whole library of books on social problems,—industry, poverty, labour, etc.—and a fine copy of The Book of the Dead.

She retained her old interest in what one may call the polemics of religion, and this was intensified by a delightful and unexpected friendship of those later days.

She had not been many weeks in Mark Cross before some mutual friend suggested that she might care to know the Roman Catholic priest—a man, as it chanced, of scholarship and culture—following up the suggestion with the loan of a book which the priest had published some years before.^[159] A few days later S. J.-B. wrote the following letter:

It did not strike the looker-on as a specially likely combination, but it was the unlikely thing that happened. The Revd. Father Duggan became one of the most welcome guests at Windydene. He and his dog, Caesar, used to drop in almost every Sunday afternoon for strawberries on the lawn or tea round the study fire. I don’t pretend that Caesar took any interest in the strawberries—possible rabbits were a more absorbing subject—but he did enjoy his bowl of tea, especially when a lump of sugar remained at the bottom as a bonne bouche. He was the centre of interest when his turn came, and, when the anticipated “crunch” was heard, the general laugh of sympathy never failed. They were just happy children together,—the Dog, the Reverend Father and the old Pioneer, and now the world is the poorer for the loss of all three.

There were great talks on those Sunday afternoons; it was no uncommon thing to see three versions of the Bible and half a dozen volumes of the Encyclopaedia lying about at the end to witness to the interest of the discussion. There was much borrowing and lending of books,—and no obvious change of view on the part of anyone except in the direction of increased tolerance and brotherly kindness. A very simple anecdote will give as good an idea as any of the nature of the friendship.

Father Duggan had been the lender of Canon Cheyne’s Commentary on the Psalms, which he had just reviewed for a daily paper.

She was on excellent terms, too, with the local doctors: they looked forward to a chat when they met her in the country lanes, and, if, when she left Edinburgh, there had been any hatchet left to bury, their boyish camaraderie would soon have compelled her to bury it. “I confess I had a prejudice against women doctors,” one of them said after her death, “but she disarmed me completely.”

The life at Windydene was not unbroken. The clay soil in that wooded garden was not conducive to the health of a rheumatic person like S. J.-B., so several brief winters were spent at various places on the Riviera, and one in Portugal, mainly in the Sacred Forest at Bussaco. At Carqueiranne in Provence one of the editors of the Matin was a fellow guest, and he proved another unexpected comrade. It must have been a matter of some surprise to him to meet in that unlikely place, an elderly English gentlewoman with a grasp of the range of European politics and a facility for discussing it in excellent French.

It was at Carqueiranne that she and the intimate friend of those days met Mr. Frederic Myers and Professor William James, and here too there was a pleasant partie carrée for some days with Professor and Mrs. Gardiner who were on a cycling tour in the south of France. Professor Gardiner had several times been S. J.-B.’s guest in Edinburgh, when his researches brought him north to inspect some unique document among the archives there, and it was a pleasant change to meet when both were in purely holiday mood.

In the late Autumn of 1909—in spite of increasing physical disqualifications—she made a last driving tour to her beloved Yarrow.

It is needless to say that she never lost her interest in the happenings of the world. She had latterly a profound distrust of Germany, and was an eager reader of the articles on this subject in the National Review. The Riddle of the Sands was a novel that she helped to circulate widely. Her name appeared pretty frequently in the correspondence columns of the Times, sometimes in connection with Woman Suffrage, more often in unavailing protest against the endless “joy-riding”—degenerating into the sheer lawlessness of the “road-hog”—that was making the loveliest English lanes a nightmare of dust and danger.

It was to the Times, too, that she sent her last tribute to the most heroic of her Edinburgh friends in the old days of the “fight.”

The suffrage movement was always near her heart, though she never grew restless or impatient over the long delay. She never approved of tax-resistance, and militant methods made her uneasy, though she admitted that they had given the cause a prominence that nothing else could have done. Looking back in 1879 on her own fight she had been able to say, “We seemed led all the way; certainly our aim was straight at the end [before us], but ‘highly and holily’ too. I never minded dirt of others’ throwing, but I don’t think I ever smirched my own conscience.” It was in her favour that the Editor of the Spectator broke through his stern rule of excluding all letters advocating the extension of the franchise to women. “Our respect for so eminent a lady makes it a pleasure to publish Dr. Sophia Jex-Blake’s letter.”

It was this question of the suffrage, too, as we shall see, that brought her for the last time into touch with Octavia Hill.

S. J.-B.’s outer circle had never suspected her of being “religious,” and even by the fireside she spoke less perhaps, rather than more, on the subject as time went on; but the old quotations kept flashing up to witness to the fire beneath. She was always profoundly interested in any genuine profession of faith, any real conversion or perversion. Several of her friends joined the Church of Rome in those later years, and she was one to whom they always felt the need of justifying themselves. They felt sure of an underlying sympathy, however she might disapprove. Often, of course, she declined to take the matter too seriously. To an old student she wrote:

And again:

Her own attitude grew steadily simpler, enriching the vital elements of her Mother’s creed with the wisdom and experience of her own life. As time went on she disliked increasingly to be classed with those whose attitude towards religion is one of indifference. Even before she left Edinburgh she had written to an old school friend, in acknowledgement of a book by another schoolfellow:

To a much more intimate friend she had written about the same time:

Her appreciation of the Bible increased—and it had always been an exceptional appreciation;—but there are two quotations that stand out in one’s memory as belonging to her in a special sense. She always appropriated to herself with great fervour the prayer of Agur:—“Two things have I required of thee...: Remove far from me vanity and lies; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me; lest I be full and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord? or lest I be poor and steal, and take the name of my God in vain.”

And more than once, after quoting the words from Isaiah:—“Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones,” she added almost under her breath,

“I am not sure that that is not the finest thing in the whole Bible.”

But while she was one of those to whom the Old Testament makes perhaps a special appeal, it was not by accident that at the time of her death, and for years previously, the words were fixed above the mantelpiece, both in her study and in her bedroom,—“Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.”

Some years before leaving Edinburgh, S. J.-B. had a heart attack which caused Dr. Balfour grave uneasiness, and, although she rallied in the course of a week, similar attacks kept recurring at considerable intervals. On one occasion at Windydene she was unconscious for several hours, and finally “came out of blackness” to ask with great calmness, “Well, what do you suppose has happened?”

Within a week of this attack she started for the Riviera.

It is probable that she never fully realized the seriousness of these cardiac signs and symptoms; but, in one way or another, death knocked at her door pretty frequently during those later years.

In 1901-2, she suffered from a mysterious and anomalous “growth,” for which a leading London surgeon refused to operate on the ground that she was a bad subject. She was not sorry for the refusal, but the enemy grew with appalling rapidity, and it became increasingly clear that something would have to be done. All through the period of uncertainty she went on with her life absolutely as usual. “I did wake up one night in a horror of great darkness,” she confessed, “wondering what was going to happen; but very soon Whittier’s words came into my mind:

And then I just turned over on the other side and went to sleep again.”

“How thankful we should be,” she said on another occasion, “that we don’t know what is before us. Life is hard enough, it would be much harder if we knew.”

When a friend remarked on her courage, she said,—and this was a remark repeated many times before the end of her life,—“No, no. I have been brave sometimes in my life, but not now. There is nothing to be brave about now.”

In response one day to a warmer expression of admiration, she almost cried out in protest,—“Oh! ... God be merciful to me a sinner. That is what one feels more and more.” Then, after a pause:

Another day she said, “My life here will not be much longer, but I feel that I have not reached the end. I have learnt a great deal, and I have a great deal still to learn. Unless one has absolutely refused to learn, one must get the chance to learn more.”

Her friend quoted Thring. “My creed is life. Blessed is life the King, etc.”

“Ah,” she said, “I don’t know that it will be better than this life, but it will give us the chance to learn fresh things.”

It was on that occasion that she looked death in the face while still in full possession of her powers—“‘I laid me down with a will,’” she said—; but for the moment the sacrifice was not required of her. When the malady reached a point at which surgical interference was at worst a necessary palliative, she proposed to ask two of her own old students to come and undertake an operation. It was represented to her that it was scarcely fair to put so great a responsibility on them,^[160] so she wrote to her friend, Mr. Cathcart of Edinburgh, asking him to come and undertake the case. He came at once, of course, and the operation proved a triumphant success.^[161]

So life was given back to her just as she had laid it down, and the remaining years were in some respects the happiest and most peaceful she had known. She renewed her youth, though in truth she had never grown old, and lived more than ever in the life of her “girls.” She had always said, “Not me, but us.” Now more and more the “us” came into the centre of her scheme of life. Perhaps her last ambition was that some British University should give her its honorary degree, but her friends only realized this when she had already laid the ambition down. “I shall never have a University hood,” she said once or twice quite simply. All the more she enjoyed the glories of the young women doctors who were coming on. She listened to their accounts of what they had learned and of what they had done with an admiration that was nothing short of poignant in its simplicity. Her own share in the whole thing simply dropped out. At most she would say when some gifted visitor was gone, “Wonderful the work she is doing! Well, I did help a little bit once upon a time, didn’t I?”

It was when one of her old girls seemed face to face for the first time with that most bitter disappointment in a doctor’s experience,—the loss of a patient for whose life one has fought with repeated recrudescence of hope in the teeth of despair,—that S. J.-B. wrote one of her last letters: