My stay at St. Andrews ended at last in a somewhat melancholy fashion. As the place seemed to agree with me, it was settled that I should remain for a year at least; and in order that the time might not be wasted I was sent to school, the school being the well-known Madras College. Here both boys and girls were taught together. Of the present state of that famous institution I know nothing, nor do I wish to utter a word of disparagement of those who were responsible for its management fifty years ago; but to me, a timid boy who, in spite of his Northumbrian burr, was turned to ridicule as a Cockney by the Fifeshire lads and lasses, it wore the aspect of a veritable place of torment. That classic instrument of discipline, the tawse, was in use at every hour of the day, girls as well as boys receiving barbarous punishment under the eyes of their class-mates. Perhaps the cruelty was not so great as it seemed to me, but at all events it was enough, so far as I was concerned. My dread of the terrible lash grew into a brooding horror, which poisoned my days and destroyed my nights; and before I had been a month at the school I was seized with an attack upon the brain which nearly proved fatal. Let me mention here, by way of testifying to the orthodoxy of the religious training given to my young soul, that on the first night on which I became delirious I was pursued by a phantom, plainly visible to my overwrought imagination, which wore the exact guise of the Evil One. Horns, hoofs, tail, and trident, were all clearly seen, and I sprang wildly from side to side of my bed trying to evade the fiend's attempt to capture me, until at last I took refuge, trembling and almost fainting, in my grandfather's arms. My youth and my good constitution carried me safely through an illness of no ordinary severity, and one day, as I lay in bed in the first stage of convalescence, I had the joy of hearing my mother's voice, and of knowing that she was with me once more. A few days later I returned with her to Newcastle, and thus ended the attempt to make a Scotsman of me.