Untitled - Electric Scotland

20 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [CH. i.
childhood his inseparable companion, had always longed
to be a sailor. But his lameness had been such as to
render the fulfilment of the wish impossible. Now-
thanks to the Whitworth doctors -the lameness was gone,
and the boy, to his unspeakable delight, was passed
as fit
for service. He was to go to Portsmouth for the usual
training, and his departure was only delayed for a few
weeks because the attention of the household was taken
up by little Archie, who was sharply attacked with scarlet
fever. He rapidly recovered, however, and a farewell
party was given by Campbell
to his school-fellows before
starting for Portsmouth. That evening, when the party
broke up, Campbell complained of feeling ill. Scarlet
fever in its most malignant form was upon him, and after
two days illness he died. The shock to Archie, still weak
after his fever, was terrible, and he used himself to say in
later years that it had affected his whole life. The two
boys, whose strange experiences together at Whitworth
had forged a link between them of no ordinary strength,
had become wholly dependent on one another. The loss
of his bright-eyed active brother was therefore the more
irreparable to Archie, who, unable for the rough games of
his school-fellows, was now more than ever thrown in
upon himself and his books for amusement and occupation.
In October 1824 Mr. Tait removed his son from the
High School to the newly founded Edinburgh Academy/
where he took his place in the highest class. With this
important school he maintained through life so close a
connection that a few sentences seem desirable to explain
its origin and character.
Lord Cockburn, in the sparkling Memorials of his
Time? writes of it as follows :
Leonard Horner and I had often discussed the causes and
1 Vol. i. p. 414.