Fine weather gone. Dull morning. Extraordinary darkness at 8 with some thunder + torrential rain which completely spoilt the roads so I had to take to the trap again. In forenoon drove to Hospital + on to Abbotsford Road. Mr B.1 much better. After lunch drove to Yarrow Manse to see Mrs Borland2 who had what must have been an Epileptiform fit3 last Sunday week. Then on to Yarrowfeus + back by Broadmeadows + Old Broadmeadows.4 Jean5 is better although she had another restless night. She took some chicken soup twice. Message to Haining to see Siegfried6 but it was 8.30 before I had finished dinner + could [continues on opposite page] go up. I was at work from 9 a.m. till 9.30 p.m. There was very little more rain after the thunder plump7 in the morning + it was mild. Hounds were at Bowhill.
1 Dr Muir had attended Adam Brydon (about 1837-1919), farmer, of 21 Abbotsford Road, Netherbarns, Galashiels, Selkirkshire, the day before. Adam’s wife Isabella Brydon née Howie (about 1841-1904), had died 9 February 1904, aged 63, of “pneumonia 8 days”. certified by “John S Muir M.B. +c, Selkirk”.
2 Assume Ann or Annie Borland née Haddon (about 1851-1922), wife of the Reverend Dr Robert Borland (1844-1912) of Yarrow Manse. They had married in 1882 at Cavers, Roxburghshire. Borland himself was the author of ‘Yarrow Its Poets and Poetry’ and ‘James Hogg The Ettrick Shepherd’, a memorial volume.
3 Epileptiform refers to spike waves, sharp waves, spike and wave activity, or other rhythmic waveforms.
4 Perhaps to see John Rutherford (about 1826-1904), garden labourer, whom he had visited on 3 April 1904. John Rutherford was recorded at Old Broadmeadows in the 1901 Census with Betsy Rutherford, his stepdaughter and housekeeper. His wife Isabella Hogarth had died some time previously.
5 Jane Henderson Logan ‘Jean’ Muir, later Pike (1877-1941), Dr Muir’s eldest daughter, suffering from pneumonia at this time.
6 Harry Siegfried Seth Pringle Pattison (1894-1977), sometime Captain, The Cameron Highlanders, son of Andrew Seth Pringle Pattison, formerly Seth, Scottish philosopher, and his wife Eva. The family lived at The Haining, Selkirk.
7 A heavy downpour of rain, a deluge, “the heavy shower that often succeeds a clap of thunder” [Source: Dictionar o the Scots Leid].
[Source: Scottish Borders Archives & Local History Service SBA/657/7, Dr J S Muir of Selkirk, medical practitioner, journal for 1904]
Rumbling Clint's Scottish Notes 