THE COLLEGE OF KING JAMES
I arrived at Edinburgh with the most astonishing ache in my heart (or,
at least, in the parts adjoining), and had I met with the least
pitifulness I think I should have broken down entirely. But I found a
very necessary stimulus in the details of the examination for the
bursary. I had no doubt as to being nominated, but when the results were
posted I felt shame to be whole three places in front of Freddie
Esquillant, my master in all real scholarship, almost as much as my
father was--but who, on the day of trial, had spent his time in
answering thoroughly half-a-dozen questions without attempting the
others.
At any rate it was none such bad news to send by the carrier, who put up
at the Black Bull in the Grassmarket, down to my mother and grandmother
in Eden Valley. I wrote to them separately, but to my father first,
because he understood such things and I knew that his heart was set on
Freddie and myself, though he thought (and rightly) that I was a mere
clodhopper at my books compared to Fred. As far as the classics went, my
father was in the right of it. But then Freddie could not write English,
except in a kind of long-winded, elaborate way, as if he were
translating from Cicero, which very likely was the case.
Well, the need of keeping my head for the examiners' questions, the
mending of my pens, the big barren room with the books about and the
other fellows scribbling away for dear life, the landladies in this
close and that square, with faces hardened and tempers sharpened by
generations of needy students, out of whom they must nevertheless make
their scanty livings, the penetrating Edinburgh airs, the thinness of my
cloak and the clumsiness of my countrified rig--these all kept me
singularly aware of myself, and prevented any yielding to the folly of
homesickness, or, as in my case, "Irma-sickness," to give the trouble
its proper name.
After long search I took up my lodging in a new house at the end of
Rankeillor Street, in a place where there was the greenness of fields
every way about, except behind in the direction of the college. It was
the very last house, and from my garret window I could see the top of
Arthur's Seat and the little breakneck path feeling its way round the
foot of the Salisbury Crags, afterwards to be widened into the
"Radicals' Road." Southward all was green and whaup-haunted to the grey
hip of Pentland, and we saw the spread of the countryside when we--that
is, Freddie and I--went down the Dalkeith Road to the red-roofed hamlet
of Echobank. Here, four times a week we bought a canful of milk that had
to do us two days. For there was something about the taste of the town
milk that scunnered us--Freddie especially being more delicately
stomached than I.
Here, too, was a red-cheeked serving maid who provoked us--but more
especially poor Fred, who asked nothing better than that the wench
should let him alone. But I cared not so greatly--though, of course, she
was nothing to me. How could she be with the gage of Miss Irma hard
under my armpit, just where the Eden Valley tailor had placed my inside
pocket?
Which reminds me that Fred, fluttering the leaves of his lexicon, or
mooning over his beloved Greek verses (which the professor discouraged
because he could not make as good himself), would sigh a little ghost
of a sigh as often as he saw me take it out and lay it on the table
beside me like a watch. For long I thought it was because he feared it
would make me neglect my work, but now, looking back, I can see with
great clearness that it was because he felt that love and suchlike were
ruled out of his life. It was quite a year before I first mentioned Irma
to him by name. Yet he never asked, nor showed that he noticed at all,
save for that quick, gentle sigh.
As portrayed in the miniature, Irma's mother was a gentle fair-haired
woman, with a face like a flower sheltered under a broad-brimmed white
beaver hat, the very mate and marrow of those I have since seen in the
pictures by the great Sir Joshua. She had a dimpled chin that nested in
a fluffy blurr of lace. She was as unlike as possible to my dear brave
Irma, with her curls like shining jet, and the clean-cut, decisive
profile. But I saw at once from whom Baby Louis had gotten his fair soft
curls, his blue eyes, and the wistful appeal of his smile. They were
always before me as I sat with my elbows on the ink-splattered table,
and I did all my work conscious of the rebellious twist of raven curl
that was on the other side. I did not open this often, only when by
myself, and then with extreme care, for the glass, being old, was a
little loose, and it seemed as if the vivid life in the swirl of hair
actually moved it out of its place. For even so much of Irma as a curl
of her locks perforce retained something of her extraordinary vitality.
It often used to come to me that Irma must be like her father over
again, only with all his faults turned to good, strengthened by the
determination he lacked. She had his restlessness, his brilliancy, his
power over men and women. Only along with these she had strength to
guide herself (which he, poor man, never had), and enough over for me
also. And I have my father's word and my own consciousness that I needed
that guidance.
College life is strange and solitary at these northern
universities--especially at those in the two great cities of Edinburgh
and Glasgow. The lad comes up knowing perhaps one other of his age and
standing. If he has a family one or two elder students will be ordered
by their people to look him up. Seldom do they repeat the visit. Their
circle is formed. They want no "yellow nebs."
For the rest he is alone, protected from the devil and the young lusts
of the flesh by the memory of his mother, perhaps by the remembrance
that about that time his father is striving hard to pinch to pay his
fees, but lastly, chiefly and most practically by those empty pockets.
If he have a family in the town, he is hardly a student like the others.
He has his comrades within cry, his houses of call, girls here and there
whom he has met at dances in friendly houses, sisters and cousins of his
own or of his friends--in short, all the machinery of social life to
carry him on.
But for the great majority life is other and sterner. As Milton
lamenting his blindness, the stranger student mourns wisdom and life "at
one entrance quite shut out." The influence of women, sweeter than that
of the Pleiades, is absent, save in the shape of seamy-faced
grim-mouthed landladies, or, in a favourable case, which was ours (or
might have been), our red-cheeked, frank-tongued, oncoming wench in the
milk-house at Echobank, and the baker's daughter across the way.
The first result of this is a great outbreak of sentimentality among the
callowlings. They have pictures (oh, such caricatures!) to carry in
breast-pockets--or locks of hair, like mine. Their hearts are
inflammable as those of the flaxen-haired youths I met afterwards in the
universities of Germany, only living on oatmeal, without sausages, and
less florid with beer. Yet on the whole, the aforesaid empty purse
aiding, we were filled with not dishonest sentiment, keen as
sleuth-hounds on the track of knowledge, and disputatious as only lads
of Calvinistic training can be.
Our landladies were much alike, our rooms furnished with the same
Spartan plainness. Only in Mistress Craven I happened on a good one, and
abode with her all the days of my stay at College, till the way opened
out for me to wider horizons and a humaner life.
But I can see the room yet, and the narrow passage which led to it.
Here, close to the door, was a clock with a striking apparatus of
surprising shrillness to warn us of the flight of the half-hours.
"Ting!" another gone! Then, as the hour drew near, this academic clock
cleared its decks for real action--almost it might be said that it
cleared its throat, such a roopy gasping crow did it emit. This was
technically called "the warning."
And three times a day at the sound of it we rose, gathered our books and
fled fleetfoot for the college. The clock at Mistress Craven's was set
ten minutes fast, so as to leave us time to flee down the Pleasance,
dodge through a side alley, cut Simon's Square diagonally, debouch upon
Drummond Street (shunning Rutherford's change-house, with its "kittle"
step down into the cellar), and lo! there, big, barren, grey, grave,
cauldrife as a Scots winter, was the College of King James--with the
bell, unheard in the side-streets, fairly "gollying" at us--an appalling
volume of sound--yet one which, on the whole, we minded less than the
skirl and rasp of Mistress Craven's family clock.
I have been speaking for myself. Fred Esquillant was always in time,
easy, quiet, letting nothing interfere with his duty. But for me I was
not built so. I watched for adventure and followed it. The dog I had met
yesterday looked not in vain for a pat. A girl waved a kerchief to the
student passing with the books under his arm. She did not know me, nor I
her. But in the general interests of my class I had to wave
back--without prejudice, be it said, to the black lock behind the
miniature in my pocket.
We came back, as we had occasion, from our classes to the crowded stair
of our "land"--with its greasy handrail, and the faint whiff of humanity
clinging about the numbered doorways. Our key grated in the lock. Mrs.
Craven opened the kitchen door with a cry that our dinners would be
ready in a jiffey. We were done with the world for the day. Henceforth
four walls contained us. Many books lay tumbled about, or had to be
heaped on the floor whenever the half of the table was laid for a meal.
I sat farthest from the fire, but facing it. Above and directly before
my eyes was a full-rigged ship, sailing among furious painted billows
directly against the lofty cliffs of a lea-shore, the captain on the
bridge regarding this manoeuvre with the utmost complaisance. Beneath
was a china shepherdess without the head--opposite a parrot with a bunch
of waxen cherries in its beak.
When we took the room, the backs of the chairs had been covered with
newly-washed embroidery in raspy woollens and starched linen thread.
There had also been a tablecloth, and upon it (neatly arranged by Mrs.
Craven's daughter Amelia) a selection of the family "good books"--to
wit, the Holy Bible containing entries of the Craven family, with the
dates of birth altered or erased, Josephus with steel pictures, the
_Saint's Rest_ and some others. These had at once been removed,
according to agreement made before taking possession, and now, wrapped
in the tablecloth, reposed in a cupboard.
Only _The Cloud of Witnesses_ and Fox's _Martyrs_ were spared at my
special request. As for Freddie, he needed no other literature than his
text-books, and set himself to win medals like one who had been fitted
by machinery for that purpose.
Mrs. Craven was an Englishwoman who had brought herself to this by
marrying a carter from Gilmerton. So she retained a pleasant habit of
curtseying which her daughter, born in Edinburgh and given to snuffing
up the east wind, did not in the least strive to imitate, so far at
least as we were concerned.
But on the whole those rooms in Rankeillor Street were pleasant and even
model lodgings. Many a fine gentleman settled in the new town fared
worse, even artistically. We had on the wall in little black frames many
browned prints by a man of whom we had never heard, one Hogarth by name,
some of the details of which made Freddie blush and me laugh aloud. But
these doubtful subjects were counterbalanced by an equal number
illustrative of the Pilgrim's Progress, beginning at the sofa-back with
the Slough of Despond, going through the Wicket Gate, past fierce Giant
Pope and up craggy Hills of Difficulty to a flaming Celestial City
apparently being destroyed by fire with extreme rapidity.
In a glass-fronted corner cupboard were memorials of the late Mr.
Craven. To wit, a large punch-bowl, remarkable for having melted down a
flourishing business in the "carrying" way, four pair of horses with
wagons to match, a yard and suitable stabling, and, finally, Mr.
Craven, late of Gilmerton, himself.
On the top shelf was all that remained of the tea-service he had
presented to his "intended" when he was still at the head of the
Gilmerton "yard"--she being at the time lady's-maid at Dalkeith Palace
and high in favour with "her Grace." Much art was needed in dusting
these and arranging them to make cups and saucers stand so that their
chipped sides would not show.
I was strictly forbidden ever to dance, flap my long arms, or otherwise
disport myself near this sacred enclosure, as I sometimes did when the
blood ran high or the temperature low. As for Freddie, he could do no
wrong. At least, he never did. I was in despair about him, and foresaw
trouble.
As to situation, we had the Meadows behind us, and (except the Sciennes
and Merchiston), all was free and open as far as Bruntsfield and the
Borough Muir. But towards Holyrood and the College, what a warren! You
entered by deep archways into secluded yards. Here was a darksome
passage where murder might be (and no doubt had been) done. Here was an
echoing gateway to a coaching inn, with a watchman ready to hit evil
boys over the head with his clapper if they tried to ring his bell, the
bell that announced the arrival of the Dumfries coach "Gladiator" after
thirty hours' detention at the Beeftub in Moffatdale, or the shorter
breathed "four" from Selkirk and Peebles that had changed horses last at
Cockmuir Inn at the back of Kingside.
All this I describe so minutely, once for all, because there is more to
come of it, and these precincts on the southern border of Edinburgh,
where Cromwell had once encamped, were mightily familiar to me before
all was done.