THE SHIP SETS SAIL.
A sudden change in the weather had whitened the fields of the Castle
Farm, and covered the puddles in the narrow lane with thin clear sheets
of ice. Little or nothing was said at the breakfast-table; but as Alec
Lindsay went into the empty kitchen to fasten a card on his little
cow-hide trunk, his sister followed him, and stood over him in silence
till one of the men came in, lifted the box, and carried it away.
‘You will write home every week, won’t you, Alec?’ she said.
‘Every week, Maggie! what in the world shall I get to say?’
‘Tell us what your life is like, whether your lodgings are
comfortable, what sort of people you take up with.’
‘Well; all right.’
‘And, Alec, you had better write to father and me time about; and when
you write to me you can send a little scrap for myself as well.’
‘That you needn’t show to anybody? I thought that was against your
principles, Meg. Don’t mind me, I was only making fun of you,’ he
added, suddenly throwing his arms round his sister’s neck; ‘of course I
will send you a little private note now and then. Don’t cry, Maggie.’
‘I’m not crying.’
‘Yes, you are.’
‘It will be very lonely without you, Alec, all the long winter.’
‘I almost wish I weren’t going, for your sake; but I know you have
helped me to get away, Maggie, and it was awfully kind of you.’
Here Mr. Lindsay’s voice was heard calling out that the travellers
would miss the coach if they did not set off at once.
‘Nonsense! We shall only have to wait at the roadside for twenty
minutes,’ said Alec under his breath. But he gave his sister a last
hug, shook hands with his father, and mounted the back-seat of the
dog-cart, where his trunk and Blake’s portmanteau were already
deposited.
In another minute they were off; and Alec, looking back, saw the light
of the lantern shine on the tall figures of his gray-haired father and
his sister, framed in the old stone doorway as in a picture.
The stable was passed, the long byre where the cows were already
stirring, the stack-yard, the great hay-rick, the black peat-stack
flanking the outmost gable; and as each familiar building and
well-remembered corner faded in turn from view, Alec in his heart
bade them good-bye. He felt as if he would never see the old place
again--never, at least, would it be to him what it had been. When he
came again it would be merely for a visit, like any other stranger.
The subtle, invisible chains that bind us to this or that corner of
mother earth, once broken, can hardly be reforged; and Alec felt that
no future leave-taking of the Farm would be like this one; henceforth
it would belong not to the present, but to the past.
As the travellers had foreseen when they set out, they had a good
twenty minutes to wait at the corner of the lane till the coach came
up; then came the long, monotonous drive, the horses’ hoofs keeping
time to ‘Auld Lang Syne’ in Alec’s head all the way; then the railway
journey. Blake had, as a matter of course, taken a first-class ticket.
Alec had, equally as a matter of course, taken a third-class one. When
this was discovered, Blake took his seat beside his friend, laughing at
the uneasiness depicted on Alec’s face, and declined without a second
thought the lad’s proposal that he too should travel first-class and
pay the difference of fare. But the incident caused Alec acute mental
discomfort, which lasted till they reached Glasgow.
When the train steamed into the terminus, it seemed as if it were
entering a huge gloomy cavern, where the air was composed of smoke,
mist, and particles of soot. The frost still held the fields in
Kyleshire; but here the rain was dripping from every house-top, and the
streets were covered with a thick layer of slimy mud.
Blake shuddered.
‘I’ve got nothing particular to do, Alec,’ said he; ‘let me help you to
look for lodgings.’
But Alec had no mind to let his friend see the sort of accommodation
with which he would have to content himself; and the artist saw that
the lad wanted to decline his offer, without very well knowing how.
‘Or perhaps you’d rather hunt about by yourself?’ continued Blake.
‘Well, in that case, I think I’ll be off to Edinburgh at once, and go
to London that way. Anything to be out of this.’
He stopped suddenly, and hoped that his companion had not heard his
last words. They took a cab to Queen Street; and after seeing his
friend off to Edinburgh, Alec set out on his quest of a shelter. A few
steps brought him to the district north of George Street, where, in
those days, the poorer class of students had their habitations. The
streets were not particularly broad, and the houses were of tremendous
height, looking like great barracks placed one at the end of another,
though their hewn-stone fronts saved them from the mean appearance of
brick or stucco exteriors. After a good deal of running up and down
steep staircases (for these houses are built in flats), Alec at last
pitched upon a narrow but lofty sitting-room, with a still narrower
bedroom opening from it. For this accommodation the charge was only
eight shillings a week.
After a peculiarly uncomfortable meal, Alec Lindsay set out for ‘The
College.’
The University of Glasgow, founded by a Bull of one of the mediæval
Popes, had in those days its seat in the High Street, once the main
thoroughfare of the city, but long since fallen from its old estate.
The air seemed thicker, more full of smoke and soot, of acid vapours
and abominable smells, in this quarter, than in any other part of the
town.
An ancient pile of buildings faced the street; and a quaint gateway
gave access to the outer quadrangle or ‘first court,’ as Alec soon
learned to call it. Here a solid stone staircase, guarded by a stone
lion on one side and a unicorn on the other, led to the senate-room
above; and an archway led to a quadrangle beyond.
But Alec had scarcely time to observe as much as this. Hardly had he
set foot within the gateway, when a gigantic man wearing a huge black
beard stalked up to him, and without more ado caught him by the arm,
while a small crowd of half a dozen lads of his own age, wearing gowns
of red flannel, swarmed round him on the other side.
‘I say!’ exclaimed the big man; ‘you’re going to matriculate, aren’t
you?’
‘Of course; that’s what I came here for.’
‘And where were you born?’
‘Where was I born?’ asked Alec, in bewilderment.
‘Yes; be quick, man. Do you come from Highlands or Lowlands, or from
beyond the Border?’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘He comes from the county of Clackmannan; I know by the cut of his
hair!’ yelled a red-haired, freckled youth of some seventeen summers.
‘Get out, you unmannerly young cub!’ cried the big man, making a dash
at the offender, without releasing his hold of Alec’s arm.
‘Are you Transforthana?’ cried another. ‘Oh, say if you’re
Transforthana, like a good fellow, and don’t keep us in suspense.’
‘He’s Rothseiana! I know it!’ bawled out a fourth.
At this point a little man in spectacles darted from a low doorway on
the left with a sheaf of papers printed in red ink, which he began to
distribute as fast as he could. Instantly the men who had fastened upon
Alec left him, and rushed off to secure one of the papers, and Alec
followed their example.
After some little trouble he got one, and then elbowing his way out
of the crowd, began to read it. He found it was a not very comical
parody of ‘Come into the garden, Maud,’ the allusions being half of a
political, half of an academical character.
Looking up with a puzzled air, Alec encountered the gaze of a man
ten or twelve years his senior, who was regarding him with a look of
mingled interest and amusement. He was considerably over six feet
high, and broad in proportion. He wore a suit of tweeds, a blue Scotch
bonnet, and a reddish-brown beard. He had the high cheek-bones and
large limbs of the true Highlander, and one of his eyes had a slight
cast. When he smiled, he had a cynical but not unkindly expression.
‘I wish you would tell me what all this nonsense is about,’ said Alec.
‘What nonsense would ye like to pe informed apoot?’ inquired the other
in a strong Highland accent--‘the nonsense in that bit paper? Or the
nonsense o’ these daft callants? Or the nonsense o’ this haill thing?’
and he waved his thick stick round the quadrangle.
‘What is all this stir about? Why were a’ these fellows so anxious to
know where I was born?’
‘One quastion at a time, my lad,’ answered the big Highlander. ‘They
are electin’ a Lord Rector; the ploy will gang on for a week or
ten days yet. And they vote in “nations,” according to the part o’
the country they belong to. I was born in the Duke’s country, and
consequently my vote is worth conseederably more than that o’ yon wee
spectacled callant who was kittled in the Gorbals, for example.’
‘I was born in Kyleshire,’ said Alec.
‘Then you’re Rothseiana,’ said the stranger, ‘and your vote’s worth
more than mine. I’d advise ye to choose at once, and put down your name
at one club or the other, or they’ll tease your life out.’
‘But who are the candidates?’
‘Mr. Sharpe, and Lord Dummieden, of course.’
Alec knew Mr. Sharpe’s name as that of an ex-Cabinet Minister on the
Liberal side, who had the reputation of being a scholar, but who had
never written anything beyond two or three pungent articles in _The
Debater_.
‘And who is Lord Dummieden?’
‘What!’ answered the Highlander; ‘is it possible that you have never
heard of the “History of the British Isles before the Roman Invasion,”
in sixteen volumes, by the Right Honourable James Beattie, Viscount
Dummieden, of Crumlachie?’
Alec gave an incredulous look, and the other laughed outright.
‘Don’t be offended,’ said the Highlander.
‘Have you matriculated yet? No? Come awa’ then, and I’ll show you the
way.’ He passed his arm through Alec’s as he spoke, and led him to a
tiny office in a corner of the quadrangle which was half filled with
students.
‘What is your name?’ asked Alec’s new friend, as they stood waiting
their turn to enter their names in the volume kept for the purpose.
Alec told him. ‘Mine’s Cameron--Duncan Cameron. I’m a medical. This is
my third year. Have you got lodgings?’
‘Yes; at No. 210, Hanover Street.
‘Does your landlady look a decent body? I’ll come round and see if she
has a room to spare for me,’ he added, without waiting for an answer.
Presently Alec obtained, in exchange for one of his father’s one-pound
notes, a ticket bearing his name, and the words ‘_Civis Universitatis
Glasguenis_’ printed in large letters underneath.
‘That’s all right,’ said Cameron; ‘now come along, and I’ll show
you the Professors’ Court. You have to call on the Latin and Greek
professors, and get your class-tickets. The fee is three guineas each.’
He led Alec through an archway into a second and larger quadrangle,
then across it and through another archway into a third. ‘That’s the
museum,’ said Cameron, pointing to a building with handsome stone
columns; ‘and that’s the library,’ he added, pointing to a narrow
structure, built apparently of black stone, on the right.
The two young men turned to the left, passed through an iron gateway,
and found themselves in a gloomy and silent court, formed by the houses
of the various professors, which, like the library, were black with
smoke and soot-flakes.
After the professors of ‘Humanity’ (as Latin is called in the north)
and of Greek had been duly interviewed, Alec and his friend returned
to the High Street without going back to the quadrangles; and in a few
minutes they pulled Mrs. Macpherson’s brightly-polished bell-handle.
‘I’ve brought a friend, a fellow-student, who wants to know if you have
any more rooms to let,’ said Alec.
‘Is he a medical?’ asked the good woman, knitting her brows.
‘I am proud to say that I am,’ said Cameron.
‘Then this is no the place for you ava.’
‘An’ what for no?’
‘I’ve had eneuch, an’ mair than eneuch, o’ thae misguidet callants,
wi’ their banes, an’ their gases, an’ their gruesome talk, an’ their
singin’ sangs, an’ playing cairds, an’ drinkin’, till twa, or maybe
haulf-past on a Sabbath mornin’. Na, na; I’ll hae nae mair o’ the
tribe, at no price.’
But this opposition made Cameron determined that under that roof and
no other would he take up his abode for the winter. He bound himself
by a solemn promise to introduce neither bones, human or animal,
nor chemicals of any kind, upon the premises, and to behave himself
discreetly in other respects. He then remembered that his aunt’s
husband’s cousin was a Macpherson; and when it came out that the
landlady’s ‘forbears’ came from Auchintosh, which was within a day’s
sail of the island where the Camerons had their home, all objections
were withdrawn.
A large dingy sitting-room, with a ‘concealed bed’ constructed in
a recess, so that the room could also be used as a bedroom, was
pronounced by Cameron to be too grand; and on Mrs. Macpherson saying
that all her other rooms were let except an attic, he asked if he might
see that apartment. They climbed up a steep and narrow staircase, and
presently stood in a long narrow room, right under the slates, so low
in the ceiling that Cameron could only walk along one side of it. It
was furnished with a narrow bedstead, a small deal table, and two or
three stout chairs.
‘First-rate!’ exclaimed Cameron. ‘The very thing;’ and going to the
skylight, he pushed it open and thrust out his head and shoulders.
‘Plenty of air here--not fresh, but better than nothing. What is the
rent?’
The rent was five shillings and sixpence a week, and after a vain
effort to get rid of the sixpence, and an elaborate agreement on the
subject of coals, the bargain was concluded.
‘That’s settled,’ said Cameron; ‘and now I’m off to the Broomielaw to
get my impedimenta oot o’ the _Dunolly Castle_. Will ye come?’
Having nothing better to do, Alec readily acquiesced; and the two young
men walked down Buchanan Street with its broad wet pavements, and
through the more crowded Argyle Street and Jamaica Street, till they
reached the wharf.
Here all was damp and dismal. Coal-dust covered the ground; water,
thick with coaldust and mud, dripped from the eaves of the huge open
sheds; a smell of tar filled all the air. To Alec, however, nothing was
dismal, nothing was depressing. All was new, strange, and interesting.
A few vessels of light burden lay moored at the opposite side of the
narrow river; a river steamer, her day’s work ended, was blowing off
steam at the Broomielaw.
‘You will hardly believe it, Cameron,’ said Alec, gazing with all his
eyes at these commonplace sights, ‘but I never saw a ship or a steamer
before.’
‘Hoots, man,’ replied his companion; ‘I’ve been on the salt water ever
since I can remember; but then, till I came here three years sin’, I
had never seen a railway train--I used to spend hours at one of the
stations watching them--and, what is more, I had never seen a tree.’
‘Never seen a tree!’
‘No; they won’t grow in some of the islands, you know, at least not
above five or six feet high. But there’s the _Dunolly Castle_.’
There lay the good vessel which had so lately ploughed the waters of
the Outer Hebrides, a captive now, bound fast by stem and stern.
Cameron jumped on board, and soon reappeared dragging a full sack
behind him, while a seaman followed with a heavy wooden box on his
shoulder, and a big earthenware jar in his left hand. Several porters
with big two-wheeled barrows now proffered their services. Cameron
selected one, and having loaded the barrow with a sack of oatmeal,
a small barrel of salt herrings, two great jars which Alec rightly
conjectured to contain whisky, and the wooden box, he proceeded to
pilot the porter to Hanover Street.
‘Tak’ care o’ the jaurs!’ he cried out in some alarm, as the porter
knocked his barrow against a corner. ‘They’re just the maist precious
bit o’ the haill cargo; and if ye preak ane o’ them, she’ll preak your
heid, as I’m a leefin’ man!’
‘Why do you bring your provisions instead of buying them here? Is it
any cheaper?’ asked Alec.
‘Cheaper! Fat the teil do I care for the cheapness? I prefer my own
whisky, and my own oatmeal, I tell you; it is better than any you can
buy here,’ answered the proud and irate Highlandman.
But when Alec and he were better acquainted, he acknowledged that the
oatmeal and whisky were presented to him by relatives, as aids to the
difficult task of living for six months on twenty pounds.
Next morning Alec woke to a blinding, acrid, yellow fog, which the
gaslight faintly illumined. It was still dark when he emerged into the
street and took his way to the College, with a copy of one of Cicero’s
orations and a note-book under his arm. As he reached his destination
the clock struck eight, and immediately a bell began to tinkle in
quick, sharp, imperative tones.
The junior Latin class, he found, met in the centre of a long narrow
hall, lit by a few gas-jets flaring here and there. On both sides of
the hall were tall windows, outside of which was the yellow cloud
of fog. There was no stove or heating apparatus whatever. A raised
bench ran along one side of the long room, and there were black empty
galleries at either end. In the centre stood a pulpit, raised about two
feet above the floor, and in this the Professor was already standing.
About two hundred men and boys were seated in the benches nearest the
pulpit, some wearing the regulation red gown, and some without it,
while beyond them the black empty benches stretched away to the farther
end of the hall, which lay in complete darkness.
All was stillness, but for the tinkling of the bell. Suddenly it
stopped, and that instant a janitor banged the door, shutting out late
comers inexorably.
Everybody stood up, while the Professor repeated a collect and the
Lord’s Prayer in English. Then he began to call the roll in Latin, and
as each student answered ‘Adsum!’ he was assigned a place on one of the
benches, which was to be his for the rest of the session. Alec’s place
was between a stout little fellow of sixteen, son of a wealthy Glasgow
merchant, and a pale overworked teacher, who had set his heart on being
able to write ‘M.A.’ after his name.
The work of the class then began. The Professor gave a short
explanation of the circumstances under which the oration which he had
selected was made. He read and translated a few lines, explaining the
various allusions, the nature of a Roman trial, and the meaning of the
word ‘judices.’ He then, by way of illustrating the method of teaching,
called on one of the students to construe a few lines, and proceeded to
ask all sorts of questions, historical and philological, passing the
questions from man to man and from bench to bench. He then prescribed a
piece of English to be turned into Latin prose. Before he had ceased
speaking the clock struck; the bell began to ring; the Professor
finished his sentence and shut his book. The lecture was at an end.
The next hour Alec spent chiefly in wandering round the College Green,
a kind of neglected park thinly populated with soot-encrusted trees,
which lay at the rear of the College buildings. At ten o’clock the
junior Greek class met; and Alec entered a small room crammed with
students, who were sitting on narrow, crescent-shaped benches raised
one behind the other, and fronting a semicircular platform at the lower
end of the room. The book-boards, Alec noticed, were extremely narrow,
and neatly bound with iron. The procedure here was much the same as it
had been in the Latin class, except that there were no prayers, the
devotions being confined to the classes which happened to meet earliest
in the day.
At eleven there was another hour of Latin, Virgil being the text-book
this time; and then lectures were over for the day, so far as Alec was
concerned.
All day long the committee-rooms of the rival Conservative and Liberal
Associations were filled with men, consulting, smoking, enrolling
pledges, and inditing ‘squibs’ and manifestoes; and as a Liberal
meeting in support of Mr. Sharpe was to be held that evening in the
Greek class-room, Alec determined to be present, hoping to hear some
arguments which might help him to decide how he ought to vote on this
momentous occasion.
In this expectation, however, he was disappointed. Before he came in
sight of the lighted-up windows of the class-room he heard a roar of
singing--the factions were uniting their powers to render a stanza
of ‘The Good Rhine Wine’ with proper emphasis. The place was packed
as full as it would hold, the Professor’s platform being held by the
committee-men of the Liberal Association. As soon as the song was
ended, a small man in spectacles was voted into the chair. He opened
the proceedings by calling upon a Mr. Macfarlane to move the first
resolution, and (like a wise man) immediately sat down.
Mr. Macfarlane, a young man of great size with a throat of brass, was
not popular. Cries of ‘Sit down, sir!’ ‘Go home, sir!’ ‘Speak up,
sir!’ were mingled with volleys of peas, Kentish fire, cheers for Lord
Dummieden, and the usual noises of a noisy meeting.
The little man in spectacles got up, and, speaking in a purposely low
voice, obtained a hearing. He reminded his Conservative friends that
the Liberals had not spoiled the Conservative meeting on the previous
evening, and said it was only fair that they should have their turn.
This was greeted with loud shouts of ‘Hear! hear!’ and Mr. Macfarlane
began a second time. But soon he managed to set his audience in an
uproar once more. His face was fairly battered with peas. Men got
up and stood on the benches, then on the book-boards. One fellow
had brought a policeman’s rattle, with which he created a din so
intolerable that three or four others tried to deprive him of it. One
or two stout Conservatives came to the rescue, and finally the whole
group slid off their narrow foot-hold on the book-boards, and fell in a
confused heap on the floor, amid loud cheers from both parties.
After this episode order was restored, and a fresh orator held the
attention of the audience for a few minutes. Unfortunately he stopped
for a moment, and the pause was immediately filled by a student at the
farther end of the room blowing a shrill, pitiful blast on a child’s
penny trumpet. The effect was comical enough; and everybody laughed. At
that moment a loud knock was heard at the door, which had been locked,
the room being already as full as it could possibly hold. The knock was
repeated.
‘I believe the perambulator has come for the gentleman with the penny
trumpet,’ said the chairman in gentle accents.
This sally was greeted with a loud roar of laughter; and when it died
away, comparative silence reigned for five minutes.
Then came more cheers, songs, and volleys of peas; and when everybody
was hoarse the meeting came to an end, the leading spirits on both
sides adjourning to their committee-rooms, and afterwards to the hotels
which they usually patronized.
These meetings were continued for about ten days, and then the vote was
taken. The four ‘nations’ had each one vote. Two voted for Mr. Sharpe,
and two for Lord Dummieden. And then the Chancellor, in accordance
with old established practice, gave his casting vote in favour of the
Conservative candidate.
It was over. The manifestoes and satirical ballads were swept away; and
the twelve hundred men and boys settled down to six months’ labour.