Notwithstanding Alec's diligence and the genial companionship of Mr
Cupples--whether the death of Kate, or his own illness, or the reaction
of shame after his sojourn in the tents of wickedness, had opened dark
visions of the world of reality lying in awful _unknownness_ around the
life he seemed to know, I cannot tell,--cold isolations would suddenly
seize upon him, wherein he would ask himself--that oracular cave in
which one hears a thousand questions before one reply--"What is the use
of it all--this study and labour?" And he interpreted the silence to
mean: "Life is worthless. There is no glow in it--only a glimmer and
shine at best."--Will my readers set this condition down as one of
disease? If they do, I ask, "Why should a man be satisfied with
anything such as was now within the grasp of Alec Forbes?" And if they
reply that a higher ambition would have set him at peace if not at
rest, I only say that they would be nearer health if they had his
disease. Pain is not malady; it is the revelation of malady--the
meeting and recoil between the unknown death and the unknown life; that
jar of the system whereby the fact becomes known to the man that he is
ill. There was disease in Alec, but the disease did not lie in his
dissatisfaction. It lay in that poverty of life with which those are
satisfied who call such discontent disease. Such disease is the first
flicker of the aurora of a rising health.
This state of feeling, however, was only occasional; and a reviving
interest in anything belonging to his studies, or a merry talk with Mr
Cupples, would dispel it for a time, just as a breath of fine air will
give the sense of perfect health to one dying of consumption.
But what made these questionings develope into the thorns of a more
definite self-condemnation--the advanced guard sometimes of the roses
of peace--was simply this:
He had written to his mother for money to lay out upon superior
instruments, and new chemical apparatus; and his mother had replied
sadly that she was unable to send it. She hinted that his education had
cost more than she had expected. She told him that she was in debt to
Robert Bruce, and had of late been compelled to delay the payment of
its interest. She informed him also that, even under James Dow's
conscientious management, there seemed little ground for hoping that
the farm would ever make a return correspondent to the large outlay his
father had made upon it.
This letter stung Alec to the heart. That his mother should be in the
power of such a man as Bruce, was bad enough; but that she should have
been exposed for his sake to the indignity of requesting his
forbearance, seemed unendurable. To despise the man was no
satisfaction, the right and the wrong being where they were.--And what
proportion of the expenses of last session had gone to his
college-accounts?
He wrote a humble letter to his mother--and worked still harder. For
although he could not make a shilling at present, the future had hope
in it.
Meantime Mr Cupples, in order that he might bear such outward signs of
inward grace as would appeal to the perceptions of the Senatus, got a
new hat, and changed his shabby tail-coat for a black frock. His shirt
ceased to be a hypothesis to account for his collar, and became a real
hypostasis, evident and clean. These signs of improvement led to
inquiries on the part of the Senatus, and the result was that, before
three months of the session were over, he was formally installed as
librarian. His first impulse on receiving the good news was to rush
down to Luckie Cumstie's and have a double-tumbler. But conscience was
too strong for Satan, and sent him home to his pipe--which, it must be
confessed, he smoked twice as much as before his reformation.
From the moment of his appointment, he seemed to regard the library as
his own private property, or, rather, as his own family. He was
grandfather to the books: at least a grandfather shows that combination
of parent and servant which comes nearest to the relation he henceforth
manifested towards them. Most of them he gave out graciously; some of
them grudgingly; a few of them with much reluctance; but all of them
with injunctions to care, and special warnings against forcing the
backs, crumpling or folding the leaves, and making thumb-marks.
"Noo," he would say to some country bejan, "tak' the buik i' yer han's
no as gin 'twar a neip (turnip), but as gin 'twar the sowl o' a
new-born bairn. Min' ye it has to sair (serve) mony a generation efter
your banes lie bare i' the moul', an' ye maun hae respec' to them that
come efter ye, and no ill-guide their fare. I beg ye winna guddle't
(mangle it)."
The bejans used to laugh at him in consequence. But long before they
were magistrands, the best of them had a profound respect for the
librarian. Not a few of them repaired to him with all their
difficulties; and such a general favourite was he, that any story of
his humour or oddity was sure to be received with a roar of loving
laughter. Indeed I doubt whether, within the course of a curriculum, Mr
Cupples had not become the real centre of intellectual and moral life
in that college.
One evening, as he and Alec were sitting together speculating on the
speediest mode of turning Alec's acquirements to money-account, their
landlady entered.
"Here's my cousin," she said, "Captain McTavish o' the _Sea-horse_, Mr
Forbes, wha says that afore lang he'll be wantin' a young doctor to
gang and haud the scurvy aff o' his men at the whaul-fishin'. Sae of
coorse I thoucht o' my ain first, and ran up the stair to you. It'll be
fifty poun' i' yer pooch, and a plenty o' rouch ploys that the like o'
you young fallows likes, though I canna say I wad like sic things
mysel'. Only I'm an auld wife, ye see, and that maks the differ."
"Nae that auld, Mistress Leslie," said Cupples, "gin ye wadna lee."
"Tell Captain McTavish that I'll gang," said Alec, who had hesitated no
longer than the time Mr Cupples took to say the word of kind flattery
to their landlady.
"He'll want testimonials, ye ken."
"Wadna _ye_ gie me ane, Mrs Leslie?"
"'Deed wad I, gin 'twar o' ony accoont. Ye see, Mr Alec, the day's no
yesterday; and this session's no the last."
"Haud yer tongue, and dinna rub a sair place," cried Mr Cupples.
"I beg yer pardon," returned Mrs Leslie, submissively.
Alec followed her down the stair.
He soon returned, his eyes flashing with delight. Adventure! And fifty
pounds to take to his mother!
"All right, Mr Cupples. The Captain has promised to take me if my
testimonials are satisfactory. I think they will give me good ones now.
If it weren't for you, I should have been lying in the gutter instead
of walking the quarter-deck."
"Weel, weel, bantam. There's twa sides to maist obligations.--I'm
leebrarian."
The reader may remember that in his boyhood Alec was fond of the sea,
had rigged a flagstaff, and had built the _Bonnie Annie_. He was nearly
beside himself with delight, which continued unjarred until he heard
from his mother. She had too much good sense to make any opposition,
but she could not prevent her anticipations of loss and loneliness from
appearing. His mother's trouble quelled the exuberance of Alec's
spirits without altering his resolve. He would return to her in the
fall of the year, bringing with him what would ease her mind of half
its load.
There was no check at the examinations this session.