till twelve o’clock, chimed out by the pretty clock on the mantelpiece, a gift from the minister’s parishioners, warned them it was time to court repose.

. . . . . .

How quickly that week sped away, only those situated as were Sandie and Willie could imagine.

But every time has an end, and the more we are enjoying ourselves, the faster does old Father Time fly. This is very nasty of old Father Time, only he will have his own way, despite anything we can say or do.

The last night had come and gone, and Willie had retired to his room, and was seated by the window, through which the bright moonlight was streaming, when Elsie, looking in her long night-dress like a sheeted ghost, came gliding in. Her dark hair all undone was streaming down her back. Sandie hastened to place a seat for her, and to wrap her from top to toe in a Highland plaid.

All in all were they to each other that brother and sister, and innumerable were the things they had to tell each other on this last night, and many the confidences to interchange, for four long months must elapse ere they could see each other again.

More than once Sandie could see tears glistening in the moonbeams on his sister’s cheeks.

But one o’clock came at last, and he had to send her away.

“Anyhow, Sandie,” she said, as she rose to go, “you will promise not to study too, too hard. Mind you are all I have, Sandie, and if anything happened to you, the grave would soon close over your poor sister Elsie.”

“I promise,” said Sandie, “to take care of myself for mother’s sake and yours. Good-night, dear Elsie.”

“Good-night, dear Sandie.”

And away glided the girl again as silently as she had come.

. . . . . .

Sandie and Willie got back to the city on Hogmanay night. That is the last night of the old year. This is kept in Scotland with great glee, and I fear with not a little drunkenness. No one thinks of going to bed till the New Year comes in, and no one thinks of remaining indoors.

Our heroes found Union Street about eleven o’clock crowded to excess, one dense mob from Union Bridge to Castle Hill, but all good-humoured, all hearty. Here and there the bagpipes skirled, here and there songs were sung.

But when it was within about five minutes to twelve an expectant hush fell over all that vast multitude.

Anon the first stroke of the bell boomed over the city, then the cheer that went toward that moonlit sky may be imagined, but never never could be described.

At the same moment everybody seemed to produce a bottle of whisky, and everybody drank with and shook hands with his nearest neighbour, no matter who or what he was.

But by one o’clock the multitude had melted away, solitary watchmen paraded the streets, and the pale moon shown calmly down on the pure white walls of the Granite City.

CHAPTER VI

IN SNOW-TIME—A TOWN AND GOWN

That is, was the snow soft enough to form easily into snowballs? For if very frosty and powdery it was of course no use. As most of the real snowball battles took place just when the thaw commenced, a constant fusillade would then be carried on all up and down Union Street. The street boys, as well as students, were chokeful of mischief, and every conspicuous person caught it hot—if a snowball can be called hot. Battered silk hats were scattered in all directions. Mashers or extra-well-dressed people became simply living targets; silk umbrellas, if put up, were speedily riddled—it was only a case of making the snowball a trifle harder, an extra squeeze did that, and lo! there was a hole in the silken ’brella.

It is almost needless to say that the bobbies, or policemen, suffered greatly at such times. In fact, a policeman was hardly to be seen without an expanded snowball or two on his greatcoat, and more than one might be sporting black eyes. As for catching the depredators, and running them in, this was out of the question. The running-in part would have been easy enough, but first they had to catch their hare,—there was the rub.

Well, school challenged school. The Grammar School, for example, dominated the Gordons, or Sillerton boys, with a rod of iron.

These boys, in those days, were the drollest-looking chaps it is possible to conceive. They used to march four deep, with a bit of a fife and drum band ahead of them; and, just imagine it, they were all dressed like little old men, in blue swallow-tailed coats, with brass buttons, knee-breeches, and broad Tam o’ Shanter bonnets.

Well, on days when the snow was making, the Grammar School lads would lie in wait for them, about three deep on each side of the street, and when they got the Gordons right between, oh, then the fun began, and soon waxed fast and furious. Some of the teachers, foolishly enough, would charge the Grammarians with their umbrellas. They were soon to be pitied; here and there you would see one of these well-dressed whiskered dons lying on his back, his umbrella torn to tatters, and snowballs alighting on his person from all directions, as if from a Maxim gun.

Meanwhile the Gordon ranks would be broken up, the music stopped, and after perhaps an ineffectual attempt at self-defence, Sillerton would be demoralised and flying for safety in all directions.

But there were other schools that would meet the Grammar School at times. I have known them meet by challenge by the Denburn side, and a fine afternoon’s fight be the result.

Then there used to be a manufactory where the workers were terrible roughs, namely, “the comb-work chaps,” as they were called. As a rule, the Grammar School steered clear of these. They were bad to beat, and there was no honour or glory in beating them. Besides, they used to put stones inside their snowballs.

Sometimes bands of sailor boys used to come up from the shipping in the harbour to engage the Grammar School in a pitched battle, and all up and down the school-hill the fight would rage sometimes for hours.

Once I remember the Grammar School was being badly beaten by the comb-work chaps. Many had received ugly cuts in their faces with stoned snowballs.

The school lads were almost demoralised, and making a running fight of it towards their own quad. But help was at hand. A band of red gowns had heard of the brutality of those roughs, and now they managed to outflank the cowardly ruffians, while the Grammar School boys rallied once again and attacked them from the front.

Desperate diseases require desperate cures, and in this case the students despised snowballs. Those cads used stones, let them have it. This was the cry, and the red gowns went at them tooth and nail, or stick and fist. It ended by the comb-work chaps receiving such a drubbing that they were civil for all the season thereafter. They seemed determined now not again to provoke a fight with the Grammar School boys, who had such fierce and terrible allies in those wild hordes of red gowns.

“Where were the policemen?” it may be asked, when fights like these were going on. I think I would be safe to say they were somewhere round the corner. One dutiful bobbie might go to his sergeant, and a conversation such as the following would take place:—

Bobbie. “Man! sairgent, there’s an unco killo-shangie (riot) goin on at the tap o’ Jack’s brae!”

Sergeant. “Ye dinna say so? What’s doin?”

B. “Oh, Grammarians, comb-work chaps, and students—they’re a’ at it.”

S. “Ony (any) windows broken?”

B. “I canna say there is.”

S. “Weel, man, just lat them fecht awa. They canna hurt ane-anither (each other); a black e’e or a bloody nose’ll do them good, and we canna help it. Laddies will be laddies.”

B. “A’ richt then. I’ll keep oot o’ sicht.”

S. “Ay, do.”

. . . . . .

“Now, Sandie,” cried Willie, one morning in the end of January, as he burst gleefully into his friend’s attic and surprised him at his porridge, “I’ve good news for you. You and I are both invited to the medical students’ supper, the night after next.”

“I don’t know that I care to go, Willie,” said Sandie. “Aren’t they just a wee bit noisy and rough at times?”

“Oh, that is nothing, it is only good-humoured and funny they are.”

“And don’t they as a body indulge in toddy to some considerable extent?”

“Perhaps, perhaps, but you and I shall indulge in gingerbeer and lemonade. Come, you mustn’t refuse. They will be offended. I won’t go unless you go, and if I don’t go I shall lose some good friends.”

“Well, Willie, for your sake, I’ll go.”

“That’s a man! You’ll hear some humorous speeches and some capital songs, most of them with choruses.”

Well, the night came round; and round the great tables in the dining-room of the Lemon Tree Hotel about a hundred as sturdy, happy, and healthy-looking young men assembled as ever you would wish to witness. They were not only happy, they were hungry. The speedy way in which the viands disappeared was proof positive of this. Every edible domestic animal seemed to be represented on these tables—turkey, geese, and fowls, pork, mutton, and beef, besides haggis galore, and plenty of mashed potatoes and sturdy Scottish kail.

Each plate was flanked by a tankard of table-ale. Nothing stronger. Stronger potations had yet to come.

Well, in due time even the puddings were discussed, and then the tables were cleared.

“Give your orders, gentlemen,” cried the president, knocking on the table. A very tall splendid-looking fellow this president was, by birth an Africander, who had come to take a medical degree in Aberdeen previously to taking up practice at Cape Town.

The orders were given.

Most of these were simple enough—the wine of the country, with hot water, sugar, and lemon.

Then right loyally all the usual toasts were given, the Queen, the army, navy, and volunteers. The volunteers was responded to in a most heroic speech by one of themselves, who had been coupled with the toast. After this, song after song was sung, and many private individuals in the room were toasted, and had to reply, which they did in speeches more or less humorous.

Not much to his delight, Sandie, as first bursar, was “let in,” as Willie called it, for a speech.

“I don’t know, gentlemen,” he began, “whether I can speak or not; I am like the Irishman who, on being asked if he could play the fiddle, replied, ‘Oh, I daresay I could, but I never tried.’”

Then Sandie warmed to his oratory, and it was universally admitted that he had made the best speech of the evening.

More songs and more speeches followed this, and so very quickly did the time fly by, that hardly anybody would believe the landlord when he came in, smiling and rubbing his hands, to announce—

“Eleven o’clock, gentlemen, if you please!”

They had to please, for policemen were at the door to see the house cleared.

Now, if these somewhat wild young men had broken up into little parties of three or four, and each gone its own way, the riot I have to describe would never have taken place.

I must tell you, first, that a very heavy snow-storm had fallen some days before, and that then a partial thaw had come. The streets were cleared in the centre only, the snow being thrown in shovelfuls to the sides near the pavement.

But frost had returned, and those shovelfuls of snow had become frozen into huge bricks of part ice, part snow.

“Well,” cried the Africander, who carried an umbrella like a weaver’s beam, “let us form four deep, and go singing up Union Street, as far as the bridge, then give three cheers and disperse.”

Four deep was formed accordingly, and the march commenced, also “Auld Lang Syne.”

But they had not got farther than Market Street ere the roughs had assembled in force, and commenced a regular cannonade on the students.

“Halt, front!” cried the tall Africander, waving his great umbrella. “Give ’em fits, charge.”

The mob by this time must have been nearly two hundred strong, but so desperate and determined was the charge made by the students, that they were beaten and partially scattered. The Africander, with his great umbrella, was as good as any three men. The others fought chiefly with those huge bricks of ice that I have already mentioned; and no matter where a man was struck with one of these, down he went as if shot.

But the mob was beaten. They made a kind of running fight of it, back as far as the Castle-gate, and now the victorious students would willingly have retired.

Fate, however, was against them. For just at that moment, while the students were meditating retiring with honour, the theatre, then at the foot of Marischal Street, a street leading directly down to the harbour from the square called Castle-gate, gave exit to its swarms. The gods, as those who occupied the galleries were called, seeing that a riot was on, at once raised the cry of “Down with the students,” as they joined the beaten mob. The fight was now sharp and fierce, but against such fearful odds only one ending was possible—the students were beaten and scattered.

Now to his credit be it said, Sandie would have gone straight home, and not engaged in this unseemly town-and-gown at all, but Willie went in for it like wildfire.

And after the first defeat, Sandie, to his dismay, saw the poor lad lying helpless on the ground kicked and cuffed by the mob. The Africander was at his elbow, and both rushed to Willie’s assistance.

The Africander fairly shouldered Willie, and fought his way with him clear of the mob.

But ill-fared it with poor Sandie. He was knocked down and half killed, three of his ribs being broken with a stout stick. It was well for him that two burly night-watchmen rushed in to his rescue.

They bore him away, however, and kindly helped him all the way home.

They even assisted him to bed—a bed, by the way, he did not leave for a fortnight.

“I’ll never forget your goodness,” said Sandie, as he presented one of them with a five-shilling piece, that the three might drink his health.

“Oh,” said the spokesman, “we did naething mair than common charity.”

“But you don’t understand, men. You might have made me prisoner, mightn’t you?”

“Oh, ay!”

“Then I might have been tried as one of the ringleaders of the riot?”

“To be surely!”

“Well, and if so, ten to one I should have been tried next by the Senatus Academicus, and deprived of my bursary. God bless you this night, men; good-bye now. But come back and see me.”

Sandie’s landlady was kindness personified. Dr. Kilgour himself attended the poor fellow, and Willie constituted himself his constant nurse. There was at no time any real danger, so the patient did not write to alarm his father and mother.

He had plenty of callers to keep up his heart. The great Africander came every evening.

“I never saw any one fight more bravely against fearful odds,” he said over and over again, “than you did, Sandie M‘Crae.”

“Oh,” said Sandie, smiling, “I assure you fighting is not much in my line, and but for my friend Willie, you ne’er would have seen me there.”

But with his temperate habits and his wonderful constitution, Sandie was at last able to get up, and though pale and stiff, rejoin his classes.

The first day he appeared, leaning on a stick in the quad, he was the recipient of a regular ovation. The students cheered and cheered again and crowded round him to shake hands, and I believe they would have hoisted him shoulder high had not his ribs been still so weak.

But it must be confessed that Sandie did not enjoy this ovation half so much as that he received on the night he gained the bursary. He had no wish in the world to pose as a warlike hero, and he made a vow that in future, come what might, he should keep clear of riots and town-and-gowns. It was well for him he did, as the sequel will show.

CHAPTER VII

THE INSTALLATION RIOT

The whole body of students at Marischal College were divided into nations. The men who were born twixt Dee and Don were called the Mar nation; those born between the Don and Deveron the Buchan nation; all west of the Deveron the Highland nation; while those south of the Dee, or belonging to countries over the sea, were called the Foreign nation. Four nations in all, you will observe. Well, if two nations went for one man and two for another, it was a tie, and the Principal of the University had the casting vote. When he was a wise man, he always gave his vote to the two nations that contained the largest number of students.

On this particular year it so happened that the Mar and Buchan nations were on one side, as against the Highland and Foreign. Now the former two nations included the main body of students of the University, the other two being in numbers quite insignificant compared to them.

The Principal was, therefore, very unwise to give his vote against them.

The wrath and indignation of Buchan and Mar were terrible. They held meetings, and took a solemn vow to prevent, by every means in their power, the installation of the chosen Lord Rector.

There were lively spirits among those Buchan and Mar lads, and not only did they parade the streets by day with flags and banners flying, stopping at every professor’s house to hoot and yell if that professor were against them, or loudly cheer and sing his praises if known to be on their side, but at night also they had marches and counter-marches, and these were of a more serious character, for many encounters with the police took place, and the windows of inimical professors were freely stoned and broken. All this was bad and spiteful enough, but worse was to follow.

I forget, by the way, whether it was during this time, or a few years before, that a strange piece of revenge was taken against a professor who had incurred the displeasure of his students. This gentleman was a fowl fancier. And one night a band of some twenty or thirty students appeared a little before midnight at the professor’s house. They first barred the doors up from the outside. Then they coolly attacked the fowl-house, killing every one and carrying away the lot. Next night, at some inn in the New Town, there was a big supper, and the standing dishes were roast and boiled fowls. Such a criminal riot as this would hardly be tolerated now-a-days.

At long and last the installation day came round. A riot was confidently expected, and all preparations made to, if possible, stem the tide thereof.

The installation of Lord Rector is one of the sights of a session. It takes place in the great upper hall of the University, which occupies the top storey of a wing stretching from the back of the University, with many tall mullioned windows at each side. It is beautifully furnished with cushioned forms, a platform, and pulpit, and the walls are covered with costly pictures.

There is one thing sure and certain, the ringleaders among the student-rioters knew the value and the science of organisation, and they had everything well planned beforehand.

For example, there was an order of the Senate that rendered it impossible for policemen to enter the quad to make an arrest or to clear the square during a riot. This was a very old law, but whether rescinded or not by this time, I cannot tell.

And the ringleaders knew this. They had also found out that it was proposed to send for the soldiers, to clear courts and quad, if the riot should assume gigantic proportions. They knew that the regimental colonel had been notified to this effect, and that the soldiers were confined to barracks. It is strange that soldiers might enter in where bobbies feared to follow, but such, it would seem, was really the case.

However, against such a contingency the chief ringleaders had provided; and I may as well state here as farther on, that during the progress of the riot, first one student messenger, and then another, were despatched to solicit the aid of the soldiers to clear the quad, but that both were captured by the enemy’s scouts, and made prisoners in Mother Robertson’s till the riot was all over.

As a rule, at an installation of Lord Rector, ladies are admitted, and very gay the hall looks with their presence; but on this occasion, fearing the consequences, the presence of ladies was forbidden. This was another mistake, for students are possessed of considerable gallantry, and the rioters would never have proceeded to such extremes as they did in the presence of their mothers, sisters, and sweethearts.

As the students filed in through the gates into the quad, they were ordered to give up their sticks. This the rioters willingly did; and well they might, for, concealed under his coat or gown, every one carried a short heavy-headed hammer.

And now the great hall was crowded. The dissenters keeping all together, that is, the nations of Mars and Buchan, the two poor skinny little Highland and Foreign nations looking a mere handful beside them.

On to the platform now meekly and modestly comes his lordship, and the professors group around him.

He is received by a few faint cheers from the Highlanders and Foreigners, but by a dinful distracting chorus of yelling, hooting, and hissing by the rioters.

But Scotsmen are naturally pious, so, while Dr. Dewar prays, they are silent and still.

No sooner, however, does the ceremony commence in earnest, than, with their arms crossed, two stalwart students form a chair, and on this between them mounts Jamie B——r, afterwards Dr. B——r, and only recently dead. He is carried forward till right beneath the platform. He there reads a long and well-worded protest against his lordship’s election.

Three groans are then called for, after which a voice is heard shouting—

“All that are against this unjust and cruel installation will now leave the hall.”

And so the rioters left in a body, and the great hall doors were shut behind them.

These great folding doors, I may mention, are as nearly as I can remember about twelve feet high, and open in the centre. They were now locked and bolted, and the installation, it was hoped, would proceed in peace. Those who thought so had, however, reckoned without their host.

On both sides of the wing, in which was the installation hall, the rioters stationed themselves. They had a fine supply of stones and pebbles, and inside that hall, from through the windows, those stones soon began to fall as thick as leaves in Vallombrosa.

Not one student or professor, but many, were hit with the hail-shower of falling pebbles.

All at once, however, there was a lull.

“The worst is over, I think,” a professor ventured to remark.

He was mistaken, the worst was to come. The rioters had found out that the big hall doors were closed against them.

“Why should they be shut out? Had not they as good a right to be inside as any?”

Certainly they had. “Hurrah! lads, hurrah!”

In another minute they were crowding, in two dense bodies, up the two stairs that converged in front of the folding doors. Here they loudly knocked, and demanded admittance. This was refused.

Then all the force the rioters could command was applied to that door. The locks and bolts, it is true, held good, but each half gave way simultaneously at its hinges. Down with a crash went the door, and in rushed the mob.

“Now, lads, out with your hammers.”

The students friendly to the Lord Rector rallied and fought well, but were speedily beaten, and had to seek refuge in flight.

The Lord Rector himself, during the scrimmage, is said to have received a wound in the nose from a piece of splintered wood.

And now the work of wreckage and destruction was commenced. By means of the hammers the forms were broken up, and, worse than all, many of the fine paintings that could not be restored were rent in ribbons.

Satiated with revenge, at long and last, and fearful, perhaps, that the soldiers might arrive, and turn them out at the point of the bayonet, the rioters retired. They formed four deep in the quad, and went marching off, dispersing to their several homes after arriving at the centre of the town.

The punishments that followed this strange riot were not very severe, and all academical, of course. But it was considered that the students really had had a great grievance, and so the Senatus Academicus was lenient. But several of the ringleaders, including Jamie B——, were rusticated.

Sandie M‘Crae took no part in this riot, and he even succeeded in inducing his friend Willie to keep away from the University that day.

Instead of going near Marischal College, they hired a dogcart, and went off out the Skene Road, with rods and tackle, to enjoy a day’s fishing in a bonnie brown burn that led from the Loch o’ Skene.

The day was most delightful, the blue of the sky all the bluer in that grey or fleecy clouds floated here and there. But the wind’s light breath was balmy and warm, laverocks carolled against the sky, wild flowers, by the wayside, sprang wanton to be pressed; the dark pine woods of Hazlehead and Maidencraig were a sight to see, while in the more open country the larches were already fringed with tender spring greens, and tasselled with crimson.

The very horse Sandie drove seemed to feel the influence of this delightful day, and as he trotted merrily on—his feet made music on the pebbled road.

They never drew rein until they came to the inn of Straik in Echt, where they had formerly dined, and here they put up.

They would walk the rest of the distance, and the landlady promised she would have a charming little dinner ready for them by the time they returned.

Would her little boy be of use to them as a guide? Well, they would take him anyhow.

He was a very tiny lad indeed, with a head of tow apparently, and no cap; but they found him invaluable. For wee Johnnie knew all the best “pots” where the biggest trout lay, and he knew also precisely the kind of flies they liked.

“Oh,” he cried, when he saw Sandie’s and Willie’s book, “the troots wadna look at they.”

Then from what he called his “oxter pouch” he produced his own book. Something very different here. But the results justified the boy’s wisdom, and an excellent day’s sport was the result.

“Johnnie, you’re a little brick,” cried Willie, after he had put up his rod.

He placed a five-shilling piece in the boy’s hand as he spoke.

Johnnie looked at it, and his eyes appeared to turn quite as large and round as the coin. He had never fingered so much money in his life before.

“Is a’ this for me?” he said.

“All for you, Johnnie.”

“A’ for my nain sel’?”

“All for your own self.”

“My conscience! I’m the happiest lad in the countryside!”

And so he really appeared to be.

Our heroes had spent a very calm but pleasant day, and Willie felt thankful, and expressed himself so more than once, that they were down in the cool green country, far away from scenes of strife and riot.

They stopped for a moment by the side of the silvery lake to admire the beautiful sheet of water with the greenery of the woods rising up from its banks beyond, and afar off the blue summits of the Grampian Hills.

Johnnie here volunteered a statement.

“Gintlemen,” he said, “do ye ken what the mad laird o’ Skene ance did?”

“Is there a mad laird o’ Skene, Johnnie?”

“Oh, no noo, but lang syne. He wasna doonricht daft, ye ken, but jist reckless-kind and deil-may-care.”

“Well, what did he do, Johnnie?”

“Weel, he made a wager that he’d drive a carriage and pair ower the loch after only ae’ (one) nicht’s frost.”

“And did he do it?”

“Ay, that did he. But he made a compact with the servant that sat beside him, that he wasna to look roun’. The man did look roun’ tho’, just as the hosses had got footin’ on the bank. He saw an awfu’ beast like a big baboon sittin’ up behind, then the ice broke and the carriage sunk. But the laird won the wager.”

“Come on,” said Willie; “I’m hungry.”

CHAPTER VIII

BACK AT THE DEAR OLD FARM

There is always more or less of sadness in the hearts of students at this the time of parting with the comrades they have sat in the same class-rooms with all the winter, have walked with, played with, nay, even fought with mayhap. But now all is forgiven, if, indeed, there be anything to forgive, and in a week’s time the classes are scattered to the four winds of heaven. The majority, it is true, live in Aberdeenshire, but this county is broad and wide stretching—we may say, from the Bullers of Buchan to the rolling Dee, and from the far-off heathy hills of Braemar in the west, to the sea that laves its sand-girt eastern shore.

Some men had gone away into the Highlands of Inverness, and during all the summer would delve and dig or hold the plough. Others away to wild romantic Skye—the Isle of Wings, and others again far North to that Ultima Thule, Shetland, which some one has likened to “a sea-girdled peat-moss.” It is rather, however, a series of sea-girdled peat-mosses, for the islands are very numerous indeed, their shores, when the purple mantle of summer is thrown like a veil of gauze over them, as romantic as they are lonesome and wild.

And Sandie and Willie had parted. But they would think of each other constantly, and they would write almost every day.

Willie was going south to the Riviera with his mother and one of his sisters, but as soon as he should return, his first visit would be up Deeside to the dear old farm of Kilbuie.

So Sandie went home alone. But how delighted his parents and Elsie were to see him, I need not tell the reader!

. . . . . .

Since Sandie had been at home last, a little change had taken place near the farm. He noticed this as he came slowly down the long loaning, and just as Elsie and dear old Tyro came running delightedly to meet him. A little cottage had sprung up, a cottage consisting only of a butt and a ben, that is, dear English reader, one of two rooms, namely, a room at each side of the door, a best room and a living room or kitchen.

“But what did it mean?” Sandie asked himself. There was even a garden laid out before the door, the door itself had a rustic porch, and the cottage was prettily stob-thatched with straw.

As soon as Tyro’s first wild greetings were over, and Elsie had welcomed her brother back, he pointed to the cottage and asked for an explanation.

“Oh,” cried Elsie, “I meant to have written and told you, but Jamie and Jeannie beseeched me not to. They thought it much better it should come as a surprise to you when you returned home.”

“Well,” said Sandie, “I begin to smell a rat. They are going to be married. Is it not so?”

“Yes.”

“Sly old Jamie Duncan! I never knew he was soft in that direction. Won’t I roast him just?”

“Oh no, dear Sandie, you mustn’t. It really isn’t sly he is, so much as shy.”

But nevertheless, as soon as Sandie saw Jamie, and the first greetings were over, he tackled him on the forthcoming great event in his life.

“So,” said Sandie, “I’ve got to rub shoulders with you, have I?”

For the information of the Southern reader, I may explain that to rub shoulders with a bridegroom is supposed to bring the rubber great good luck.

“I’m no goin’ to deny it,” replied Jamie, his cheeks like the rosy beet.

“Man!” he added by way of excuse, “I lo’oed Jeannie a lang, lang time, though she didna ken (didn’t know), but at last I had to tell her, or lay me doon and dee, as the auld sang says.”

“And she has been kind enough to promise to marry you?”

“Ay, that has she, Sandie, and sealed the bargain wi’ a kiss. And a richt bonnie and usefu’ wifie she’ll mak’ to a poor chiel like me. Oh, man, it is a fine thing to hae a bit hoose o’ your ain, to come hame at even to your little cot, and find your firie burnin’, your supper ready, and your winsome wifie a’ smiles and saft, saft words!”

“Well,” said Sandie, “I’m sure, Jamie, I wish you all the happiness you deserve, and Jeannie too.”

Jamie’s wedding took place just a week after Sandie’s return.

It was an exceedingly quiet one, but Jeannie made a bonnie bride, and Jamie a sturdy independent bridegroom.

Mr. Mackenzie himself, though it was not his parish, was asked to perform the ceremony, and came over on purpose to do so, after which there was a right merry and jolly breakfast, then the happy pair set out together to spend their honeymoon.

And how long, think you, did this honeymoon last? Why, just one day. They went off to see the sights in the Granite City, and next day at gloaming, they came linking down the long loanings arm-in-arm, looking as happy, quite as the yellow-billed blackbird and his wife who lived in yonder thicket of spruce.

Geordie Black, the orra man, had lit a fire in the cottage, and it was burning brightly; Elsie had laid the table, and tea and dinner combined were ready, just as the happy pair came over the threshold.

“Oh,” cried Jamie, “this is truly delichtfu’.”

The occasion even required verse, and Jamie was equal to it. As he threw himself into the easy-chair with a kind of tired but contented sigh, he carolled forth—

. . . . . .

Now to return to our hero Sandie: his experiences of pupil-teaching had not been to him bliss unalloyed. It took him away from his studies, it was a loss of time, and a terrible worry, and the pay was hardly commensurate. Besides, as at the close of next session he meant to compete for a great prize for mathematics of sixty pounds, tenable for the two last sessions of the curriculum, he would really need all his time for preparation.

So in his own mind he began to cast about for some means of making a little money during the summer, to help him through the weary winter. A little would do; but that little must be earned.

He must help his father with the harvest work, free, gratis. Many and many a year and day that dear old father, whose hair was now silvered with age, had helped him.

Then, as if he had received a flash of inspiration, the herring-fishery came into his mind.

Now, in Scotland, it will do my Southern reader no harm to know, the herring come to the coast months before they reach the shores of, say, Norfolk and Suffolk. In the Land o’ Cakes they come in with the new potatoes in June, and a most delicious dish fresh herring and new potatoes make.

Well, Sandie could have two months at this industry before his father’s harvest came on.

When he mentioned his determination to his mother and Elsie next day, with tears in their eyes, they tried to dissuade him from his purpose. It was rash, they alleged, and it was highly dangerous. But Sandie stood firm as a rock.

Our hero now resumed, to a certain extent, his old life on the farm. With the exception of a forenoon, spent about twice a week with his old friend Mackenzie, and his little favourite, Maggie May, with whom he frequently went fishing, he worked with his father’s servants. The horses’ holiday time had come round again once more, and once more they were wading pastern-deep in the daisied grass, as happy as the day was long; but there was plenty to do for the men in thinning turnips, weeding and hoeing potatoes, and other things.

In the evening, however, immediately after supper, he retired to his little grain-loft study, and there bent all his energies to the elucidation of the mysteries of mathematics till far on into the night.

He did not find mathematics so very hard after all, when he fairly set himself to tackle it. The problems looked dreadfully dark and difficult a little way off, just as a black cloud does that is approaching the moon, but the moon soon brightens it. And in the same way, Sandie’s determination and study soon illuminated the darkest clouds of mathematics.

Indeed, Sandie was really pleased with his prowess and advancement, but well he knew, nevertheless, that he would have to study steadily, hard and long, if he was to have the slightest chance of capturing that great prize of £60 for two years. Why, such a haul would render him independent.

Well, he determined to work and trust in Providence.

Sandie, however, did not neglect his health. He ate and drank well, and every fine evening his sister Elsie and he went up the hill through the long sweet-scented yellow broom for a walk.

Delicious hours those! To have seen Elsie hanging on to her brother’s arm, and he smiling as he looked fondly down into her sweet face, a stranger would have taken them for lovers.

Then what castles in the air they did build to be sure! What day-dreams were theirs! Of the time when he should be minister of some beautiful old church by the banks of a stream, and she, Elsie, his housekeeper. Already, in imagination, they could hear the church-bell tolling of a Sunday morning, and see the well-dressed congregation slowly wending their way through the auld kirkyard to the door.

And Sandie’s sermons should be such rousing ones; couched in eloquent language, that should go straight to the heart of every hearer, and sometimes even bring tears to the eyes of the listeners.

Of course, dear old father and mother would be in the manse pew. Then the manse itself, an old-fashioned house, with fine old-fashioned gardens, and rare old-fashioned flowers, gardens in which, in the spring-time, the mavis and the blackbird would all day long fill the air with their charming melody, and the lark sing above till past the midnight hour.

Oh, they had it all cut and dry, I assure you; but dear me, what a long time they would have to wait yet before there was a chance of those dreams coming true!

Never mind! were they not young? Ah! hope beats high in youthful hearts.

So back they would saunter through the golden-tasselled broom, and then Sandie would begin his lucubrations.

. . . . . .

Just the very day before Sandie had intended starting north and east to get an engagement as a herring-fisher, he was agreeably startled by a visit from Willie, who had just returned from the Riviera.

“Had you been a day later,” Sandie said, as he grasped his friend’s hand, “you would not have found me.”

“Inasmuch as to wherefore?” said Willie, raising his brows.

“I’m off to-morrow to join the herring-fleet.”

“What! you? You turn a herring-fisher?”

“Yes, Willie.”

Then Sandie told him all the reader already knows.

“I’d ten times sooner catch herring,” he ended, “than teach that young blockhead the rudiments of Latin grammar.”

“Well, then,” said Willie, “I shall go with you for a day, just to see you settled.”

“I’ll be delighted, I’m sure.”

So bidding his father and mother and Elsie adieu—he had already said good-bye to Mackenzie and Maggie May—on the very next morning, Sandie started in company with Willie for the fishing village of Blackhive.

N.B.—I call it Blackhive because that is not its name. Its real title I have reasons for keeping secret.

They found the little town already very busy indeed. All hands were getting their nets on board the great sturdy open boats, in which these hardy fishermen venture far to sea and encounter many a storm.

The boats have a bit of a close deck fore and aft, but all betwixt and between is a well. Here lie the nets, and here are stowed the herring when caught.

Our heroes found the village swarming with foreigners, in the shape of men from the far Hebrides, especially Skye, who had come to join the fishery, and if possible to make a little money to carry them on for another year.

If the fishing should be good, there was no doubt about making money, for they were not only paid good wages, but a certain percentage on the takes or crans.

There was no great hurry, so Willie and Sandie sauntered about for hours, looking at the strange and busy scene, which was so unlike anything they had ever witnessed before.

Not only young men had swarmed into the town, but modest-looking young lassies too. These latter would be employed in gutting the herring, in salting them, and packing them in barrels for the Southern markets.

And the coopers or barrel-makers were very busy indeed already, and had been so for weeks; their fires burned in every direction, while the clanging of their hammers was incessant.

Our heroes found themselves at last at a cosy little inn.

Yes, they could have dinner, nice new potatoes, fresh butter, and fresh herrings and milk. “Hurrah!” cried Willie, “what could be better?” So they dined delectably.

CHAPTER IX

WISE WEE JOHN AND WITTY EPPIE

“But, mind you,” interpolated Willie somewhat proudly, “my friend here is first bursar at Marischal College and University, Aberdeen.”

“Preserve me!” cried the woman, lifting up her palms and raising her eyes ceilingwards. “Preserve us a’, but what a high honour to hae a first bursar in my poor house!”

“Never mind about the honour, mother. Let me tell you at once, that I’ve come down here to find a boat, if possible, and to try to make a few white shillings at the herring-fishing.”

“Gang awa’ wi’ ye, you’re jokin’. You a gentleman and a first bursar, to go and catch scaly herrings, and work like a galley-slave. Dinna try to deceive an auld wife; you’re just poking fun at Widow Stephen.”

“No, Mrs. Stephen, I was never so much in earnest in all my life. Look at my brawny arms, look at my chest. I’ve been used to the scythe and the plough, the pluck and the hoe. Think you that casting a net is going to frighten me?

“But,” he said after a pause, “I thought you might know of some one who would be glad to have youth, strength, and agility.”

“Oh, plenty will be glad to have you. Why, as sure as I live, there goes the very man, and I ken weel that his boat’s crew is no complete. I’ll tap at the window.”

She did so, and then hurried out to meet the fisherman.

Suffice it to say, that in less than half-an-hour Sandie was appointed to John Menzies’ boat, at a good wage and his chance, that is, so much per crane on the take.

Not only that, but, to his great joy, John told him that his wife Eppie would take him in and do for him for an auld sang. He would have a canty wee roomie, with a wee window lookin’ oot to the hills, where he could study to the ring o’ the bonnet when the boat wasn’t at sea. This is pretty much John’s own language, and it is needless to say that Sandie was glad to accept the offer.

Willie and Sandie spent a very agreeable day indeed, and slept at the little inn, but next morning Willie departed after a friendly and somewhat sad farewell, and Sandie sauntered along the beach to John’s house.

He found the worthy couple both waiting for him, and he noted at once that they were characters. When I mention the fact that they are sketched from the real life, perhaps my reader will understand my reasons for not giving the village in which they resided its real name. A few words about this queer, delightful couple won’t, I feel sure, be thrown away.

John Menzies, then, was an honest fisherman of this same famous old town of Blackhive, celebrated from time immemorial for the finest smoked haddies that ever delighted the eye, or tickled the palate of gourmand or epicure.

John Menzies (pronounced Maingees) lived with his wife, “as,” he himself more than once remarked, “every decent man should.” It was the custom with John to catch the fish, and the custom with John’s wife to sell them, and thus they shared life’s burden.

Now John was reputed to be as wise a man as there was in the town, or for that matter any town whatever, and his wife—well I should not like to be the goose whose wings should supply the quills to write or describe all the virtues ascribed to this good lady by her neighbours.

John’s wife, she was called, and likewise surnamed the Witty. Eppie was her name—Witty Eppie. There you have it. “A virtuous wife,” says Solomon, “is a crown unto her husband.” Well John’s wife was all that to him, and more besides. In point of fact, John was often heard to say, “It was for my Eppie’s goodness I married her,” and he was generally believed for this simple reason—it could not have been for her beauty. No; Nature had dealt sparingly with her as far as beauty was concerned. But then, Nature could hardly be expected to give her all things. She had an honest sonsy face of her own, though, for all that, and a motherly look in it too, although so far from being a fruitful vine, she never had borne fruit at all.

“John is my bairn,” Eppie would say, “and between him and the creel it tak’s me a’ my time, ’oman.”

In figure, Eppie was rather rotund and somewhat given to corpulency without, but then she had a Herculean frame to bear it. “A broad back to a big burden,” was another of her sayings, for, like all Scottish fisherwomen, she was much addicted to quoting proverbs, which she was wont to term “the pepper dulse” of conversation.[7] Yet if she was not a bonnie fishwife, she was at best a handsome one—six feet tall if an inch, and well-made in proportion. On the other hand, John himself was what might with fear of any serious contradiction be called a spare man—a wee wee man—a man of bone and sinew certainly, but of little else. Well, he might have been of feet four, and of inches double the number, and it would have done your heart good to have seen the worthy couple going to church on a Sabbath-day, which, to their credit be it told, they never failed to do. The best view was to be obtained from behind. Here, you could observe the exact difference in stature, for John’s Sunday’s hat, which never, never sat easily on his head, and was always bobbing from one side to another, scarcely reached his better half’s shoulder. The difference too in the breadth of beam was here very apparent—the vast and ample folds of the red tartan shawl on the one hand, and the short waggling swallow tails of the little green coat with its plain brass buttons on the other.

Despise not that dumpy garment, reader, for it was his best. It was his marriage coat, and he had never got another since.

The next best view of the loving couple was the side view. There you could observe and marvel at the vast difference in length of step, at least John’s was a step, Eppie’s was a stride, and when, as sometimes would occur, the church-bells ceased to ring before they reached the gate, oh! to see the way she lugged the poor little man along by the hand! Still, even under these circumstances, Eppie could afford to walk, but—I almost sob to say it—wee Johnnie had to trot. In a word, imagine an ostrich walking to church with a rook, and you see them. Good simple couple, the minister never missed them from the kirk a single Sunday from that auspicious day when he had joined their hands, until the mournful morning when the old hearse wound slowly down the long loaning that conveyed poor wee Johnnie to his home in the mould, while every wife in Blackhive stood at her door with her apron to her eyes. But of this more anon.

Eppie was as kind to her husband as kind could be, and it is but fair to say that for this she took no credit.

“De’il thank me,” she used to exclaim, “wha could be onything else to the poor wee worriting body?”

Yet, while never failing in household duties—and there never was a button missing from John’s shirt, never was his big toe seen staring impudently through a hole in his stocking, neither did he ever come home wet and cold without finding a change of well-aired warm raiment, a warm meal, and some creature comforts besides waiting for him—John’s wife found plenty of time to do kind and friendly actions to her neighbours too.

Honest woman, she was always welcome wherever she went, for she carried a ray of light into the darkest and gloomiest cottage. Even death itself did not seem so terrible when Eppie stood at the bedside.

But strangest thing of all—because, where could she have obtained the knowledge?—Eppie was always to be found handy in houses where little caps and small-waisted frocks and many other mysteries began to appear, without any visible little heads or small waists on which to fit them.

Poor John! it was on such occasions as those, and I am proud to add only, that he had to be content with a cold dinner or a bowl of hasty pudding made by his own hands. But he never grumbled.

CHAPTER X

LIFE AT JOHN’S COTTAGE—THE FISHING