Friend Mac Donald

He told the head master of his intention, and asked his advice.

"If I were you," said the head master, "I would do nothing of the kind. I feel sure you have very special aptitude for Greek, and that if you will but direct your attention to that, you have a brilliant future before you. Let me trace you out a programme?"

This programme was enough to frighten the most enterprising of men. A Scotchman alone could undertake to carry it out.

Our young master accepted the task.

He took an apartment in the Temple, turned his back on his friends, and became an inaccessible hermit.

For three years he lived only for his books, consecrating to them that which, at his age, is generally consecrated to pleasure and comfort.

Nothing could turn him from the end he had in view.

One after another he read all the Greek authors. Nothing that had been written by poet, philosopher, historian, or grammarian, escaped him.

At the end of three years, he reappeared, wasted by the vigils and privations of this life of study; but the last touches had been put to the manuscript of a book, which, when it appeared three months later, was pronounced a masterpiece of scholarship, and made quite a revolution in the Greek world.

To-day this young Scotchman is one of the brightest lights in the higher walks of literature in Great Britain.

The students of the great Universities of Scotland offer, perhaps, the most striking proofs of perseverance to be found.

At Oxford and Cambridge, you find all sorts of students, especially students who do not study.

In Scotland, all students study.

To be able to have the luxury of studying, or rather "residing" (such is the less pretentious name in use), at Oxford or Cambridge, you must be well-to-do.

In Scotland, as in Germany, Greece, Switzerland, and America, the poorest young men may aspire to university honours; but often at the cost of what privations!

Here are a few incidents of students' life in Scotland. They struck me as being very interesting, very touching. I borrow them, for the most part, from a writer who published them in a Scotch Review during my stay in Edinburgh.

He mentions one young man, of fine manners and aristocratic appearance, who dined but three times a week, and then upon a hot two-penny pie. On the other days he lived on dry bread.

Another had an ingenious way of turning his scanty resources to account. Spreading out his books where the hearthrug would naturally have been, he would lie there, learning his task by the light of a fire, made from the roots of decayed trees, which he had dug in a wood near Edinburgh, and carried to his lodgings.

Three Scotchmen, now occupying high positions, shared a room containing one bed; and for a year at least, while attending Aberdeen University, they had no other lodging. The bed was a very narrow one, and quite incapable of holding two persons at once; so two worked while the other slept, and when they went to bed, he rose.

Two other students excited a great deal of curiosity for some time. One carried his books before him just as if they had been a tray, while he glided noiselessly to his place. This mystery was explained when it was learned that he had been a hotel waiter. During the winter he pursued his studies; and when summer returned, it found him, with serviette across his arm, earning the necessary fees for his next winter's course of study.

He never could quite throw off the waiter. If a professor called his name suddenly, he would start up and answer, "Coming, sir – coming!"

The other was more mysterious still. As soon as recitation was over, he would start away from the class-room and make for the environs of the town as fast as he could run. It was at last discovered that he kept a little book shop at some distance from the University, and, being too poor to hire an assistant, had to close his door to customers while he went to recite his lessons.

Professor Blackie tells of one young student, who lived for a whole session on red herrings and a barrel of potatoes, sent him from home. The poor fellow's health so gave way under this meagre diet, that he died before his course of study was finished.

The learned Professor mentions also another very touching case of a young student who fell a victim to his thirst for knowledge. The poor fellow had so weakened his stomach by privation, that he died from eating a good meal given him by a kind friend.

I said just now that little work was done at the University of Oxford. Exception must, however, be made in the case of the famous Balliol College.

But whom do we find there?

This college is full of Scotch students, who succeed in keeping themselves at Oxford, thanks to their frugality and industry. It is not unfrequent to find them giving lessons to the undergraduates of other colleges!

And what lessons the Scotch can give the English!

CHAPTER VIII

Good old Times. – A Trick. – Untying Cravats. – Bible and Whisky. – Evenings in Scotland. – The Dining-room. – Scots of the Old School. – Departure of the Whisky and Arrival of the Bible. – The Nightcap in Scotland. – Five hours' Rest. – The Gong and its Effects. – Fresh as Larks. – Iron Stomachs.

Scotchmen still drink hard; but where are the joyous days when the Scotch host broke the glasses off at the stem, so that his guests should drink nothing but bumpers?

Scotchmen still drink hard; but where are the good old times, when it was thought a slight to your host to go to bed without the help of a couple of servants?

Scotchmen still drink hard; but where is the time when people recommended a protégé, who was a candidate for a vacant post, by adding at the foot of his petition, "He is a trustworthy man – capable, hard-working, and a fine drinker"?

Lord Cockburn, who was a sober man, mentions how he was once dining in a friend's house, and towards the end of the dinner was surprised to see the number of guests around the table diminishing, although no one had left the room. He set himself to solve the mystery, and soon discovered that they had rolled under the table, one after the other. A bright idea occurred to him. There was a bit of ground free near his feet; he would secure it, and escape from the drink without drawing down on himself the displeasure of his host.

Feigning to be helplessly drunk, he slid under the table.

Scarcely had he taken his place among the victims of this Scot's hospitality, when he felt a pair of hands at his throat.

"What is it?" asked he, alarmed.

"All right, sir," said a voice at his ear; "I am the boy as looses the cravats!"

He submitted to the treatment, and then lay patiently waiting till the servants came and carried him to bed.

Scotchmen still drink hard; but where is the time when, about eleven in the evening, the ladies of the house withdrew to their rooms and locked themselves in, to escape from the drunken humours of the men who, the next morning, would treat them with all the respect due to their sex?

Yes, Scotchmen still drink hard; and if they only consecrated to Venus half – nay, one tenth – of the time that they consecrate to Bacchus, Scotchwomen would be the most envied women in the world.

Donald is theological in his cups: that is to say, the Bible, which every true Scot is full of, comes up as the whisky goes down; so that when the said whisky has floated the Bible, the Scotchman begins to discuss the most subtle biblical questions.

This is how the evening is passed in Scotland.

Dinner is served about seven. After dessert, the ladies retire to the drawing-room while the gentlemen finish their wine, smoke, and take coffee. This done, they join the ladies in the drawing-room, where tea is served, and an hour or so passed in conversation and music. At eleven, the gentlemen return to the dining-room or go to the library. Whisky and cigars are brought, and the fête begins. Several times, when the master of the house beckoned to me to follow him from the drawing-room, I tried to make him understand that I was very contented in the company of the ladies; but it was useless. He would generally take my arm and say:

"Come along!"

As who should say:

"Enough of that; you are a man, are you not? Come and pass the evening in manly fashion."

There was nothing to do but follow.

I pleaded all kinds of excuses to avoid this part of the entertainment.

"The doctor has forbidden me to drink," I mildly suggested once or twice, "or I should be very happy, I assure you."