Chapter III: The Ploughman-Student at Home

Sandie M‘Craw’s study was unique in its way. To get to it he had to enter the stable first, then scramble up a straight ladder fastened against the wall, and so through a trap-door. This landed him in a large granary and straw loft. There was a window at the far end, and around this window Sandie, with his own hands, had boarded off a portion about ten feet square. Here were a table, a chair, and some rough book-shelves, and this was Sandie’s study.

It was comfortable enough in summer nights, but when in winter the window was banked high with snow, when the winds howled wild and drear without, and the temperature had sunk almost to zero, then study in such a room was something of a hardship.

But although night was really the only time Sandie had for study, he never gave in. And in the darkest, dreariest nights of winter you might have found him here, his bonnet pulled down over his ears, a Scottish plaid rolled round his chest, and a horse-rug over his knees, deep in the learned intricacies of Juvenal, Horace, Homer, or Livy, or translating English into Latin and Greek, calm, sleepless, defiant of Boreas or any wind whatever. And strangers passing along the high-road at midnight, ay, or even long past that hour, would see the light blinking from the little window, and know that Sandie M‘Crae, the ploughman-student, as he was usually called, was hard at work.

It is not too much to say that Sandie was almost an enthusiast in his studies, so no wonder he sat late, night after night, in that rustic little chamber of his, where there was no sound to disturb him, save outside, now and then, the barking of Tyro, the bawsent-faced collie, or the crowing of some wakeful cock, and inside, beneath him, the occasional sound of a horse’s hoof upon the brick floor. Yes, Sandie was an enthusiast, and so the time glided very quickly by. The rolling thunder-laden lines of Homer carried the lad quite away; the poems of Horace, so full of scenes of country life, were music to his ear, the Bucolics of Virgil brought before his mind’s eye such visions of rustic beauty, of rural joys, as fairly dazzled his senses; while to him the bonnie wee Greek songs of Anacreon gave a pleasure he could not well define, except by saying that Anacreon was the Burns of Greece. But Sandie revelled in History as well. He was with the Greeks in their wondrous march as described by Xenophon; he went into raptures with the soldiers when they saw the sea. Nor were the Romans forgotten. Livy was an especial favourite with Sandie. Cæsar he considered too simple, but Cicero, in his grand Orations, was truly a delight. And strangely enough, while reading either Cicero or Livy, he could quite identify himself with every scene that was spread out before him. He was no longer sitting on a hard-bottomed chair by a rustic table in a grain loft. No, he was in the midst of great, busy, bustling Rome. Blue skies were shining over him, the green of the orange-tree was in every garden, flowers and fruit were everywhere, while around him was a strangely dressed multitude whose every attitude appealed to him. Or he would be lounging in the baths or in the Forum, or in the great theatres, while sometimes, sword in hand, he would be fighting by a bridge or on the city walls. Is it any wonder, I ask, that the time glided quickly by till Sandie’s immense great silver turnip of a watch warned him that it was what Burns calls--

“The wee short hoor ayont the twal?”

Then what do you think my hero did? Well, he slowly closed his books to begin with; then he reached him down a tiny New Testament which had been translated into Greek. From this he read a chapter, then he quietly knelt him down to pray. It is but fair to my hero to say that he was not what might be called greedy or ambitious in his prayers. The part of the Lord’s Prayer, for instance, which is most difficult of all for poor mankind to pray, is that which says, “Thy will be done on earth.” But Sandie had somehow mastered that, so that, in making his wishes known to Heaven, just as a child does and ought to, to its earthly father, this earnest student never forgot to append the words, “if it be for my good.” So might Heaven bless his one grand ambition to become a clergyman in the Church of Scotland.

He could not conceal from himself, however, what a dark and troublesome ocean there was to navigate before ever he could reach the goal he had set his face towards. Sometimes his heart would sink with doubts and fears as he thought of the little likelihood there was of his being successful. He was positively almost penniless, and he had never a friend in all the wide, wide world, even had he not been too proud to accept pecuniary assistance, while his parents were far too poor to assist him. No, it must be bursary or not bursary--bursary or utter failure.

After Sandie had said his prayers, he lit his lantern, blew out his oil lamp, and started for the house. Tyro, the dear kind-hearted collie, always met him at the stable door, and always insisted on dancing a ram-reel with him before permitting him to go. But ten minutes after this ram-reel, poor Sandie M‘Crae was sleeping the sleep of the tired and weary. This ploughman-student possessed, however, wonderful recuperative powers, for he always awakened by eight o’clock, feeling as fresh as a mountain trout, to begin the hard day’s manual labour on the farm.

I should say he _was_ awakened every morning, and by no less a personage than Tyro, the beautiful and wise collie. Exactly at a quarter to eight every morning, this doggie used to run feathering up the stairs, open his master’s door with a bang, and arouse him by licking his cheek and ear with soft, warm, loving tongue. There was a stream ran by at no great distance from the house, and in the stream a deep brown pool, or pot, as it is called in Scotland. Into this, winter or summer, all the long year through, Sandie and Tyro plunged, revelled for a few minutes, and then would Sandie dry himself and dress.

Breakfast would be eaten--porridge, that blithesome Jeannie knew so well how to make, and bread and milk to follow. No, no tea; Sandie cared but little for it, and was glad of this, for he knew it affected the nerves and produced sleeplessness. Why, tea-drinking might really ruin all his prospects!

* * * * *

On that beautiful morning in May described in my first chapter, Sandie had an errand to a distant mill by the Donside. There was no great hurry; the work on the farm was somewhat slack at present; ploughing was of course all over, the potatoes had been planted a month ago, and were peeping blue and green above the drills, and even turnip-sowing had been finished, and the young leaflets were already appearing in long lines of emerald along the centre of the flattened ridges. It was the horses’ holiday season, and Sandie wouldn’t have taken even Lord Raglan, the orra beast, away from the delights of that beautiful meadow, where all five of them waded pastern-deep in the richest grass and whitest of white clover, pausing now and then in the act of eating to stand neck to neck and nibble each other’s shoulders.

No, Sandie would walk--he would dawdle along the road, and enjoy the sight of all the happy creatures he might see on every side of him, trees and birds and flowers, and even the shoals of minnows that wantoned and gambolled in the sunlit pools, or the blithe little frogs that leapt lightly through the still dewy grass. But Sandie took a companion with him--a companion, too, well suited for just such a day as this--and that companion was his good friend Horace, who had been to him a solace many a day and many a year.

There was one particular poem that struck Sandie as very beautiful and true to nature. In order to enjoy it more thoroughly, he had seated himself on a bank under the shade of a silver birch. He was now on the main road, and not a very long way from the mill. While still reading, there had fallen upon his ears the rapid rattling of a swiftly advancing trap, and the sound of a horse’s hoofs coming onwards at full gallop. Sandie took in the situation at a glance. He knew the extreme danger of the hill and the precipice, and resolved to act on the spur of the moment, even although it was at the risk of his own life.

How bravely and how well he acted we already know, and we also know how successful he was, though, alas! so sadly stunned and wounded.

Luckily, while Larnie was still plunging on the ground, the minister sitting on his head, and poor Sandie lying so stark and still, two countrymen came up. The trap and pony, from whom now all spunk had clean gone, were righted, and Larnie’s head turned homewards.

Sandie was got on board and made as easy as possible, and a doctor being sent for, Larnie was driven slowly homewards.

The ploughman-student never spoke, but he was breathing.

Mackenzie had bound up his wounded head with his own and Maggie May’s handkerchiefs, and the bleeding was in a measure staunched,

* * * * *

“Mother, mother, where am I?”

It was the first words Sandie had spoken for a long weary week. It was the first time he had opened his eyes.

“Where am I?”

He well might ask this. He was in a room which, as far as beauty of furnishing went, was as unlike his own little bed-closet as Paradise might be supposed to be unlike a kitchen garden. The prettily dressed mantelpiece, the cheerful paper on the walls, the mirrors, the brackets, the pictures and flowers, all combined to cause Sandie to think he was in a dream.

Besides, by the window-side, sewing some white seam, sat a beautiful child, that Sandie thought must be a fairy.

But his own mother was not far away; she was seated knitting near his pillow.

“The Lord’s name be praised,” she said fervently. “He has heard my prayer, and my laddie will live. But ye maunna speak, my dearie, ye maunna talk. The doctor says, ‘No.’ And the doctor kens best.”

“But, mother, one question: What has happened?”

Little Maggie May now dropped her white seam and advanced towards the bed.

The tears were chasing each other adown the child’s face.

“Larnie, our pony, ran off,” she said simply; “father was driving, but couldn’t hold him. We were close to Cauldron Hill, and would all have been killed; but you jumped up and catched the bridle and stopped us. Only you got hurt. Father says God sent you, you dear, dear boy.”

Sandie did not speak for a few moments. He had but little breath.

“I think,” he said, “that God must have sent me. But don’t cry, because I’ll soon get better.”

“It is--it is--for joy I’m crying now.”

“What is your name, child?”

“My name is Maggie May. But I’m not a child.”

“Well, when I opened my eyes I took you for a fairy, and----”

What more he would have said may never be known, for just then the doctor entered the room. He smiled to find Sandie awake, re-dressed his wounds, then gave him a draught, and commanded silence.

The fairy went back to her white seam; Mrs. M‘Crae once more took up her knitting; Sandie’s eyelids began to droop; wave after wave of sleep appeared to roll up and over his brain, and soon he was once more in the land of forgetfulness.