Chapter V: 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.