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.