Next night, at eight o’clock, Sandie, after some difficulty, found his way to Maclean’s door. The house in which the lodgings were was a somewhat cheap and unsavoury thoroughfare off George Street.
The stairs were sadly rickety, the house itself was not a sweet one. From a room on the ground-floor issued the scraping of a vile old fiddle, accompanied by the scuffling of feet, and every now and then an eldritch shriek of laughter. But Sandie went onwards and upwards, and on the top floor of all a door was suddenly thrown open, and Maclean held out his hand to welcome him in.
A great oil lamp was burning on a table at one end of the long room. This lamp served for heat and light both, for there was no fire. In fact, these students—of whom there were four in all living in this one room—could not afford fire except to cook.
“You are right welcome, Mr. M‘Crae,” said Maclean.
Then he pointed to another young man who sat book in hand by the table.
“My brother,” he said; “he is at the grammar-school, but he won’t disturb us. Now,” he continued, “look around you, and I’ll put you up to our domestic economy and household arrangements. To begin with, you know we are all as poor as rats, though all bursars, and we all mean to study for the Church, or to be teachers at least. Yonder, in that bed, are the brothers Macleod. They come from our parish. Well, you see, they go to bed—we only have one—at seven and sleep till one. My brother and I study till one, then we have the bed and they begin their studies, though often enough they curl up in their plaids and have a few more hours on the floor.”
“Yes, I understand, and I don’t blame them.”
“Well, we have no landlady. The few sticks of furniture you see are all hired, except the frying-pan and other cooking utensils. These we bought. We are not going to invite you to dinner, Mr. M‘Crae, because our fare is far too meagre.
“You see those barrels? Well, two contain herrings, salt and red, one contains nice oatmeal, and the small one pease-flour. And with the addition of milk that is brought to us every morning, and now and then an egg, and a bit of butter, with always a nice sheep’s head and trotters on Sunday, I can assure you we live like fighting-cocks. Don’t we, Donal?”
“That we do,” said Donal, looking smilingly up from Xenophon’s Anabasis.