. . . . . .
That was one of the most pleasant day’s outings that ever Sandie had had, and there were many such to follow during the long sweet summer days.
Mackenzie was simply astonished at the amount of the lad’s erudition. He, however, managed to put him right in many little things; that is, there were subjects that Sandie had been studying, and studying hard too, which would not be required of him while competing for a bursary. It would be obviously worse than useless to continue with these. So the minister was of real service to our ploughboy-student.
But Mackenzie was wise in his day and generation. No one knew better than he that a brain kept constantly on the rack soon becomes a weakened brain, and that poverty of blood and body follows. So on the days when Sandie came over to the manse, the kindly minister just granted him three hours of tuition in the forenoon; then came luncheon, and after that he was sent off to fish. On these little piscatorial forays, Sandie’s constant companion was little Maggie May. None knew better than she where the best
and biggest mountain trout lay, or where to use fly and where to fish with bait; and her knowledge she invariably communicated to her big companion. And he—well, he never had been very much of a fisherman, but now it seemed to him that he was less artistic than ever. If the truth must be told, he could not do so much as he could have wished, because he wanted to watch Maggie May. There was something in every look and movement of this beautiful child, and in her innocent prattle as well, that drew Sandie irresistibly towards her. To his way of thinking she was idyllic.
Was he falling in love with the bonnie bairn? Oh, I do not wish for a single moment to suggest anything of the sort; only be it remembered that Sandie really was a poet at heart, and that poets love all things lovely that they see around them.
Towards six o’clock sport always ended, and with their bags on their backs, and fishing-rods over their shoulders, they went together slowly back to the manse.
Dinner followed. Mackenzie would always insist on his pupil staying to dinner. Then, in the calm summer’s gloaming, Sandie would bid his friends adieu, mount Lord Raglan, and ride slowly home. Mrs. M‘Crae and his father invariably sat up for him, and he had always much that was hopeful to tell them. But he must even yet spend a few hours in his study; for, pleasant though they were, Sandie could not help looking upon those fishing excursions as so much time wasted or thrown away. Therefore he resorted to his rustic study in the corn loft, and there he would sometimes sit till grey daylight in the morning. This at the summer’s height is not necessarily very late, for, far away north in Aberdeenshire, about mid-summer, there is really very little darkness.