And now there entered the Rector himself, and Sandie stood up to greet him, but was waved back to his seat. The Rector took a seat very close to him, as if to read his every thought.
“I await your pleasure,” said Rector Geddes.
Then Sandie opened fire and told him he desired to take a month or six weeks at the Grammar School, if he might do so previous to the annual competition for bursaries.
The Rector at this time was a young man of probably not more than seven-and-twenty, tall, very dark in hair, and with cheeks as rosy as those of a ploughboy. He looked Sandie up and down before he replied; he even scanned his boots, and doubtless noted that the legs of his well-worn trousers were hardly long enough to meet the boots, thus showing a considerable expanse of blue ribbed stockings.
“No doubt,” he said at last, “you have been at the best parish schools?”
“With the exception of a few lessons, sir, given me by the Rev. D. Mackenzie of Belhaven, within the last few months, I am entirely self-taught.”
“You are ambitious, young sir.” Geddes was smiling now.
“I am, sir, and I am something else.”
“And that is?”
“Hopeful.”