Sandie’s face grew crimson with rage.
“Stop just right there,” he cried; “you may insult me as much as you like, but you shall leave my dear mother and sister alone.”
“Bravo!” cried several students.
But the bully didn’t mean to be put back. He threw off his jacket, and advanced once more in a threatening attitude, and once more launched an insult at Sandie’s sister.
Off came the ploughman-student’s coat, and in half-a-minute more the bully was lying in the quad, breathless, and bleeding from nose and eye. But he hadn’t quite enough. He rallied, and once again came on like death.
And now Sandie got his head in chancery, and simply made what is called a mummy of the fellow. When our hero let him go, he dropped down on the gravel as limp and “dweeble” as bath-towel, and the rest of the students crowded round the victor to wish him luck, and bid him welcome to the Grammar School. Fraser, the bully, they said, richly deserved what he had gotten, and he, Sandie M‘Crae, had emancipated the whole school.
Just then the bell began to ring, and presently Rector Geddes himself walked up to the hall-door. He walked with a slight studious stoop. Whether or not he saw Fraser doubled up there like an old dishcloth may never be known; at all events, he took no notice.
Sandie said that he quite reciprocated the good feeling of the lads, and hoped they would all be friends henceforward. Then he went quietly in with his burden of books, and seated himself at the very bottom of the lowest faction. Here Lord Byron’s name was cut out in the desk; it had been carved by his own hand, and the lads who occupied this faction pointed to it with no little pride. They were a merry lot in this corner, and laughed and talked instead of paying any attention to what the Rector was saying.
“You’ll be as happy as a king down here for months,” said one bright-faced and particularly well-dressed boy; “I’ll lend you novels to read, if you like.”
“But I hope,” said Sandie, “I won’t be long down here. Your father is rich, I suppose?”