CHAPTER I
THE GREAT COMPETITION
The great day had come at last—the day that was going to be big with our hero’s fate. It was early yet, however—hardly seven, and still pitch dark. Sandie lifted the blinds in his solitary little attic in Skene Street and peeped out. Why, he wondered, were there no sounds of traffic, no noise of wheels? This was easily accounted for. The street was inches deep in snow, and snow was still silently falling.
Our hero lit his little oil lamp now. He felt cold and anxious, and not at all over-well rested.
He had called on his friend the Rector, Geddes, the evening before, and received much encouragement.
“But go home now,” said the Rector, “and go right away to bed. If you get a good night’s sleep it will be half the battle. You will awaken clear-brained and as fresh as a mountain daisy.”
The stars were shining very clearly when he left the good Rector’s house, as they ever do in wintry nights in the far north. The stars looked so near and large too. Then there was the beautiful aurora borealis, which on this particular evening was singularly bright and dazzling, with now and then a tinge of red in it, which Sandie heard more than one old wife say presaged war.
Sandie obeyed the Rector to the letter. He went home and went to bed. But to sleep, alas! he found was out of the question. He could not keep himself from thinking what a pleasant life might be before him if he were successful. Ah! if. But what if he failed in winning a bursary big enough to support him? That was the “if” that caused his heart to beat and kept him wide-awake. Back he would have to go to the slush and the drudgery of farm labour, the plough, the harrow, the mud, the snow, the hard work, wet day or dry day, the stiff joints and the aching bones. It was a sad and a dreary look-out, and somehow to-night he was pessimistically inclined. He could not help looking at the darkest side of the picture of life, entirely ignoring the light. But towards the small hours of the morning he had fallen into a kind of uneasy slumber; it seemed more of a trance than anything else, for his sleep was filled with the most disturbing dreams. Tired and weary, he was trailing through the snow over long stretches of moorland and bog, that it seemed would never, never have an end. Anon, he is sinking in the dark bog, the black ooze and slime closing over his head and choking him, till he awakes with a gulp and a scream. He doses again, only to have a renewal of those terrible dreams; among others, he and Maggie May have fallen over a black and beetling cliff, pony-trap, horse, and all, down, down, down to the brown rolling river far beneath.
And thus he had spent the night.
No wonder he has a slight headache, or that when his kindly old landlady comes up to light his fire and lay his breakfast, she notices that he looks pale and haggard.
“Ye’ll no hae parridge this morning, laddie, but a nice bit o’ butter’d toast and a strong cup o’ tay, that I’ll mak’ oot o’ ma ain caddy.”