“Mocking is catching,” said another young man. “I happen to know Peter, as you call him, and his versions have been sine errore for over a month at the Grammar School. You needn’t talk, anyhow, Johnnie Wilson, you floury-faced nincompoop. There will be two moons in the sky when you take a bursary. Stand back, or else I’ll daub your nose in the snow.”
Johnnie slunk away quite cowed.
“Good morning, Sandie,” said the last speaker. “I hope you feel in good form?”
Sandie laughed.
“Only middling,” he said. “Fact is, last night I was like the minister who kissed the fiddler’s wife and couldn’t get sleep for thinkin’ o’t.”
“Ha! never mind. I know you’ll be in the money, anyhow, though there will be a hard tussle.”
Presently Willie Munro came up smiling, and then Sandie felt indeed at home.
“You really are going to compete, then?” said Sandie.
“Oh, rather! The old folks expect it, you know. I’m not expecting to win, you know. I shall have a couple of errors at the end of each line, and one in the middle. If they’d give a bursary for the worst version as well as the best, I’ll be bound I’d take that. But my sisters feel certain I shall come in third at least. I may inform you that all my sisters are females, and we all know what stupid creatures girls are.”
Just then the hall-door was opened by serious, dark-haired John Colvin. The Sacrist was there too in his robes—a well-worn, rusty, black gown, and when the crowd entered the lower hall they found the professors in goodly force.