So he worked away for an hour and a half making his preliminary or simple translations. Then he took a rest for a time, and began to look about him and study life.
He was not long in noticing that little pellets of paper were flying from one student to another, whenever the professorial sentry’s head was down. This meant that one student was helping another; friend cribbing from friend.
There stood near the hall-door a large bucketful of cold icy water, with a tin pannikin beside it, that the students might refresh themselves when thirsty. Sandie noticed that one student would go to have a drink, slip his hand suspiciously round to the back of the bucket, and evidently deposit something there, and that immediately he had finished another student would rush to the drinking-pail, and that his hand also would find its way to the other side of the bucket.
There is no doubt this was all most unfair, but there was nothing of the sneak about Sandie. He was not doing sentry-go, so he determined to take no notice, but just let things slide.
And now, after a draught of cool water, he commenced what he called his elegant translations. He wrote no less than three copies of these, and read them over half-a-dozen times before he gathered up his papers and prepared to go.
Nearly everybody else had already departed, for it was long past three o’clock, and the short and stormy winter’s day was fast deepening into gloaming and night.
Sandie’s hand shook like the leaf o’ the linn as he placed his corrected copy on the desk before his watching professor.
Then heaving a sigh of relief, he took his departure. He was not displeased with his performance by any means. In fact, he somehow felt almost certain that his would be in the money, but how high—ah! that was the rub.
When he arrived at his attic lodgings, he found his friend, Willie Munro, waiting for him and anxious to know how he got on.
“I think I may say I have hope,” said Sandie, smiling and sighing at the same time. “And you?”