Hushed is every voice now, upturned each eager face. So great is the silence, I might almost say one could hear the snowflakes fall.
“Ahem! ahem!”
The Sacrist cleared his throat by way of creating a greater impression.
“Ahem! First Bursar, Peter—no, Alexander Mac—Mac—Mac—Oh, I see. First Bursar Alexander M‘Crae. Is Sandie there? Come up, young sir, into the Senatus-room.”
And as Sandie, head down, and walking apparently on the air, goes hurrying away for the stair-door, the Sacrist continues leisurely to read out the list until the close, and as one student comes back from the Senatus, the next in turn is asked to go up.
Sandie was terribly but delightfully bewildered. He soon found himself in the Senatus-room, though how he had gotten there he never could be rightly sure. He found the professors all standing, all arrayed in their gowns, and each one shook him by the hand. They even praised the elegance of the diction he had written, congratulated him on his wonderful success, and hoped he would live to become an honour and glory to the grand old Marischal College and University.
Sandie thanked them, blushing beet-red as he retired.
He would fain have got away home quietly now to write to his dear mother.
But this was not to be.
He was received by such shouting and cheering as he had never heard before, while every student in the quad crowded round to shake him by the hand. No spite, no chaff, no jealousy, only friendship unalloyed, and downright pride in the ploughman-student with his short frayed breeks, his brogues, and his stockings of blue.